nturies? Even now it is apparently impossible to reconcile
all the vocal writers, except in so far as they all modestly admit that
they have rediscovered the real old Italian school. Perhaps they have.
But, admitting that an art teacher rediscovered the actual pigments
used by Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt or Raphael, he would have no little
task in creating a student who could duplicate _Mona Lisa_, _The Night
Watch_ or the _Sistine Madonna_.

After leaving Rootham, I won the four hundred guinea scholarship at the
Royal College of Music and studied with Henry Blower. This I followed
with a course with Bouhy in Paris and Etelka Gerster in Berlin. Mr.
Rumford and I both concur in the opinion that it is necessary for the
student who would sing in any foreign language to study in the country
in which the language is spoken. In no other way can one get the real
atmosphere. The preparatory work may be done in the home country, but if
one fails to taste of the musical life of the country in which the songs
came into being, there seems to be an indefinable absence of the right
flavor. I believe in employing the native tongue for songs in recital
work. It seems narrow to me to do otherwise. At the same time, I have
always been a champion for songs written originally with English texts,
and have sung innumerable times with programs made from English lyrics.

PREPARING A REPERTOIRE

The idea that concert and recital work is not as difficult as operatic
work has been pretty well exploded by this time. In fact, it is very
much more difficult to sing a simple song well in concert than it is to
sing some of the elaborate Wagnerian recitatives in which the very
complexities of the music make a convenient hiding place for the
artist's vocal shortcomings. In concert everything is concentrated upon
the singer. Convention has ever deprived him of the convenient gestures
that give ease to the opera singer.

The selection of useful material for concert purposes is immensely
difficult. It must have artistic merit, it must have human interest, it
must suit the singer, in most cases the piano must be used for
accompaniment and the song must not be dependent upon an orchestral
accompaniment for its value. It must not be too old, it must not be too
far in advance of popular tastes. It is a bad plan to wander
indiscriminately about among countless songs, never learning any really
well. The student should begin to select numbers with great car