TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

The translator of this book, desirous, in common with other friends of its author, that her claims as a lady of rare scientific attainments should be recognized in this country, where she has recently taken up her abode, has obtained her consent to the publication of the following testimonials to her position in her own country from gentlemen of the highest eminence in science:

[TRANSLATED]

Mad. Emma Seiler has dwelt for a long time here in Heidelberg, and given instruction in singing. She has won the reputation of a very careful, skilled and learned teacher, possessing a fine ear and cultivated taste. While engaged on my book, “Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen, &c.,” I had the honor of becoming acquainted with Mad. Seiler, and of being assisted by her in my essay upon the formation of the vowel tones and the registers of the female voice. I have thus had an opportunity of knowing the delicacy of her musical ear and her ability to master the more difficult and abstract parts of the theory of music.

I have pleasure in bearing this testimony to her worth, in the hope of securing for her the confidence and the encouragement of those who are interested in the scientific culture of music, and who know how desirable it is that an instructress in the art of singing should be possessed of scientific knowledge, a fine ear, and a cultivated taste.

(Signed) Dr. H. Helmholtz,

Prof. of Physiology, Member of the Academies and Royal Societies of London, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Göttingen.

Heidelberg, Aug. 5, 1866

[TRANSLATED]

Mad. E. Seiler has made for herself an honorable name in Germany, not only as a practical teacher of singing, but also by her valuable investigations in regard to the culture of the musical voice. By her own anatomical studies she has acquired a thorough knowledge of the vocal organs, and by means of the laryngoscope has advanced, in the way first trodden by Garcia, to the establishment of the conditions of the formation of the voice. We owe to her a more exact knowledge of the position of the larynx, and of its parts in the production of the several registers of the human voice; and she appears especially to have brought to a final and satisfactory decision the much-vexed question respecting the formation of the so-called fistel tones (head tones). She has been associated with the best powers possessed by Germany in the department of the theory of music and physiological acoustics, standing by the side of the celebrated physiologist, Helmholtz, while he was engaged in his physiologico-acoustic work upon the generation of the vowels and the nature of harmony.

(Signed) E. du Bois-Reymond,

Professor of Physiology in the Royal University of Berlin.

Berlin, July 17, 1866

In a letter, written in English, addressed to the President and Members of the American Philosophical Society, Professor du Bois-Reymond introduces Mrs. Seiler