The subject with which I have to deal this evening is a very complicated one, and the time at my disposal is very short, so that I can, at the best, give you but a brief outline of it. I will, therefore, not lose a minute upon any preliminary remarks, but proceed at once with my paper.

Those who were present at the reading of Mr. Spottiswoode's paper, “On Beats and Combination Tones,” last session, may remember an observation made in the course of the discussion to the effect that the excellence of the apparatus employed goes for a great deal in acoustical investigations. I have to bring before you to-day an attempt to obtain efficient apparatus, somewhat less costly in its construction than that exhibited to you by Mr. Spottiswoode.

The subject of this paper, “Beauty of Touch and Tone,” is one which however admirably it may be exemplified in the public performances of many—unhappily not all—of our leading artists, however conscientiously it may be inculcated by our most eminent teachers, is, in the playing and singing of too many of our amateurs, conspicuous only by its absence; and I can but think that, from the generality of the members of the musical profession, it does not receive that amount of attention which its importance demands, and which the rapid extension of musical education in some other directions might lead us to expect.

Many writers, nowadays, in treating of any subject, have the greatest difficulty in finding something new to say, so much having been said before them upon almost every variety of theme. In the subject of this paper I am, to some extent, free of this embarrassment; but my task is, I feel, not the less difficult on that account. When I say that writers have not given much attention to the subject of musical æsthetics, I allude more especially to English writers. The Germans have, indeed, busied themselves more than we have in this way, as might, perhaps, be well supposed from the somewhat abstract nature of the subject. But even they have not done so much with the particular branch of æsthetics relating to the musical art as one would have expected. If I myself enter this field, it is not, by any means, that I consider myself one most fitted for the labour; but I do so rather in the hope of inducing those to follow better able than I am to clear the ground of its difficulties.

It may be in the remembrance of some now present, that about two years ago I had the honour of bringing before the Musical Association a short paper on brass wind instruments, in which I endeavoured to demonstrate the effects produced by variations in the forms of tubes upon the positions of the nodes of sound-waves generated in such tubes, and consequently upon the sequence of proper tones and correctness of intonation. The summary of the matter then brought forward was this: that a brass instrument is a tube closed at one end, of such a form as to give the series of intervals producible from an open, and not from a closed cylindrical tube, such form being neither a common cone, nor a conic frustrum combined with cylindrical tube. At the conclusion, attention was drawn to the fact that quality of tone was intimately associated with the points then under consideration; and it is to this subject of quality of tone that I have ventured to ask your attention this afternoon.

The paper on “Berlioz,” which I had the honour of reading at one of our meetings last session, having been so kindly received by the members of the Musical Association, I have been induced to give one on “Chopin,” with whom, as with Berlioz, I was intimately acquainted during my stay in Paris, where I resided for many years. Everything connected with Chopin has, at the present day, much more than ordinary interest.

Were the observations I am about to address to you intended only for the hearing and perusal of the members of the Musical Association, I might long have hesitated before I ventured to discourse upon music as a profession in this country; inasmuch as I do not presume to think that I can say anything upon that subject which is not as well known to them as to myself. Still, with a professional experience of more than half a century, I am not without hope that I may, perchance, touch upon topics which may prove to be of interest and utility to my younger and less experienced professional brethren and sisters.

When the subject of this address was decided upon, I had an idea that I might bring before the attention of this meeting many unfamiliar facts in connection with a most important, possibly the most important, branch of musical composition; but in the interim there has appeared the beginning of an article in Mr. Grove's Dictionary—which, although it is not yet signed, I guess from internal evidence to be the production of Mr. Rockstro—which anticipates many of the novelties I might have advanced, and sets those forth in the most clear, in the most interesting, and (I can say nothing short of the highest terms of eulogy) the most satisfactory and instructive light.