their pupils would be expected to sing, did not have much
to do with fanciful exercises. They gave their lives to the quest of the
"bel canto"; and many of them had difficulty in convincing their pupils
that the simplest exercises were often the hardest. Take for instance
this invaluable scale exercise sung with the marks of expression
carefully observed.

This exercise is one of the most difficult to sing properly.
Nevertheless, some student will rush on to florid exercises before he
can master this exercise. To sing it right it must be regarded with
almost devotional reverence. Indeed, it may well be practiced
diligently for years. Every tone is a problem, a problem which must be
solved in the brain and in the body of the singer and not in the mind of
any teacher. The student must hold up every tone for comparison with his
ideal tone. Every note must ring sweet and clear, pure and free. Every
tone must be even more susceptible to the emotions than the expression
upon the most mobile face. Every tone must be made the means of
conveying some human emotion. Some singers practice their exercises in
such a perfunctory manner that they get as a result voices so stiff and
hard that they sound as though they came from metallic instruments which
could only be altered in a factory instead of from throats lined with a
velvet-like membrane.

[Illustration: musical notation: Sing with great attention to
intonation.]

Flexibility, mobility and susceptibility to expression are quite as
important as mere sweetness. After the above exercise has been mastered
the pupil may pass to the chromatic scale (scala semitonata sostenuto);
and this scale should be sung in the same slow sustained manner as the
foregoing illustration.

MME. MARCELLA SEMBRICH

BIOGRAPHICAL

Mme. Marcella Sembrich (Praxede Marcelline Kochanska) was born in
Wisnewczyk, Galicia, February 15, 1858. Sembrich was her mother's name.
Her father was a music teacher and she tells with pleasure how she
watched her father make a little violin for her to practice upon. At the
age of seven she was taken to Wilhelm Stengel at Lemberg for further
instruction. Later she went to study with the famous pedagogue, Julius
Epstein, at Vienna, who was amazed by the child's prodigious talent as a
pianist and as a violinist. He asked, "Is there anything else she can
do?" "Yes," replied Stengel, "I think she can sing." Sing she did; and
Epstein was not long in determining th