valuable hints from Schroeder-Devrient.
Similarly, we find that Schubert learned from his friend Vogl, who
alone at first could sing his songs properly, and by showing that they
_could_ be sung encouraged Schubert in developing his original style.

It seems to me that these facts ought to be extremely gratifying and
encouraging to students of vocal music, because they refute the notion
that vocalists can only be interpretative and not creative, and their
fame and influence, therefore, merely ephemeral. On the contrary, they
can, like Vogl and Schroeder-Devrient, even aspire to guide composers
and help to mark out new paths in art: which surely, ought to be more
gratifying to their pride than the cheap applause which the sopranists
and prima donnas of the _bel canto_ period used to receive for the
meaningless colorature arias which they compelled the enslaved
composers to write, or manufactured for themselves. And there is
another way in which singers of the new style can become creative.
Chopin speaks in one of his letters of a violoncellist who played a
certain poor piece so remarkably well that it actually appeared to be
good music. Similarly, a good vocalist (like Fraeulein Brandt, for
instance, who is very clever in this respect) can put so much art and
feeling into the weaker parts and episodes of songs and operas as to
make them entertaining where they are naturally tiresome. When we
bear in mind these high possibilities of singing, we must admit that
there is no nobler profession than that of a conscientious vocalist--a
profession without which some of the deepest feelings that stir the
human soul would remain unknown to the world.

VI

GERMAN OPERA IN NEW YORK

Perhaps it is not generally known that Mr. Theodore Thomas some years
ago entertained the project of reviving German opera in New York, in a
manner that should eclipse all previous operatic enterprises in this
country. It was his intention to give in the leading American cities a
series of performances of Wagner's Nibelung Tetralogy, and he looked
forward to this as the crowning achievement of his busy life. For
years he never gave a concert without having at least one Wagner
selection on the programme, no matter how much some of the critics and
patrons protested. In 1884 he considered the public sufficiently
weaned of Italian sweets to stand a strong dose of Wagner; so he
imported the three leading singers of the Bayreuth festivals--Materna,