374 



tnation on this subject could be of real utility, I should explain the me- 

 chanism of the pronunciation of every letter of the alphabet, at the risk 

 of furnishing a new scene to the Bourgeois Gentilhomme. 



CXCVII. Singing, stammering^ dumbness, ventriloquism. Singing is 

 nothing more than voice modulated, that is, running over, with varying 

 rapidity, the different degrees of the harmonic scale, passing from the 

 grave to the acute, and from the acute to the grave, with expression too 

 of the intermediate tones. Though, in general, our song is spoken, speech 

 is not necessary to it. This action of the organs of the voice requires 

 more efforts and motions than speech : the glottis enlarges or contracts, 

 the larynx rises or descends, the neck stretches out, or is drawn in : in- 

 spiration is accelerated, prolonged, or slackened : expiration is long, or 

 short and abrupt. Accordingly, all these parts are more fatigued than 

 by speech, and it is impossible for us to sing as long as we speak. 



Whatever Rousseau may have said, in his Dictionary of Music, singing 

 may be regarded as the most natural expression of the emotions of the 

 soul, since the least civilized nations so use it, in their songs of war and 

 love, of joy and mourning ; and, as every affection of the mind modifies, 

 in some way, the voice, music, which is only imitated song, can, by the 

 aid of sounds, paint love or rage, sadness or joy, fear or desire, can pro- 

 duce the emotions of these different states, can thus sway the course of 

 our ideas, and direct at pleasure, the operations of the understanding, and 

 the acts of the will*. Of all the instruments which this art employs, the 

 vocal organ of man is, indisputably, the most perfect that from which 

 the most agreeable combinations and the most varied may be obtained. 

 Who is there that knows not the property of the human voice to lend it- 

 self to all accents, and to imitate all languages! ? I will observe, on the 

 occasion of song, that it is especially consecrated to the expression of 

 tender sentiments or movements of passion, and that it is turning it aside 

 from its natural or primitive destination, to employ it in situations where 

 no emotion can be supposed. It is this that makes the recitative of our 

 operas so intolerably tiresome, and throws such ludicrousness over dia- 

 logues where the speakers converse singing, on the most indifferent mat- 

 ters. Languages abounding in vowels, are thereby fitted to song, and 

 favour the growth of musical genius. It is perhaps their smooth and so- 

 norous language that has given to the music of the Italians, its superi- 

 ority over that of other countries^. The declamation of the ancients 

 was much more removed than our own, from the common tone of con- 

 versation, approached nearer to music, and might be noted like real 

 song. 



The pleasantness, the precision of the voice, the extent and variety of 



* See Gretry, Essai sur la Musique, &c. 



j- See in the Aviceptologie Francaies, or Art c!e prende touiea so^tes d' Oiseaux, the way 

 in which they are drawn into snares by counterfeiting their song-. 



j This pre-eminence has been strongly contested, especially in France, where to- 

 wards the middle of the last century, a war arose on the subject, in which her whole 

 literature, split into two factions, fought for the superiority of Piccini and Gluck. Out 

 of the heaps of writings in verse and in prose, with which. 'the contest was carried on, a 

 few epigrams will be remembered, the letter of Rousseau on French music, and the 

 little work of D'Alembert on the liberty of music. Marmontel too has made these dis- 

 putes the subject of an unpublished poem, under the name of Voyages de Polymnie. 

 Note. 



