march of musical history. Here
is an entirely paradoxical situation; a set of interpreters who exist,
it would seem, only for the purpose of delivering to us the art of the
past. What would we think of an actor who could make no effect save in
the tragedies of Corneille? It is such as these who have kept Leo
Ornstein from writing an opera. Berlioz forewarned us in his
"Memoirs." He was one of the first to foresee the coming day: "We
shall always find a fair number of female singers, popular from their
brilliant singing of brilliant trifles, and odious to the great
masters because utterly incapable of properly interpreting them. They
have voices, a certain knowledge of music, and flexible throats: they
are lacking in soul, brain, and heart. Such women are regular monsters
and all the more formidable to composers because they are often
charming monsters. This explains the weakness of certain masters in
writing falsely sentimental parts, which attract the public by their
brilliancy. It also explains the number of degenerate works, the
gradual degradation of style, the destruction of all sense of
expression, the neglect of dramatic properties, the contempt for the
true, the grand, and the beautiful, and the cynicism and decrepitude
of art in certain countries."

So, even if, as the ponderous criticasters are continually pointing
out, the age of _bel canto_ is really passing there is no actual
occasion for grief. All fashions in art pass and what is known as _bel
canto_ is just as much a fashion as the bombastic style of acting that
prevailed in Victor Hugo's day or the "realistic" style of acting we
prefer today. All interpretative art is based primarily on the
material with which it deals and with contemporary public taste. This
kind of singing is a direct derivative of a certain school of opera
and as that school of opera is fading more expressive methods of
singing are coming to the fore. The very first principle of _bel
canto_, an equalized scale, is a false one. With an equalized scale a
singer can produce a perfectly ordered series of notes, a charming
string of matched pearls, but nothing else. It is worthy of note that
it is impossible to sing Spanish or negro folk-songs with an equalized
scale. Almost all folk-music, indeed, exacts a vocal method of its
interpreter quite distinct from that of the art song.

We know now that true beauty lies deeper than in the emission of
"perfect tone." Beauty is truth and expres