506 Prof. A. M. Mayer's Researches in Acoustics. 



ranged as they always are close around him, and did not per- 

 ceive that his clarinets had lost that quality of tone on which 

 the composer had relied for producing a special character of 

 expression. 



The function of the conductor of an orchestra seems to he 

 threefold. First, to regulate and fix the time. Secondly, to 

 regulate the intensity of the sounds produced hy the indi- 

 vidual instruments, for the purpose of expression. Thirdly, 

 to give the proper quality of tone or feeling to the whole 

 sound of his orchestra, considered as a single instrument, by 

 regulating the relative intensities of the sounds produced by 

 the various classes of instruments employed. Now this third 

 function, the regulation of relative intensities, has hitherto 

 been discharged through the judgment of the ears of a con- 

 ductor who is placed in the most disadvantageous position for 

 judging by his ears. Surely he is not conducting for his own 

 personal gratification, but for the gratification of his audience, 

 whose ears stand in very different relations from his own in 

 respect of their distance from the various instruments in 

 action. Is it not time that he should pay more attention to 

 his third function, and place himself in the position occupied 

 by an average hearer ? This position would be elevated, and 

 somewhere in the midst of the audience. The exact deter- 

 mination of its place would depend on various conditions 

 w r hich cannot now be considered. That the position at pre- 

 sent occupied by the conductor of an orchestra has often 

 allowed him to deprive his audience of some of the most 

 delicate and touching qualities of orchestral and concerted 

 vocal music I have no doubt, and I firmly believe that when 

 he changes his position in the manner now proposed, the 

 audience will have some of that enjoyment which he has too 

 long kept to himself. During the past winter, in the Aca- 

 demy of Music at New York, and this spring at Offenbach's 

 concerts, I fully confirmed all the foregoing surmises, by 

 placing myself in different parts of the house to observe the 

 different results; and my opinions were fully shared by others 

 who have a more delicate musical organization than I can lay 

 claim to. 



In large orchestras these interferences of sonorous sensa- 

 tions are so multiplied and various as to be beyond our mental 

 conception. By taking them up in detail, however, some 

 general laws may be evolved. But it will be impossible to for- 

 mulate such laws until, first, we are in possession of a 

 quantitative analysis of the compound tones of all musical 

 instruments (that is, until we know the relative loudness of 

 the partial tones of which they are composed at all parts of 



