Topics of musical interest have been so much discussed before you that it seems to me almost an impossibility to introduce one to your notice, the ground of which has not been already in some measure trodden.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen,—I know the time of this Association is very precious, and I do not intend to exceed it. I will, therefore, not make any preliminary remarks, but shall at once commence my subject. By means of the sketch you now see on the screen I propose to explain as briefly as possible the position of the parts that had to be photographed. There are only two things I need say anything about; the one is the larynx, and the other the soft palate. There is no necessity to say anything about the others, because they speak for themselves. The larynx, or voice box, you see down below in the throat. This is the left half of the body, the right half being supposed to be cut away. Here you see the left vocal cord, or left vocal ligament, and above that this curved line shows the left pocket ligament, and between these two ligaments there is an opening. That is the opening running into the left ventricle, or pouch or pocket of the larynx. It is maintained by some that, in the act of singing, a tone is imprisoned, as it were, in the cavity formed between these two pairs of ligaments, and that an explosion takes place which ushers the tone into the world. It has always been a mystery to me how a tone can be imprisoned. I can understand that air can be imprisoned, but not a tone. I shall be able to show to you quite plainly—in fact, it is one of the lessons enforced by these photographs—that the pocket ligaments never meet in phonation, therefore it is quite impossible that any air or tone could be imprisoned in the cavity between those ligaments and the vocal ligaments. If we go a little higher up, we see here the lid or epiglottis forming, with some adjoining parts, a tube through which the air passes up and down, and over which the food goes in the act of swallowing. The food has to pass over the voice box and behind the wind-pipe, through the gullet into the stomach, and the lid allows itself to be drawn over the aperture of the tube just described, thereby closing it. If at any time that act is not performed properly a little food will find its way into the voice box, with what result we all know. We then say the food has gone “the wrong way.” It is very necessary to be clear about this tube. Through it we have to breathe and to sing, and down it we have to look by means of the laryngoscope if we wish to see what is going on in the larynx.

The Musical Association has given me a great privilege in allowing me to offer this tribute to the memory of a man whose monument stands in the brains and hearts of all who knew him. Philip Cipriani Hambley Potter was his full name; he took the name of Cipriani, by which he is most familiarly known, from his godmother. She was the sister of a painter of high eminence in England, Giovanni Battista Cipriani, a native of Florence, who came, after mature study in his own country, and held here a most important position. It was he who was engaged to restore Rubens's pictures in Whitehall, and many other professional duties devolved upon him, besides the production of paintings of his own. He was one of the twenty-three painters who signed the petition to George III. to grant a charter for the Royal Academy of Arts, and it was also this Cipriani who was appointed by his fellow members of the Institution to design the diploma which is signed on the admission of members. He died seven years before the birth of the man who bears his surname as a Christian name. The name of Philip may perhaps have been given to our friend, for such is the endearing title by which I am proud to call him, from the son of this Cipriani, who seems not to have pursued the arts as an avocation, for he was a clerk in the Treasury.

It has been, and will doubtless again be urged, that the term “Form” is misapplied in reference to music, and that “plan” or “design” are the more correct expressions. But when men like Ouseley and Stainer in their standard text books, and all modern German writers of note, adopt the word “form,” I think I have sufficient grounds for continuing its use. Still, those who incline to the term “plan or design” will find no difficulty in following my argument, as it i precisely in that sense that I use the word “Form.” I shall be forced to traverse well-known roads before reaching my destination, but will endeavour to be as brief as the case will admit.

When the idea first occurred to me of writing a paper upon this subject—a subject in which, for more than twenty years, I have taken a practical interest—I put it aside, feeling that so light and literary a subject might possibly be regarded by some of our more scientific members as hardly worthy of the attention of one whole monthly meeting; and also hesitating, as a comparatively new member, to come forward and occupy a position which is so frequently filled by more experienced writers, treating of more exclusively musical matters. However, in each new paper which I listened to here I recognised, as I thought, an absence of dogmatism which clearly distinguished the readers of our papers from lecturers or teachers; it seemed to me that the tone of our meetings was not so much to gather instruction from the reader of the paper as to gather instruction from the members present, by the help of the reader of the paper. And therefore, not in the expectation of being able to teach anything new to anybody present here this evening, but as one anxious that a favourite subject should be discussed by this society, I ventured to offer this paper to the secretary.

The maltreatment of music is unfortunately a matter of daily experience. With schoolboys and schoolgirls it is the rule rather than the exception. This is not surprising, for many young people are forced to learn against their will; they make no effort to play well, on the contrary, indeed, will often strike wrong notes to annoy or exasperate the teacher. And even if we only consider those who are striving to improve and to please their instructors, we still find that imperfect mechanism and partially developed intelligence prevent them from doing proper justice to the works which they are studying. And when, in addition to the ignorance, indolence, and waywardness of children, we find corresponding defects in the teachers, the schoolroom becomes, for the time, a true chamber of horrors. The science of education is progressing, and happily it is becoming more and more difficult for people to earn a living, or add to their incomes, by professing an art for which they are utterly incompetent. With improved instruction the faults of the young will at any rate diminish; but we must, I suppose, always expect to meet with imperfection. Music in the drawing-room is a subject from which I shrink. In many houses of the wealthy and of the middle classes we find earnest endeavours to cultivate only the best music, and to give to it that time and attention which it so imperatively demands; but we cannot ignore the fact that music often forms part of evening entertainments as an amusement, as a means of passing time or stimulating conversation.

The term “Musical Exposition” may be taken to include all the various means adopted for representing to others the work of the musical brain, such as (1) The notation employed for representing it to the eye, and thus stereotyping it for common use; (2) The vocal or instrumental processes by which it is reproduced to the public ear, and eventually made to assume in the brain of the listener the shape in which it originally presented itself to the internal ear or musical imagination of the composer; and (3) The methods by which the arrangement and assortment of sounds which we call music—that manipulation, so to speak, of the elementary material at command which constitutes composition—is explained, justified, and taught to those who wish to learn it.

Before resuming our subject it will be desirable briefly to mention a few points dealt with at the last meeting, just to make the position of the question clear. By “Musical Physics” we mean the science that deals with the origin of musical sounds, and their mode of transmission through the air. These sounds are conducted by the ear to the brain. So far as the stages by which they are so conducted have been brought within the range of knowledge, they are physiological; operations beyond this, the nature of which still remains unrevealed to us, we entitle psychic. It was stated, on the authority of a most eminent physiologist, that science has as yet discovered no difference whatever between the ear of the musician and the ear of the non-musician; consequently our appreciation of music is not a physiological, but a psychical problem. The question then followed: Can musical physics explain musical psychics? Do the operations of the brain in dealing with musical sounds correspond in any degree with those constant features of them which are physically demonstrable, and which form a portion of what we call the immutable laws of Nature? It was thoroughly established by quotations from the works of the Professors of music at our two oldest Universities, as well as from other sources, that there exists a strong tendency to apply these laws to explain the case, and to make them the basis of what is called musical theory. It was shown that these natural phenomena had been made the ground of special systems of chord classification, and of special chord treatment. We also found that some more or less systematic attempts had been made to trace the origin of the musical scale to the same source, and it was with an attempt to point out the difficulties in the way of any such derivation that the paper closed.