Folk song—sacred and secular alike—may be either traditional or ephemeral: that is to say, some of it lives, much of it doesn't. Of the making of folk song there is no end, for from time immemorial it has been an irrepressible outward expression in verse and song of the daily life and common thought of the people. Any striking event or circumstance—national or provincial—has scarcely ever failed to elicit some sort of versification which may vary in character from the local vernacular slang prevalent at the time, to the carefully polished lines of the educated poet. Words so produced get music set to them: those of the better kind attract the pens of cultivated composers; those of the baser sort are set by obscure but publisher-pushed persons who seem to rise up suddenly from the vasty deep, absolutely unskilled in the art of musical composition, but in some mysterious way gifted with a knack of originating—or otherwise supplying—a type of melody easily caught by the public ear, and rapidly transferred from lip to lip of the vulgar multitude, until the whole land is filled with it.

When we use the term “Ancient Egypt,” a hazy picture of pyramids forms in the mind and we have a vague notion that it refers to a culture that reached an exceedingly high plane a very long time ago. How long ago, it is almost beyond the everyday mind to grasp. Our ideas of time are, after all, only relative; and when we speak of “six thousand years ago” it conveys little more to our minds than would “two thousand years ago.” Five hundred years is a very long time; yet if we enquire what was the state of music at that distance of time back, we should find things in a very primitive state. A thousand years ago we only find King Alfred burning cakes, and two thousand years ago we should see the Romans teaching our barbarous ancestors how to build roads, to dress themselves decently, and to take baths. Yet, when Greece was only just beginning to show her first promise of greatness later, the Twelfth Dynasty of Egyptian Kings was ruling a country that enjoyed a musical culture that must seem astonishing to us. We find evidences of musical activity as far back as the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties (ca. 4000–3500 b.c.), and the music made then, and the instruments upon which it was made, could not have been the result of a sudden inspiration and invention. A long era of development must have preceded these early evidences of music—and allowing for the inevitable periods of decline and decadence, we arrive at a date which is so remote that we could scarcely realise its meaning.

Two years ago I had the privilege of reading a paper on the subject of “Modern Tendencies in Music” at a meeting of the Arts League of Service, in which the general aspects of creative thought of to-day were broadly reviewed, and the relative features of the different European schools discussed by a comparative summary of the work of their chief representatives. Such is the rapidity of musical advancement in these days that in the light of recent experience I have attempted in this present paper to crystallise in a more definite manner certain aspects of the present day idiom (and deductions therefrom) which in the previous paper were necessarily treated in a sketchy and more or less cursory manner. The views expressed in the following paper are, it need hardly be added, a result of my own personal observation, and we must recognise that in a subject of such magnitude it would manifestly be impossible to discuss fully within such limited scope, each and every feature of a development which is without parallel in the history of any other art, by reason of its astonishing rapidity and the constant and almost hourly changes taking place in its internal characteristics. It is also obvious that in a critical estimate of this description anything in the nature of mere rhetoric or fulsome adulation for its own sake would be very much out of place, if only for the reason that an unbiassed outlook is an essential preliminary to any reasoned discussion on the relative value or otherwise of the tenets held by a particular school of thought.

The problem of range-finding—i.e., finding the distance of an object—is generally reduced to that of finding the direction of the object from each of a set of base points. Usually the object ranged is in motion, and the necessary measurements must be made rapidly.

My sole object in calling your attention to the new Duplex-coupler Pianoforte, invented by Mr. Emmanuel Moor, is to provoke a discussion on its merits, its possibilities, its advantages and disadvantages, and, if accepted by the public, its probable influence on the future of pianoforte music. In these days of discovery, removal of old foundations, rapid development and plunges after new effects, it seems to me that the duty of a long-established Association such as that to which we belong, is to examine and pronounce judgment on new departures as well as to keep alive interest in the past and the achievements of our forefathers to whom we owe so much.

On Friday last I received from Sir Hugh Allen a prepaid telegram in regard to this meeting. Although I do not come to the meetings as often as I should like—mainly because of the difficulty of getting away in term time—I intended to come on this particular occasion; and I replied to this effect. Sir Hugh Allen then sent me this sheaf of pencilled notes, which I received by the second post on Saturday. Well, those of you who have had to read Sir Hugh Allen's writing, especially when he has written in a hurry, will know that it requires leisure to decipher his notes; and even I find it difficult to decipher them, although we have worked together for years. With this sheaf came the message: “Here are my notes and you say what you think fit.” But it was the beginning of the Cambridge term last week; and those of you who know what term time is like at Cambridge will know there is very little leisure. In the circumstances I know you will feel sorry for me, and that you will do your best to overlook all imperfections. Then, further, Sir Hugh Allen went to Brighton yesterday to recoup, so I have not been able to see him. He calls his Paper “Music in the Universities.” I do not know what his intention was. All he has been able to do has been to go into the question of Oxford and occasionally to touch upon Cambridge. Whether he meant to touch upon the question of Music at all the Universities I do not know. I wrote to him on the subject, but no answer has reached me, and, as I have said, I have not been able to see him.