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TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 667 



obsen-ed to occur amongst tlie wliole population of males in Iviigland and Wales. 

 From 61 to G5 tliey are apparently slightly less, and also slightly less from 66 to 

 the extremity of lite. 



Confining the observations to the mortality per cent, amongst the deceased lives 

 only, the results are considerably in excess of those applicable to the whole 736 

 persons. Probably the literal truth lies between the columns indicating the results 

 in each case. 



The paper passes on to discuss the influence of heredity in the production of 

 musicians, and this is manifest to a very great extent. Thus, in the cases of Bach, 

 Beethoven, Bellini, Cherubini, Gounod, Haydn, and others, the influence of heredity 

 is apparent. 



A curious circumstance comes out in the extreme paucity of female composers. 

 Amongst the number of female singers the great names of Alboni, Catalani, Grisi, 

 Lind, Lucca, Nilsson, Patti, Sontag, and Tietjens are included, while only four are 

 even indicated as composers. Of these the most remarkable in point of versatility is 

 undoubtedly Madame Viardot Garcia, born in Paris in 18:21, but of direct Spanish 

 extraction, and sister of the famous Malibran, whose family for a hundred years has 

 been musical. And here it may be stated that the ages of living jn-ime donne are 

 given in the records with an almost ruthless fidelitj'. But it is not of course 

 sought to enlarge on that delicate point. 



An attempt is made to indicate the nationality and race of musicians, by classi- 

 fying the whole number under ditferent nationalities, and also by classifying the 

 published musical dictionaries up to the present time. 35 per cent, of the whole 

 number of musicians are from Germany ; 15 per cent, from Italy ; 11 per cent, from 

 France; 10 per cent, from Austria-Hungary, of whom the great majority are 

 German-speaking; and 18 per cent, from Great Britain and Ireland. As to dic- 

 tionaries, according to Grove and others, from 30 to 40 have been published up to 

 the present time. 38 per cent, are in German, 24 per cent, in French, and 15 per 

 cent, in English, while only about 6 per cent, are Italian. The apparent superiority 

 of England to Italy and France in the production of musicians and musical dic- 

 tionaries is explained. The general conclusion under this particular head is, that 

 the ranks of modern musicians have been recruited mainly from the German or 

 Teutonic stock, that portion of the Japetic or Indo-European branch of the human 

 family whose descendants, according to Pritchard and other authorities, reached 

 Europe by way of Turkestan, the Euxine, and the mouths of the Danube; that, 

 next to the Germanic, come the Latin races ; and that, finallj-, we have the Celts and 

 the Sclaves, each of which race has contributed, though in considerably diminished 

 mimbers, its quota to the ranks of musicians. 



The general result of the whole investigation is, that while the tables indicating 

 the mortality of musicians are interesting as a guide to information on the subject, 

 the facts under observation are too few to justify absolute conclusions as to the 

 mortality at the earlier ages, or to enable tlie tables to be used without other aids 

 for the computation of financial values applicable to musicians. It is clear, how- 

 ever, that musicians in many instances live to a great age. Thus among fiimous de- 

 ceased octogenarians wc find the illustrious names of Auber, 87 ; our own Braham, 

 82 ; Cherubini, 82 ; and Cramer, 87 ; while Sir George Smart lived to 91 ; Sir John 

 Goss having onlj^ recently died at 80. There are about half a dozen living octo- 

 genarian musicians of note, chiefly resident in Germany. On the other hand, 

 among musicians who died comparatively J'oung we find the names of Beethoven, 

 who died at 57 ; Bellini at 34 ; Bizet at 37 ; Chopin at 40 ; Cimorosa at 52 ; Fanny 

 Hensel at 41 ; Herold at 42 ; Mendelssohn, 38 : Schubert at 31 ; Schumann at 46 ; 

 Thalberg at 59 ; Vincent Wallace at 47 ; and Weber at 46. 



An attempt is made to classify musicians according to the specialty of each. It 

 is found that 27 per cent, of the whole number are returned in the records as com- 

 posers pure and simple ; 37 per cent, as composers and instrumentalists ; while about 

 7 per cent, are vocalists pure and simple. 



The memoir has a very wide range, and a great n^unber of authorities are 

 quoted, from the ' Rig Yeda ' downwards. 



