ts special
emotional tint, instead of merely serving, as in the old _bel canto_,
as an artificial and meaningless scaffolding for the construction and
execution of a melody.

This parallel evolution of the parlor song and the music-drama cannot
be too strongly emphasized: for the same tendency being followed by so
many of the greatest geniuses (some of whom are not Germans) affords
cumulative evidence of the fact that the German style (which, as I
have explained, includes all that is valuable in the Italian method)
is the true vocal style, the style of the future, the style which
cosmopolitan American art will have to adopt. I have been told that
since the revival of German opera in New York, the Italian teachers in
the city have lost many of their pupils. Obviously, if they wish to
regain them they will have to adopt the best features of the German
method, just as the Germans have adopted all that is good in the
Italian method. It cannot be denied that the pupils turned out by the
average vocal teachers are quite unable to sing a Franz or even a
Schubert song correctly and with proper emotional expression. Now, it
is evident, as Ehlert says, that "that art of singing which abides
with the _bel canto_ and is unable to sing Bach, Beethoven, and
Schumann, has not attained to the height of their period. It becomes
its task to adapt itself to these new circumstances, to renounce the
comfortable solfeggios and acquire the poetic expression that they
accept."

The famous tenor Vogl, a contemporary of Schubert, wrote in his diary
the following significant words: "Nothing shows so plainly the want of
a good school of singing as Schubert's songs. Otherwise, what an
enormous and universal effect must have been produced throughout the
world, wherever the German language is understood, by these truly
divine inspirations, these utterances of a musical clairvoyance! How
many would have comprehended, probably for the first time, the meaning
of such expressions as 'Speech and Poetry in Music,' 'Words in
Harmony,' 'ideas clothed in music,' etc., and would have learned that
the finest poems of our greatest poets may be enhanced and even
transcended when translated into musical language." It is humiliating
to be obliged to confess that good schools of singing, the absence of
which Vogl deplored, are still lamentably rare, although he himself,
by his example, did much to develop the correct method. We have just
seen how Wagner obtained