Year: 1877

is it that our musical sensations are diff ferent in small rooms and in large ones, or, to speak more closely, why the rela- tions between the volume of sound and the space to be filled must be suitable in order to produce the right effect.

 I can sit close to piano and listen to ''Lied ohne Worte.'' I can take in every infection of touch with ease, not arefinement is lost, but if go to the end of long room, the impact is less direct, the pleasure is less intense; the player must then exaggerate all his effects, hence a loss of refinement and ease. Public players and singers constantly make shipwrecks thus in private rooms. Accustomed to vast spaces, they roar and bang until the audience is deaf, and the only reason why they unknow- ingly applaud on such occasions, and the only difference, as far as they are concerned, between the professional and the amateur, is simply that the first is so much louder than the second. This makes them clap their hands and cry "bravow But in reality they are applauding a defect.

 The only musical sounds which really master vast spaces like the Albert Hall are those of mighty organ or an im- mense chorus. The Handel Festival choruses are fairly proportioned to the Crystal Palace, but on one occasion, when terrific storw burst over Syden- ham in the midst of "Israel in Egypt" " every one beneath that crystal dome felt that, acoustically, the peal of thunder was very superior to the whole power of the chorus, because the rela tion between the space to be filled and the volume of sound required to fill it was in better proportion.

 But there is still something which has not yet been said for small sounds in large places. Transport yourself in imagination to the Albert Hall on some night when, as is usually the case, there is but a scanty orchestra, and presently new mystery of sound will reveal itself to you. Atfirst you will be disappointed. Any one can hear that the hall is not properly occupied by the sound the violins should be trebled at least, several of the wind instruments doubled, &c. You think you will not listen to this charming E flat symphony of Mozart; you cannot help thinking that you lose delicate infection here, staccato there, a flute tone, a pianissi- mo on the drum, or a whole piece of counter melody, owing to the scattered conditions of isolated vibrations lost in space.

 But you have still something to learn, something like a new musical truth, which few people seem yet to have mo- ticed. Listen! The sounds from the band reach you too late perhaps. They are not simultaneous; the impact on the ear is somewhat feeble; you must even strain attentively to catch what is pas sing, but the more you do so the easier it becomes, just as the eye, in looking through a lens, may see all dim, but gaze on until the objects become sharp and clear. The nerves of the eye have adapted themselves to the new condi. tion; the longer you look the better you see. So in these vast uncomforta- ble spaces, the longer you listen the better you hear. A certain special training is required, and then gradu- ally a new quality is perceived-we must give the process new name "sound filtering." The Albert Hal and the Crystal Palace are great sound filters. From this point of view, which it requires some delicate and attentive ear-culture to appreciate, new delights are born from the defective space, con ditions usually complained of. I have heard the voice of Madame Lemmens. Sherrington in the extreme distance al the Crystal Palace, when she was ex- erting herself to the utmost, and il sounded like voice from heaven, full of unearthly, far-away sweetness; the same intensity and volume in small room would have been intolerable. have heard Bottessini on the double bass in the open air with similar effect

 Listen to an orchestra or quartet however fine, in a moderate-sized room there is the cat-gut, the resin, the scrape, the bite of horsehair on strings the earthly cannot be completely go rid of; but space will filter all that, ant leave nothing but kind of spiritua disembodied sound, like the tones O. those plugged pipes in the organ tha seem to steal out of some remote cloud land with a certain yelled sweetness! that makes us hold our breath.

 Since I have learned to listen to thes, peculiar effects in all their strange gra datioDs, new class of musical impress ions has been revealed to me, and have become much reconciled to hear ing music in vast spaces. I do not gt there for the kind of normal impress ions, for the direct study, for tn, strong. immediate impact gained iron music in a moderately-sized room lose much of all that-but gain mum Der of new abnormal effects, whicf also have power over certain hidder depths and distant fastnesses of thu emotional region.-Good Words.

 -Dr. William Harvey, the originato of the Banting cure, died recently il London. The Banting cure received it name from it's first patient, who wa ? the undertaken to the royal family o