all branches of learning as well, the need would one day be felt of a history of orchestration. In attempting to supply it with this book Dr. Coerne has filled a want in English musical literature. Of treatises devoted to the art of writing for the orchestra there is no lack. Berlioz, the greatest master of the art before Wagner, wrote such a treatise, which while it was still looked upon as in many respects a model, was revised and brought down to date by Richard Strauss; but invaluable as this treatise is and as are the more voluminous treatises of the Belgian Gevaërt, the German Hofmann and the Englishman Prout, they are after all study-books for the creative musician, and only by laborious comparison of their illustrative examples, or the scores of composers, can the historical inquirer learn aught of the evolution of the art to which they are devoted. Even then his view is restricted, practically, to the music composed since the closing decades of the eighteenth century. The explanation of this fact is that while the art of music is always spoken of as young in the handbooks, that of orchestration is much younger. The student of orchestration, say the teachers, can derive little benefit from a study of scores older than those of Haydn and Mozart because some of the instruments of their predecessors are obsolete and so is their manner of writing for the instruments still in use. This, however, brings small comfort to the historical investigator who is quite as desirous to know what the orchestra was like prior to Haydn and Mozart, and the Mannheim symphonists, as he is to learn the steps by which it reached its present marvellous efficiency. It is the help which it extends in this direction which makes the "Histoire de L'Instrumentation" of M. Lavoix, to which our author acknowledges indebtedness, valuable; but that work is accessible only to students who have knowledge of the French language.

Moreover, there are interesting signs of a return to some of the orchestral instruments which had fallen into disuse when the modern art of orchestration came into existence. It is not only a pious regard and reverence for Bach and Händel, especially the former, which is prompting conductors when performing their works to restore instruments to the orchestra which were considered hopelessly obsolete only a few decades ago, but also a growing appreciation of the fact that modern substitutes for them have largely failed of their mission. Two facts of large importance confront the careful observer of musical phenomena to-day: the art of composition has reached that degree of technical perfection, or high virtuoso-ship which in the history of all the arts introduces a decay of true creativeness. We have, therefore, on the one hand excessive admiration for technique per se, and on the other a growing reaction towards old ideals. Of this latter fact I thought I saw significant evidences in 1900 when as a member of the International Jury at the Paris Exposition new specimens of a considerable number of archaic musical instruments came into my hands for examination, among them a bass flute for the return of which Mr. Frederick Corder expresses an ardent longing in his admirable essay on Instrumentation in the new edition of Grove's "Dictionary of Music and Musicians." Since then, too, we have heard the harpsichord in our concert-rooms, seen the oboe d'amore adopted by Richard Strauss, the alto flute by Felix Weingartner, and observed the establishment in America as well as Europe of orchestral and chamber concerts in which music of the seventeenth and earlier centuries is played upon instruments for which it was written. We shall in all likelihood some day have to extend our treatises on orchestration to include some of the instruments now considered obsolete, and be grateful for all references to them in historical works like the present one.

Dr. Coerne, the author of this book, is an American composer born in Newark, N.J., who has achieved the distinction of having an opera of his writing performed in a European opera-house. His "Zenobia" was brought forward in Bremen on December 1, 1905. It was the first instance of the performance in Europe of a grand opera composed by a native of the United States. The score of this opera and the subject-matter of this book were accepted as a thesis by Harvard University which conferred the degree of Ph.D. on the author in June, 1905. It was the first time that the university bestowed the degree for special work in music.

H.E. KREHBIEL.

New York, April, 1908.

THE EVOLUTION OF
MODERN ORCHESTRATION

PART I.—PRELIMINARIES.

CHAPTER I.
THE CRADLE OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC. (Historical Review.)

I.

Primitive men were no doubt impelled to give utterance to their feelings by a desire for awakening sympathetic response in their fellow beings. Vocal manifestation of feeling developed into incipient melody, hence rudimentary scales. Gestures of dancing suggested rhythm. A fusion of both melody and rhythm led to contrast, and contrast implies symmetry of design. To emphasize rhythm combined with euphony, musical instruments were needed. Relics of certain species of these instruments are analogous to subsequent species of civilized nations.

Another source whence music can be traced is in the religious rites of the pagans.

Ancient history reveals diversified and wide-spread musical activity. The oldest representations of musicians are to be found on Egyptian monuments. Through contact with Oriental nations, Egypt possibly founded her system of intellectual music on extraneous principles. On the other hand, she probably influenced the music of the Hebrews, certainly that of the Greeks. Exemplification of Oriental instrumentalists is seen on Assyrian bas reliefs. One of these, in the possession of the British Museum, represents performers on a drum, a double-pipe, a primitive species of the dulcimer, and seven harps. The preponderance of stringed instruments suggests sensitive appreciation for modulated quality of tone. Constant reference to Hebrew music is, of course, to be found in the Scriptures. The classification of singers for temple worship during the reign of Solomon and of David, and the especial importance attached to song with instrumental accompaniment will at once recur to the mind.

Greece during her ascendency elevated music to a plane of importance only secondary to that of her sister art, poetry, whose handmaiden she became. Indeed, though both vocal and purely instrumental music were practised independently, prominence was bestowed upon the welding together of poetry and music as embodied in the Athenian tragedies. The Greeks possessed but a theoretical knowledge of harmony. Instrumental accompaniment probably duplicated the vocal melody in unison or octave, and may have added some simple harmonic intervals such as the fourth or fifth.

With the disorganization of Greece, music was transplanted to Rome, and, being no longer looked upon as an art, sank into degeneracy. Nevertheless, the fundamental principles governing the science of music as promulgated by the Greek theoreticians were rescued from oblivion by early Roman writers. And these principles, leavened by fragments of melancholy and contemplative strains of Hebraic melody, devolved from the early Christian neophytes, were destined to constitute the rock upon which all subsequent Western ecclesiastical music, even to the present day, has been built.

Review thus far tends to show that the objective of prehistoric and