The National Register.
London, England, 1819-04-19 00:00:00

MONDAY, APRIL 19, 1819

MR. LOGIER'S SYSTEM.
This system of Instruction,s for some litassoecupied
the attention of the musical world in London, Dublin,
Edinburgh, and some of out principal provincial towns.
—As its pretensions are very lofty, its author
having distinctly announced it to be his intention " to
change the whole system of nossicel instruction," and as
it certainly has engaged the attention of some men of pro.
fessionsl eminence, it becomes the duty of those who feel
an interest in music to examine its pretensions. We m-
anioc the advantages which Mr. Logier or his disciples
have to offer, arc—a more ready acquisition of ninsical
knowledge, and a more correct and finished method of
fingering the piano-forte.. This be proposes to effect by
teaching in classes. With regard to piano forte playing,
any one who is at all conversant with the difficulties
attending the acquisition of a finished st le of performance,
must, we should think, be impressed with the impossibility
of acquit hie it by any other system than that of iudividnal
tuition. The requisites to make a god piano forte player
are so numerous, that, in our view of the subject,
they ate incommunicable by any other method. A dry,
dull, mechanical execution may be obtained by teaching
in classes, but the scholar will assuredly never go beyond
this. The din and discord of a dozen instruments are
completely incompatible with that delicacy ut touch and
expression which distinguish the true piano-forte player.
And what has Mr. Logier to offer which can counter.
balance this manifest disadvantage? Is his mode of fin-
gering more correct, or his touch more expressive, than
that of Cramer or Clementi? We presume not. At least
as far as we can judge by the performance of' his pupils,
we should say quite the reverse. Their playing is pre-
cisely what we should expect from the system by which
they have been taughtos hully mechanical and inexpressive.
But this system either has or pretends to have some mys-
tery, some secret, by the possession of which its author
thinks himself entitled to lay claim to the public atten-
tion, and for the communication of which he demands a
considerable sum. We hardly know which to despise the
most—the ignorance or the impudence of his claim. Who
is Mr. Logier? What is he? that he should thee exalt
himself above the 11105 l highly gifted musicians of the age?
Where are the proofs of his knowledge or the evidences
of his genies? We have sought for them in vain. We
know not of a single composition bearing his name. But
like all other quacks, he shroud. his ignorance under the
veil of mystery, and thus thinks to impose on the credulity
of' the multitude. To talk of mystery as connected with the
practice of music is manifestly aliurd. There are—there
can he no secrets in it. To obtain the perfect command of
any instrument requires patience and close attention, but
to imagine that there is any short road by which it can be
acquired; any 'met, which if once imparted, will enable
every pupil to start up • pesformer; is an absurdity too
gross fur the most implicit credulity to admit.
There is something very imposing, we admit, in this
public exhibition. A large and fashionable audience, and
a dozen pianolortes going at once, combine to give some
eclat to the system. The Clan era and the Clementis, must
toil on adapting their mode of instruction to the tem-
per and the ability of each pupil ; they have no reins.
biting scholars, no summoning together of the fashionable
world to witness the effects of their blot uctions, hot the
Logierian system is evidently one of display. Wherever
introduced, it has been accompanied wills this sort of
stage effect. It is merely the performance of a certain
set of lessons, expressly gut up for the occasion, and sipoi
the performance of which no ordinary degree of prepara-
tion bat, been employed.
These lessons, considered as specimens of composition,
are to the last degree contemptible, and we really 11111151
give the Logierian professors credit for no small degree
of awn afire in calling the world together to hear a dozen
children playing music about as difficult as the easiest va-
riations of PIIICEIVS Grounds. One advantage which Mr.
Logier says in his prospectus, will resnit from his sys-
tem of simultaneous instruction, ix too extraordinary to be
passed over in silence. "By the social practice," says
he," of teaching in (lessee, a continuality of intellect becomes
unequivocally established." This, in truth, is a discovery
so trenscentlantly surpassing any thing we ever heard or
read of in connection with the subject of education, that
Mr. Logier's mere musical pretensions sink into insignifi-
cance when compared with the power he possesses over
the intellect of his scholais. What a genius must he be,
who can unequivocally establish a constaubily of intellect
thronghosit Isis classes! One word more with Mr. Logier's
pialm-forte playlug, and we have douse. He 'immerses a
list of authors from whose writing' he purposes to instruct
his pupils, at the bead of whom stand Corelli and Handel,
both of whom happened to be dead long before the piano-
forte was invented, and the former of whose writings are
adapted exclusively for !towed instruments, and utterly
incapable of being played with any effect by the piano.
forte, Of Mozart's ninsic too, we fled Mr. Logier select
that which is the least adapted fur the instrument he ban
to teach.
The playing part of the exhibition is interspersed
with elucidation,' of the mode its which lie teaches music
as a science. We have seen some of his eehelars' books,
and so far from regarding Mr. Logier's sea osorg read to