mainly with the wind instruments. In the case of the latter this difficulty, as has been shown, is practically insuperable if the 'Diapason normal' be insisted upon; and a via media has accordingly been suggested which, we are assured, would cause less confusion and expense in connection with its adoption than the pitch proposed by the Philharmonic Society. That pitch, as we have seen, is about twothirds of a semitone lower than the present pitch. Now, the amount of flattening which wood instruments can bear without serious injury to their intonation is about one-fifth, or at the most one-fourth, of a semitone. The proposal, therefore, is to lower the pitch only so far as the instruments will allow-that is to say, to about (roughly speaking) halfway between the present high pitch and the pitch suggested by the Philharmonic. This would leave the standard at about a quarter of a semitone higher than French pitch. The manager of Messrs. Boosey's military instrument factory assures me that this is the only way by which the country can secure a lower pitch and avoid an enormous expense at the same time. If band instruments,' he remarks, were retuned to the medium pitch thus proposed, there would be no serious difficulty in using them with church and concert organs on special occasions, for the amount of flattening required would be easily managed. Many wind instruments,' he continues, 'exist, and are in use, which were made when the pitch was somewhat lower than it is at present. Such of these as have been cut to agree with the present pitch, and have suffered in consequence, would be improved rather than deteriorated by being retuned to a medium standard.' In these views, Messrs. Besson, the musical instrument makers to the army and navy, also agree. Nearly all the existing instruments,' they write, 'could be adapted to the suggested medium pitch at little expense.'

Unfortunately, it is not at all likely that our leading conductors and musical institutions will agree to this compromise. Neither, perhaps, would it be wise that they should. The suggestion might help us out of our present difficulty; but so far as having a standard of pitch uniform with the other musical nations of Europe is concerned, it would leave us practically where we are. We cannot expect that other musical countries, in a desire for uniformity, will adopt our pitch, which is farthest from the pitch for which all the greatest composers have written. It will be much better to face the matter boldly and have done with it once for all. It will not do to tinker with it. The difficulties are undoubtedly very great, but they are difficulties of detail only-difficulties, to put the matter in its simplest aspect, of pounds, shillings and pence. We have got over much greater obstacles, and we can find the way to get over this, too, if only we have the will. What the French people could do in 1859, surely we can do at the end of the century.

But there is still the singers' side of the question to be considered.

How does the present high pitch affect the voice? Mr. Sims Reeves and Madame Nilsson answered this question in the most unequivocal manner when, some years ago, they declined to sing at it any longer; and the fact is well known that Madame Patti and several other eminent vocalists have their classical music transposed to a lower key, which brings it to something like the pitch for which it was written. At one of the early conferences on the pitch question, the following resolution was passed unanimously: That, as the basis of any recommendation of a definite pitch, the capabilities and convenience of the human voice in singing the compositions of the great vocal writers should be the first consideration.' This is nothing more than a common sense view of the question. The voice,' as Jenny Lind once said, 'is the pitch'; and while we are seeking a uniform standard we should see that it is such a standard as will not unjustly strain the vocal organs.

That the present high pitch is detrimental to the voice cannot be doubted for a moment. The ordinary voice is always deficient in compass upwards; and when it comes to singing some of Bach's and Handel's music at a semitone higher than the pitch for which it was written, the effort to the vocalist is as painful as the effect too often is to the listener. This fact was fully recognised by the Bach Choir when they adopted the lower continental pitch at their last festival. The great majority of our singers repudiate the high pitch; and in most cases where an orchestra is not employed, as in churches and at vocal concerts, a much lower standard is used, corresponding very closely with the French or the classical one. In such circumstances, of course, we sometimes hear it said that the singers use the lower pitch because their vocal gifts are insufficient or are on the wane. When Mr. Hullah drew up a report on the pitch question in 1859, he made this observation:

Some impediments stand in the way of ascertaining directly the effects of the present high pitch on the quality and probable duration of the voice. A remonstrance in respect of it on the part of a singer might be too readily interpreted into a confession of weakness; and a premature decay of physical power might be imputed to an artist who protested against the gratuitous exertion which an extravagantly high pitch obliges him to undergo.

That which was here indicated as probable has really come to pass in the case of Mr. Sims Reeves, Madame Patti, and others who have declared against the high pitch. Unfortunately, the number of singers who are independent enough to brave the risks of a protest is comparatively small, and the result is that the great majority remain silent as to the existing state of things. They sing, and make no sign,' but they are prematurely wearing out their voices all the same. Now that the agitation in favour of a lower pitch has set in, the vocalists ought to join in it with enthusiasm. So far as the players are concerned, it does not matter very much whether the

standard is lowered or not, so that it be uniform: to the singer it is a matter of the first importance that the pitch should be depressed, whether the standard adopted be the Diapason normal' or any other.

The outlook on the whole question is unfortunately not very assuring. It is likely enough that the example of the Philharmonic Society will, as was remarked at the outset, be widely followed; but unless a uniform pitch is to be universally adopted, there must inevitably be great confusion throughout the country. It is of extreme importance that there should be no hesitation or uncertainty in the matter, and any scheme that is meant to apply-as it ought to apply-generally should be carefully considered by a committee of experts. Whatever is done should be done with as near an approach to official authority as the nature of the case allows. This end could probably be arrived at, as has been suggested, if the Philharmonic Society would take the lead in obtaining the following things:-(1) A definition from the military authorities of their standard of pitch of a more scientific character than the existing wording of the Queen's regulations; (2) The agreement of the leading musical academies and institutions to take joint action with the Philharmonic Society; (3) The establishment in the metropolis, and in local centres, of large tuning-forks or other standards of pitch, approved and certified by a board or committee of experts. This, leaving aside the question of cost, would probably prove effectual. In any case, the present condition of matters ought to take speedy end; it is most deplorable, and a disgrace to the musical pretensions of the country.

J. CUTHBERT HADDEN.

ART CONNOISSEURSHIP IN ENGLAND

MUTATION OR DECLINE?

'Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis.'

TRITE and worn out as it is, this old adage furnishes an apt text for a discourse on this subject, for the question is perhaps of rapid, restless change rather than radical decline. Whether this country is holding its place amongst the nations in the world of connoisseurship, is the matter uppermost in the writer's mind. Perhaps the seeing of things through old spectacles may have somewhat warped his judgment, but it certainly seems to him, after full half a century's intimate acquaintance with the doings of this special world, that there has been in many respects unquestionable retrogression. Thus, in lines and specialities not a few, other countries have appropriated the bases of old-established English taste and art culture, and left us with a diminishing heritage, the relative poverty of which, nevertheless, we are as yet unconscious of. A retrospect of some fifty years, then, is the matter in hand; let us consider where this puts us back -to the middle of the forties! What a vista! The quickest pace the world ever saw then set in, literally railway pace: perhaps it is the pace which has killed, if indeed killing be in question.

It was the diligence and the vetturino carriage, not the railway, which took the writer of this article on his first travel to the great continental art shrines. His education in art and connoisseurship was begun, if not completely formed, in the old school, under the old influences his first worship of the old-established idols and how beautiful and wonderful it all was! What a glorious faith there was in the old gods, Venus and Apollo, Greek marbles, vases and gems, onyx and sardonyx, Raffaelle and Michael Angelo, Titian, Rubens, and Rembrandt, Dürer and Marc Antonio! Surely this was better than the strange quaintness of newly-found Japan or Egyptian gods and scarabs, than hideous Blakes and Rowlandsons, than pots and pans and maudlin Bartolozzis and coloured prints. Not that the writer was a milordo' on the grand tour, with hereditary taste and means to indulge it, but an artist on his 'Wanderjahre,' with an open mind and eager eyes; with a reverence for art, scorning all other worldly things; art, and it alone, the one absorbing passion of his opening

life; wealth or poverty nothing--not to be measured or cared about. Mecenas, the traveller, had not this wild bird-like liberty of mind, this rapturous enlightenment, but he perchance caught some little reflex of its spirit, and often kept and treasured it up at home amidst ancestral trees or his picture-lined walls in town.

Art connoisseurship in those days was still essentially an aristocratic appanage; it has since become the affair of all the world, infinitely greater in volume and variety, but it has lost something of its sacredness and dignity, unreal, ideal qualities it may be, but none the less noble and elevating. Connoisseurship and the collecting mania has heretofore implied the possession of wealth, and still more the free power of disbursement and disposition of that wealth, and so the race has hitherto mainly consisted of the unfettered bachelors and the childless men, people without binding social ties and responsibilities, whose lives otherwise might indeed often have been a burthen to them. Such men were Lord Arundel, Horace Walpole, Sir Andrew Fountaine, John Barnard, Cosway, Beckford, Sir Thomas Lawrence, Dr. Wellesley, Sackville Bale, and Alexander Barker. Honour to such men nevertheless; whatever their means, motives and opportunities, the class was a high and laudable one in the social economy, ministered unto by honourable and enlightened professional purveyors or sordid mongers as the case might be, inevitably by both classes. But these men of past generations, it cannot, I think, be denied, kept up on the whole a higher standard of knowledge and appreciation amongst both amateurs and professional art dealers than at present prevails amongst us. Even in our own early days leading professional dealers were men of learning, infinite experience in their specialities, and highly cultivated taste, whose teaching rich young men sought and accepted with respect, and with whom their seniors. in the pursuit associated with untiring pleasure and satisfaction. Where are now the Woodburns, Smiths, Buchanans, Farrers, John Webbs, or Domini Colnaghis of half a century ago? Patrons and purveyors alike of the old type are indeed almost an extinct race. To the modern dealer very often ignorance is an advantage, too much acquired knowledge, and experience a snare. No wonder, then, that art dealing has fallen mainly into the hands of Abraham's posterity, by whom, and rightly from the mere commercial point of view, all works of art are 'goods' preordained to be bought and sold for profit only. No wonder that such purveyors should have formed a race of patrons to whom the merit of a work of art is mainly measured by the price it will bring in Bond Street or at Christie's.

The rule of this new connoisseurship, then, is of brutal simplicity, but its movements, ever fluctuating with Stock Exchange uncertainty, are nevertheless most complex and difficult to follow. Needless to say the ends and objects are often incomprehensible and nearly always repugnant to the true art lover. Not that all this active, capricious