Overripe Apples - a short story

By Frances Corkran Hall  (pictured at left with Checkers)

The corpse blew soft puffs of sweet stale air in my face; wet gurgles from her chest rumbled in my ears as I turned the warm heavy body to prepare her for the undertaker.

Outside a blizzard was throwing a blanket of snow over the sleeping city. Everything was quiet but the wind. It was moaning and groaning; it shook the creaky hospital and jingled and jarred the glassware in the dim-lit sick room. My heart raced with the wind and my teeth chattered with the rattling windowpanes.

As I gently released the body blood seemed to flow in her face and neck. Startled, I checked the patient's pulse and felt fast throbbing beats. Swaying from fright, I grasped a chair for support as I sought my mirror and held it to the corpse's face. The glass was free of moisture. I sighed with relief, but in the next instant the nauseating fruity odor came again from the corpse, enveloping and suffocating me.  I was sick.

My post-mortem care procedures had made no mention of these occurrences. I shuddered at the thought o the next step, stuffing her mouth with cotton from the mortuary basket. What should I do? What if Mrs. Corey were still alive?

This was my sixth month in the nurses' training school and my second look at a dead person. But Mrs. Corey looked alive! Her body was warm and pink, unlike the first corpse I had viewed, all pale, bony and cold.

I ran to find the charge nurse or the night physician. Hurrying down the gloomy hall, I heard the clanking elevator. "Oh no, it couldn't be the undertaker," I thought as an intern stepped from the grating vehicle. He half-listened as I poured out my story, then shrugged and asked, "Dr. Post's diabetic patient in room 313?"

I nodded. 

"She was pronounced dead, wasn't she?" he huffed and then swaggered down the hall muttering something about student nurses.

Even so I was not reassured. I vividly recalled stories of reopened coffins showing deep fingernail scratches from struggles to escape. My fright heightened even more by these thoughts; I ran blindly up the corridor and collided with the chief medical doctor.

Listening to my disorganized story, Dr. Burke gently said, "Mrs. Corey is not alive. She had no pulsations; you only felt your own heart pounding away." He eased my mind about people being buried alive as he recounted the discovery of the stethoscope and its use in listening to body-generated sounds. He added some information about embalming.

Using layman's terms because of my inexperience, Dr. Burke briefly compared Mrs. Corey's living body to an engine containing fuel of incorrect mixtures of glucose and fat. The combustion products from burning this mixture led to unconsciousness or diabetic coma. The acetone breath scent came from these products and is characteristic of the disease. But a basket of overripe apples in a closed room will give off the same saccharine revolting stench.

"Now," Dr. Burke continued, "the dying woman was too weak to exhale all the stale air, but after death the movement of the body brought the air forth. Other bodily complications caused a stagnation of blood in her face and neck to give the pink coloration."

Thanking Dr. Burke, I resolved to write a nursing manual and include the rare occurrences that a student nurse may encounter in post-mortem care. I did.

Is Harmony A Lost Art?

By Mrs. D. Y. Grieb

A few years ago found me, figuratively speaking, drifting in the Sargasso Sea. Yes, I was taking lessons - music lessons - practicing Czerny exercises, splendid gymnastics. Czerny exercises eternally, with a few sonatinas mixed in, to be practiced over and over one thousand times. The oftener of the better; that was the central idea. So I believe after all that I was taking lessons in physical culture. 

But I was discouraged, drifting around, always going, but never arriving anywhere. Poor old Sisyphus lugging the stone up the hill, only to have it roll back again, could not have been more disheartened.

Being a grown up, I reasoned with myself and with my teacher. "Why is this thus and so?" and "There must be a better way to learn music." The reply was "Do as I tell you; there is no other way." Still unconvinced. I questioned every musician who would talk to me on the subject. How do you memorize? Some did not know. One said he memorized a measure at a time learning the whole piece before he played it. A long piece would take several months to memorize. I knew that some artists memorize a piece in a few days. Did they possess a special gift? About that time, an article appeared in The Musician magazine, saying that the way to memorize was to analyze. Here was another difficulty just as dreadful, for I didn't know anything about it. And how could I learn? Living out of town not within easy reach of a teacher, it seemed impossible. But finding a way, I began the study of harmony and hereby hangs a tale. 

Beginning humbly at first principles in Prima Vista and Harmony courses, I soon saw, like the wisest of all the ancients, that I knew only one thing and that was that I knew nothing. This was a fine beginning.  In a short time, I became wonderfully interested. Everything seemed so different. Oh, how I worked with what delight. I picked out tonic chords, dominants, subdominants, and supertonics in all the keys. Here was something tangible for the mind to grasp; a foundation on which to build; music meant something. Thought was mixed with effort; here was the open sesame to musical culture. Pushing out into the Gulf Stream, I reached the broad ocean and the view ahead was inspiring. 

I became infatuated. The lessons led on through preludes, little fugues, sonatinas and finally sonatas, and with mental powers aroused, I analyzed, dividing into motifs, sections and phrases, until my ear could detect the different chords and my delight knew no bounds. 

On I went until even in my dreams those same chords, with broken backs and disabled feet, chased through endless measures like Orestes pursued by the Furies. But my teacher said that I was doing excellent work, and I was happy. 

Then came composition, still continuing the harmony. Even in the wildest flights of my imagination I never dreamed of composing, but I began with simple phrases of four measures using simple rhythms and then little song forms. Of course, they all sounded very much alike, but were they not my very own? 

The way to learn to do anything is by doing; not by going through volumes of theory, but by practice. We are apt to think that a genius writes music by a sort of inspiration. He does to some extent, but he follows the laws of music in his compositions. Not man-made rules but scientific laws, like the laws governing mathematics or any other science. 

It is easy now to understand how analysis is essential to rapid reading and memorizing. Imagine an adult having to spell every word he reads. How tedious that would be! That is the way he reads who does not understand harmony. He must read each note as it comes, and it is a wonder he or she can read at all with any speed. But suppose he or she knows something of the laws of music; knows the chords in every key and their natural place in composition; can determine the extent of the motifs and see them built up into phrases; can determine by the cadences the ends of the phrases; knows. beyond a doubt where the accent should be, whether indicated by the composer or not. Then he or she can read music as he reads a language, not a word at a time, but he can grasp in one mental effort a whole motif or phrase. And what a difference there is expression; he or she will express the thought of the composer and will not need to go to someone else for his interpretation. 

This is also the secret of memorizing.  First analyze; note the prevailing chord or chords in each measure; find the first motif or text, as it were; follow that motif as it wanders through the beautiful sonata, repeated, answered, developed like a character in a play, as Shakespeare presents Cleopatra, ever changing in her moods and developments of character, but always Cleopatra. Now notice the transitions; threats of changing into another key, and finally changing. Listen as a it glides along so sweetly in its major key, going into the more somber relative minor, winding back again through highways and byways into its original key for the close. 

We do not play musically because we do not think musically. We blame our poor fingers when the fault is in our heads. We hesitate and stumble because the brain is sending uncertain orders to our fingers. We practice a piece over and over until it become mechanical without a. bit of mind in it; and if there happens to be a break, there is nothing to come to the rescue. When if we would understand first, and practice one half as much, we should accomplish ten times more. 

I cannot but think that harmony is not a lost art; that it is not only for the gifted few but can be learned by anyone who will work when it is presented in a practical, rational way. 

Music In The Home - Ignace Jan Paderewski

By F. C. Robinson 

Most of our readers are familiar with what is known of Paderewski's life and work. He is the son of a gentleman farmer of Podolia, Poland, and from his father inherited an indomitable will and the power and love of work, also his high breeding and fine instincts. From his mother he inherited his love of music but was unfortunately denied the advantage of her care and influence because of her death, which occurred while he was a mere infant.

In the July 1904 issue of Musician, in an article entitled All Manner of Musicians, Miss Edith Lynwood Winn made a few remarks referring to Paderewski with which I for one, heartily sympathized. She referred to the fact that very many musicians play with their best feeling - give to their hearers of the very best and highest - "when under the influence of adversity, disappointed love, and the pain of loss." She takes Paderewski as an illustration, adding, "The richest years of Paderewski's musicianship and artistic development may have been the years of sorrow after his wife's death."

That said, even tragic story comes to one's mind, of the young wife suffering in her last illness for delicacies and attentions that it was impossible for the struggling young artist husband, in his poverty, to provide. In addition to her untimely death, the little child she left to the young father was an invalid. Of Paderewski's loving care and tenderness toward he (physically) afflicted son we all know about.

Finally, death released the poor young fellow and snapped the nerve-tension under which the father suffered. It was while Paderewski was felling these influences deeply and keenly that he poured forth all that was in him in music. We do not feel that Paderewski's is a nature to forget these past experiences. We feel that he deserves the present life he is leading, which Miss Winn assures us is peaceful and luxurious.

She says, "All is placid now. He is rich and he has married the wife of his old friend." She is an excellent businesswoman, relieving Paderewski of financial cares, and thus his life is passed on the beautiful estate he purchased a few years ago. He deserves a goodly share of peace and of happiness, and we therefore rejoice that it is his. But his music?  Does "the satisfied" Paderewski equal the suffering Paderewski? To many it does not seem so. I think, with Miss Winn, that he plays, "less emotionally, more intellectually; with no diminution of poetic feeling," but with "the fire of passion" lacking.

Can Music Be Defined? 

There is probably no musician who has not tried to define music. 

Nevertheless, the  subject is one of great interest to musicians, and has excited the imagination of many great thinkers and philosophers. 

Most of them say what music does rather than what it is. An interesting collection of opinions is reprinted below by a musical encyclopedia compiled by Dr. Ralph Dunstan.

The following are the definitions given:

"The poetry of sound." - Encyclopedia Britannica

"The art of the beautiful and pleasing." - Quintilian

"The artistic union of inarticulate sound and rhythm." - National Encyclopedia

"The universal language which when all other languages were confounded, the

confusion of Babel left unconfounded." - Prof. Wilson

"Miraculous rhetoric! Excelling eloquence!" - Izaac Walton

"A kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech, which leads us on to the edge of the

infinite." - Carlyle

"The mysterious language of a remote spiritual realm." - Hoffman

"All deep thought is music." - Carlyle

"The harbinger of eternal melody." - Mozart

"Next to theology." - Luther

"The highest of all science." - Bach

"The fine art which more than any other ministers to human welfare."

 - Herbert Spencer

"The worth of art appears most eminent in music." - Goethe

"What passion cannot music raise and quell?" - Dryden

"Exalts each joy, allays each grief." - Armstrong

"The medicine of the breaking heart." - Hunt

"The sweet companion of labor." - Sir J. Lubbock

"A genuine and natural source of delight." - Sir J. Hawkins

"The chief recreation of tired humanity." - Kay

"Of all delights, the most exquisite." - Dr. Tulloch

"Has the power of making Heaven descend to earth." - Japanese Proverb

"The voice of liberty." = W.S. Walker

"The sacred emblem of Truth, Peace and Order." - E. Smith (1707)

"There is no truer truth obtainable by man than comes of music." - Browning

"The seed of many virtues is in such hearts as are devoted to music." - Luther

"One of the most forcible instruments for training, for arousing and for 

governing the mind and the spirit of man." - Gladstone

"Rouses the soul to fearless deeds of daring and valour." - Acton

"The man that hath no music in himself,

Nor is not moved with any concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treason, stratagems and spoils." - Shakespeare

__________

Originally published in The Etude, November 1909

London - After the Romans (part three)

By Walter Besant

The conquest of England was now virtually completed. There was fighting at Old Sarum in 552; at Banbury in 556; at Bedford, at Aylebury, and at Benson in the year 571. One would judge this to be the last sortie made by the Welsh who had been driven into the fens. In the year 577 three important places in the west were taken - Gloucester, Bath, and Cirencester. In 584 there was fighting at Fethan-lea, when the victor took many towns and spoils innumerable; "and wrathful he thence returned to his own."

As late as 596 we hear that the King of the West Saxons fought and contended incessantly against either the Angles (his own cousins), or the Welsh, or the Picts, or the Scots; and in 607 was fought the great battle of Chester, in which "numberless" Welsh were slain, including two hundred priests who had come to pray for victory.

It is therefor evident that the conquest of the country took a long time to effect - not less, indeed, than two hundred years. First, Kent, with Surrey fell; next, Sussex - both before the end of the fifth century. Early in the sixth century the West Saxons conquered the country covered by Hampshire, a part of Surrey and Dorsetshire; next, Essex fell; and there was stubborn fighting for many years in the country beyond the great Middlesex Forest.

The conquest of the North concerns us little, save that it drew off some of those who were fighting in what afterward became the kingdom of Mercia. I desire to note here only the surroundings of London, and to mark how by successive steps of the invaders' march it was gradually cut off, bit by bit, from the surrounding country. When Kent fell, the bridge gate was closed, and the roads south, southwest, and southeast were blocked; at the fall of Essex, Norforlk, and Suffolk, the eastern gat was closed. When Wessex was an established kingdom, the river highway was closed; there remained only the western gate, and that, during the whole of the sixth century, led out into a country perpetually desolated and destroyed by war, so that by the middle of the sixth century no communication whatever was possible between London and the rest of the country, unless the people made a sortie and cut there way through the enemy.

Observe, however, that no mention whatever is made of the capture of London in the Chronicle. Other and less important towns are mentioned.  Anderida or Pevensey, Aquae Solis or Bath, Gloucester, Chester, and many others; but of London there is no mention. Consider. London, though not much greater than other cities in the country - York, Verulam, Lincoln, Colchester, for instance - was undoubtedly the chief port of the country. We need not bring modern ideas to bear when we read of the vast trade, the immense concourse of merchants, and so forth. Roman London was not modern Liverpool. Its bulk of trade was quite insignificant compared with that of the present. When we begin to understand medieval trade this will become apparent. Still, a vigorous and flourishing place, and the chief port of the country. Why, therefore, does the Chronicle absolutely pass over so great an event as the taking of London?

John Mason Evans Hasslinger's Famous Piano (and Keyboard) Teacher Precursors

By Frances Swarthington

Since many piano teachers and instructors often have many students, it's not hard to imagine that branching out from the famous pianists of history their lineage or succession of talented pupils and virtual "descendants." These pupils have spread out across the globe over the decades and can trace their musical education back to the masters of the Romantic era and perhaps further.

BACH, HOMILIUS, HILLER AND NEEFE

We will examine one such lineage leading up to the present day beginning with none other than Johann Sebastian Bach. Much has been written about this master who was composing and performing when the piano was in its infancy and therefore concentrated on the organ, clavichord and harpsichord.

J.S. Bach's pupil Gottfried August Homilius (at left) was born in 1714 in Rosenthal. He studied law at the University of Leipzig starting in 1735. During this time he studied privately with Bach at least until 1742 when he put the world of law behind him to some extent to become the organist of the Frauenkirche (Cathedral of Our Dear Lady)  in Dresden. 13 years later he worked in Dresden's three primary churches as the director of music as well as the choir master of the Kreuzschule (Church of the Cross).He was highly regarded as an organist and composer. He died in Dresden in 1785.

Speaking of the Kreuzschule, it is the oldest surviving school in Dresden; possibly founded in the 14th century. This is where Homilius taught his pupil Johann Adam Hiller.

Hiller (at left) was born on Christmas Day, 1728 in Wendlich-Ossig, Germany. After his father's death at age 6 he found it difficult to procure a proper musical education. He persisted however with his talents in several instruments as well as voice. By 1747 he was studying the harpsichord under Homilius at the Kreuzschule.   He studied law and music (as did Homilius) in Leipzig beginning in 1751. He later became well known as the creator of a form of German opera, Singspiel ("sing-speak"). From 1781 to 1785 he was musical director of the Gewandhaus concert hall and from 1789 to 1801 choir master and organist of the Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church). He died in Leipzig in 1804.

His pupil Christian Gottlob Neefe (1748-1798 at left) had also studied law in Leipzig (as his father had directed him to do against his true calling of music and the theatre) and sought out Hiller there as his mentor.  In Dresden he became his mentor's successor as musical director for Abel Seyler's theatrical company which Neefe had joined 1776 . By 1781 he became the court organist in Bonn court succeeding the renowned Gilles Van den Eeden.  Van den Eeden was allegedly Beethoven's teacher for a period but the young Ludwig was certainly Neefe's pupil by this time and substituted as court organist in 1782. 

Much has already been written about Beethoven, this master who bridged the Classical Era with the Romantic Era. 

BEETHOVEN, CZERNY AND LISZT

Beethoven heard the 10-year-old Carl Czerny (at left) performing Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, opus 13 at his home and was so impressed he offered to be his piano teacher which he was from 1801 to 1804 and occasionally in the years that followed. Czerny's prodigious memory allowed him to absorb many of Beethoven's works including all of his sonatas for performance. Beethoven recommended Czerny as a teacher who began this aspect of his career at age 15.

In 1819 Franz Liszt's father brought his son to Czerny as a potential student and had him play for him. Czerny was quite taken with the boy's decidedly (at that time) raw talent and took him under his pianistic wing for lessons, gratis. Liszt later as an homage to the kindness of his teacher performed Czerny's works at his Paris recitals.

Liszt's long career included his composing and performing era until 1847 then relinquishing his performing to concentrate on composing, conducting and studying theology ( eventually becoming an abbé). Notably he also taught and his pupils included such famous names as Hans Van Bulow, Eugen d'Albert, Moriz Rosenthal, Alexander Siloti, and Karl Tausig.

It goes without saying these giants of the piano were also brilliant composers whose works have resonated through time immemorial.

BERNARD STAVENHAGEN

Another notable pupil was Bernard Stavenhagen (1862-1914, at left with Liszt) who after beginning piano studies at age 6 later studied under Liszt in Weimar late in the famous virtuoso's life, in 1885. Stavenhagen also travelled with Liszt over a great deal of Europe on Liszt's 1885-1886 tour where he visited Budapest, Munich, Innsbruck, Rome, London, Antwerp, Paris and Bayreuth. At Liszt's funeral Stavenhagen gave the oration.

For ten years after Liszt's 1886 death, Stavenhagen toured Europe and North America. His musical career highlights included court pianist to the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and conducting various operas in Weimar and Munich as well as works by such luminaries as Strauss, Debussy, Mahler and Ravel. The Geneva Conservatoire received him in 1870 as a teacher of piano master classes until his death in 1914. He composed two piano concertos, 1893's Piano Concerto in B minor and 1912's Second Concerto. In addition to his musical accomplishments he was also decorated as a knight of the Order of the White Falcon. He died on Christmas day in 1914 was buried in Weimar.

ERNEST HUTCHENSON

The next link in our antecedent timeline is Ernest Hutchenson (1871-1951) who was born in Melbourne, Australia. Hutchenson was a child prodigy and at age 14 travelled to Germany, specifically the Leipzig Conservatory where one of his teachers was none other than Bernhard Stavenhagen. Stints in London and Berlin evenutally led Hutchenson to settle in the U.S., specifically New York City in 1914 where he debuted his repertoire. 

Speaking of repertoire, according to an article by Richard Aldrich in the November 12, 1919 issue of The New York Times, Hutchenson had the chutzpah to play 3 Beethoven concertos in a row at Aeolian Hall: 

"Hutchenson Plays Three Concertos - Whether or not he has ever had any predecessor ins carrying out the idea, Ernest Hutchenson' enterprise in giving a concert in which only three piano concerts of Beethoven should be played is sufficiently original to deserve to remain unique."

Hutchenson's teaching career took off as well. He taught at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore (a future pupil we will discuss was Austin Conradi) and the Chautauqua School of Music in New York State where he provided training and solace for George Gershwin. He taught at Juilliard where he moved up from faculty member to Dean (1926-1937), then President (1937-1945).

Hutchenson composed solo and concertos for piano; 2 pianos; and violin, a symphony and many solo piano works including a transcription of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries. He also wrote a number of textbooks on piano literature and technique, among them The Elements of Piano Technique, copyright 1907 and published by The G. Fred Kranz Music Co. in Baltimore, Maryland.

AUSTIN BURRELL CONRADI

This brings us to Mr. Hutchenson's pupil Austin Burrell Conradi (1890-1965). Son of a Lutheran pastor, Conradi studied piano at Peabody Conservatory with Ernest Hutchenson, and with its chair of composition Otis Bardwell Boyza (who like Stavenhagen studied at the Leipzig Conservatory). He also taught at such institutions as the Hamburg Conservatory in Toronto (1917-1918), the Curtis Institute (1925-1926), and the Philadelphia Conservatory (1936-1937). 

However Conradi was also a performing pianist and we can see from various programs from 1916 to 1921 what sort of repertoire he commanded.

In the summer concert series at Chautauqua, NY in 1916 (as per The Music News, published in Chicago) Conradi played Chopin (Prelude in Db, Etude in A minor, Valse in F minor, Scherzo in Bb minor), Bach E (Italian Concerto), Beethoven (Sonata in C# minor), Schumann (Einsame Blumen Contrabandiste, arr. Tausig), Scarlatti (Pastorale and Capriccio, arr. Tausig), and Schubert (Barcarolle, arr. Liszt).

As per Musical America (published in New York), by early 1921 he was performing at the Peabody Institute for its Friday afternoon concert series and at the Hotel Hadley ballroom in Baltimore. His repertoire grew to include compositions by Rameau, Franck, Ravel, Debussy and Wagner. In April Conradi was performing the same repertoire at Poli's Theater in Washington D.C.

Alexander Scriabin was also in his repertoire and travelling to New York he recorded several of Scriabin's works from 1921-1922. Some of these have been preserved in player piano rolls. Conradi was attuned to the audiences of his concerts: according to a December 10, 1928 New York Times article, Conradi's recital began with short pieces allowing the audience more time to be seated before he launched into the major works of his repertoire. 

He returned to where he had graduated, the Peabody Conservatory, where he taught piano for over 40 years.  One of his famous pupils was George Manos who was the White House pianist for President Truman and wrote a book about his years there. Another pupil was John Mason Evans Hasslinger who would go on to be a notable teacher of his own.

JOHN MASON EVANS HASSLINGER

(1927-2015) Hasslinger's family seafood business in East Baltimore provided him with work after he graduated from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in 1945. Entering the Marine Corps in 1946, he was stationed in China as a Control Tower Operator. Returning stateside Hasslinger studied piano under Austin Conradi at Peabody Institute, graduating June 1, 1956. 

After graduation he began his teaching career providing private lessons for his pupils in his parents' house in Lutherville, MD. As his reputation grew and the number of pupils along with it, he split his teaching between his parents' house and his new home in the neighborhood of Pine Valley-Valleywood in Timonium, MD where he and his family moved in August 1963. His reputation for effective and well rounded instruction continued to grow and included students from a up to 27 miles away in Pennsylvania. Hasslinger provided a balanced approach including theory, sight reading, improvisation, technique, classics, jazz and popular music. 
Some of Hasslinger's pupils include:

Dr. Denise (Dede) Ondishko went on to receive her Ph.D in Music Theory and Composition from the Eastman School of Music and later headed IT and telecommunications departments at several large institutions. In 1999 she became a  National Board-Certified Teacher in early childhood music; 

Soraya Sina (now Sina-Bitters), an RN having worked in the ER and ICU in the Greater Baltimore area; 

Graham Eckler, composer and keyboardist in several bands such as Iguana and Chapter IV;

Stuart Ortel, an excellent artist and now has an interior/landscaping design company in the Baltimore area;

Ellsworth Hall, in addition to working in grants management and IT, continued his passion for music and has been a performer, film and video producer and composer for film, video and multimedia for over 35 years.  Ellsworth has composed 2 piano concertos, the first composed in 1985/1986 but re-orchestrated and released in 2014 on the Melodic Revolution Records label.
_____________

Source materials for this article include:

The Organ and Its Masters (Lahee)
Famous Pianists (Lahee)
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Johns Hopkins Peabody Institute
Wikipedia
The New York Times Archives
Amazon music reviews
The Internet Archive
J.W. Pepper
NYPR Archives
Dignity Memorial
The Music News
Musical America

Musical Discoveries (part one)

By composer and critic Felix Borowski

It is at once a fascinating and a difficult investigation which has for its raison d'etre the discovery of musical discoverers. Such an investigation must be fascinating because there is a certain piquant satisfaction in tracing the origin of things to the source from which they have spring; it is difficult because in so many cases - nearly in all - the existance of numberless affairs of art has been the result of evolutionary processes rather than the offshoot of a sudden and an unexpected stronke of inventive inspriation on the part of some gifted men (or women). The difficulty is added to in certain cases by the nebulous condition of musical chronicles in earlier periods of time.

Inventions which were of material assistance to the progress of what may be called modern music could not come into being until someon  discovered a method of expressing musical ideas in writing - the invention of musical notation, in a word. This invention had, first of all, to consist of a staff which would permit the pitch of sounds to be designated, and secondly of a method of indicationg the duration of notes. Now a primitive species of notation had been employed by the ancient Greeks and Romans, and in the eighth century a species of stenographic notation - it is known to us as the "Neume" system - was in general use. But there was not staff and therefore no precise method of fixing the pitch of notes.

The Invention of The Staff

The first great invention arrived, therefore, with the discovery of the staff. This came about with the employment of one line, the pitch of whihc was supposed to represent the note "F;" but no one knows who was the musician to whom it first occurred to fix the exact pitch of the "Neumes" placed upon this line. Probably it was some humble but ingenious monk - for after all, it was the monasteries that, in the earlier days of art, accomplished the most for music and painting and sculpture.

The staff was then, however, in a merely rudimentary state. We arrive at the invention of one such as is known to us today; and this brings forward the name of Guido of Arezzo. This Benedictine monk, who was born about 995 at Arezzo, in Tuscany, was undoubtedly the inventor of the four line staff; whether he was also the inventor of some other things - solmization and the clefs for instance - is less certain. The discovery of giving time and rhythm to music came later; nor is it possible to say who was the first to invent notes of different value, or who invented the signs which we call "rest." Bar line did nto come into existence until about four hundred years ago.

The First Printed Music

The gratitude of music lovers should go out to the man who first made printed music possible. Now the art of printing music followed very shortly the invention of printing books. The first to print music of any kind from type was Ulrich Hahn, a Roman printer who brought out a Roman missal with notes in 1476. His work was quickly taken up by other printers. Our modern system of printing sheet music froum engraved copper plates was invented by Simone Verivio, of Rome, who published by this method his collection of Canzonettes entitled Diletto Spirituale in 1586. But music typography has, to be sure, undergone remarkable changes and improvements since that time.

By the time the sixteenth century had well started, the rapid dissemination of printed music led to the not less rapid development of different forms in the art itself.
But the century had grown old before any important inventions bearing upon modern music came into existence. It was the rise of instrumental art which was responsible for many of the inventions which, primitive enough four hundred years ago, have since grown into wonderful and complicated forms of art; but in the sixteenth century instrumental music as a separate and independent branch was in its infancy, and it was the handmaid of vocal art. Yet neither the opera nor the oratorio could here come into existence without it.