ed by one of the
elements consorted in a work by nature composite, led the way to a
revolution having for its object a restoration of something like the
ancient drama. In this ancient drama and its precursor, the
dithyrambic song and dance, is found a union of words and music which
scientific investigation proves to be not only entirely natural but
inevitable. In a general way most people are in the habit of speaking
of music as the language of the emotions. The elements which enter
into vocal music (of necessity the earliest form of music) are
unvolitional products which we must conceive as co-existent with the
beginnings of human life. Do they then antedate articulate speech? Did
man sing before he spoke? I shall not quarrel with anybody who chooses
so to put it.

[Sidenote: _Physiology of singing._]

Think a moment about the mechanism of vocal music. Something occurs to
stir up your emotional nature--a great joy, a great sorrow, a great
fear; instantly, involuntarily, in spite of your efforts to prevent
it, maybe, muscular actions set in which proclaim the emotion which
fills you. The muscles and organs of the chest, throat, and mouth
contract or relax in obedience to the emotion. You utter a cry, and
according to the state of feeling which you are in, that cry has
pitch, quality (_timbre_ the singing teachers call it), and dynamic
intensity. You attempt to speak, and no matter what the words you
utter, the emotional drama playing on the stage of your heart is
divulged.

[Sidenote: _Herbert Spencer's laws._]

The man of science observes the phenomenon and formulates its laws,
saying, for instance, as Herbert Spencer has said: "All feelings are
muscular stimuli;" and, "Variations of voice are the physiological
results of variations of feeling." It was the recognition of this
extraordinary intimacy between the voice and the emotions which
brought music all the world over into the service of religion, and
provided the phenomenon, which we may still observe if we be but
minded to do so, that mere tones have sometimes the sanctity of words,
and must as little be changed as ancient hymns and prayers.

[Sidenote: _Invention of Italian opera._]

[Sidenote: _Musical declamation._]

The end of the sixteenth century saw a coterie of scholars,
art-lovers, and amateur musicians in Florence who desired to
re-establish the relationship which they knew had once existed between
music and the drama. The revival of learning h