sixteen. The circumstance that in the same document he asked
for at least eighteen instrumentalists (two more if flutes
were used), taken in connection with the figures given
relative to the 'Messiah' performances, gives an insight
into the relations between the vocal and the instrumental
parts of a choral performance in those days."[H]

[Sidenote: _Proportion of voices and instruments._]

This relation has been more than reversed since then, the orchestras
at modern oratorio performances seldom being one-fifth as large as the
choir. This difference, however, is due largely to the changed
character of modern music, that of to-day treating the instruments as
independent agents of expression instead of using them chiefly to
support the voices and add sonority to the tonal mass, as was done by
Handel and most of the composers of his day.

[Sidenote: _Glee unions and male choirs._]

I omit from consideration the Glee Unions of England, and the
quartets, which correspond to them, in this country. They are not
cultivators of choral music, and the music which they sing is an
insignificant factor in culture. The male choirs, too, need not detain
us long, since it may be said without injustice that their mission is
more social than artistic. In these choirs the subdivision into parts
is, as a rule, into two tenor voices, first and second, and two bass,
first and second. In the glee unions, the effect of whose singing is
fairly well imitated by the college clubs of the United States
(pitiful things, indeed, from an artistic point of view), there is a
survival of an old element in the male alto singing above the melody
voice, generally in a painful falsetto. This abomination is unknown to
the German part-songs for men's voices, which are written normally,
but are in the long run monotonous in color for want of the variety in
timbre and register which the female voices contribute in a mixed
choir.

[Sidenote: _Women's choirs._]

There are choirs also composed exclusively of women, but they are
even more unsatisfactory than the male choirs, for the reason that the
absence of the bass voice leaves their harmony without sufficient
foundation. Generally, music for these choirs is written for three
parts, two sopranos and contralto, with the result that it hovers,
suspended like Mahomet's coffin, between heaven and earth. When a
fourth part is added it is a second contralto, which is generally
carrie