are confronted with difficult intervals in a
dramatic role, they sing them badly and make the ludicrous protest
that the composer "doesn't know how to write for the voice;" and when
they come across difficult vowels they either change them into easier
ones, and thus make the text unintelligible, or else they emit a crude
tone because they have never learned to sing a sonorous U, I, or E
(Latin).

The German principle, on the other hand, is that all vowels (and the
German language has a greater number of them than the Italian) must be
cultivated equally, the difficult ones all the more because they are
difficult. Herr Hey has found in practice that not only can the vowels
which at first sound dull and hollow, like U, be made as sonorous as A
(Ah), but that, by practising on U, the A itself is rendered more
sonorous than it can ever become by exclusive practice on it alone.
Not only does the German method in this way secure a greater variety
of sonorous vowel sounds, useful for the expression of different
dramatic moods, but the registers are equalized, and there is a great
gain in the power and endurance of the voice, which is of immense
importance to-day in grand opera.

Prof. Stockhausen, the distinguished vocal teacher, recently remarked
in the _Frankfurter Zeitung_ that "the _mezza voce_ is the natural
song, the constant loud singing being only a struggle with unequal
weapons against our modern orchestra." No doubt he is right. But the
orchestra has become such an important factor in modern opera that
musicians would be unwilling to have it reduced in size--the tendency
being, in fact, the other way; and at the same time opera is such an
expensive luxury that it can only be made to pay in a very large
theatre, which obliges the singers to have stentorian voices.
Consequently, the German method, which develops the power and the
sonority of the voice on _every_ vowel, is the method of the future,
all the more because the English language, which is the world language
of the future, is even more difficult for vocal purposes than the
German, and calls for similar treatment.

In the treatment of consonants, the German method marks a still
greater advance on the Italian method. Professor Ehrlich thinks that
the reason why Italians care so much for melody and so little for
harmony is because they are too indolent to make the mental effort
which is required to follow a complicated harmonic score. They are,
certainly, too