Throughout his life, Mahler was profoundly influenced by Beethoven's music. Many of his symphonies are modelled on those of his predecessor, and as a conductor much of his reputation outside the opera house arose from his interpretations of Beethoven. Mahler considered performance of the Ninth Symphony to be particularly challenging and, like others before him, he prepared his own versions of the score in an attempt to overcome some of the interpretative difficulties. It is the purpose of this article to examine these revisions with particular reference to Mahler's own working scores.

In venturing to offer for your consideration a few thoughts on “Judgment and Taste with regard to Music,” I might almost take as my starting point, if not exactly as my motto, the words of the Laureate with regard, not to music, but to the spirit or tendency of the age generally:—

The term “Musical Exposition” may be taken to include all the various means adopted for representing to others the work of the musical brain, such as (1) The notation employed for representing it to the eye, and thus stereotyping it for common use; (2) The vocal or instrumental processes by which it is reproduced to the public ear, and eventually made to assume in the brain of the listener the shape in which it originally presented itself to the internal ear or musical imagination of the composer; and (3) The methods by which the arrangement and assortment of sounds which we call music—that manipulation, so to speak, of the elementary material at command which constitutes composition—is explained, justified, and taught to those who wish to learn it.

It is not generally realised how much Verdi suffered from atrocious productions of his early operas, how much he had this matter at heart in his middle years, nor what energetic measures he afterwards took to remedy things. At the beginning of his career scarcely any consideration was given in Italian theatres to dramatic effect. The opera existed for the singers; the singers themselves were convinced of this, and the public agreed with them. The composer had to adapt himself, and his work, to these conditions, and if he did not, then suitable adjustments were made by others for him.

There are periods in the history of music when the problems of musical form seem to have been solved once and for all. At such times, there are fixed formal schemes, there are species each of which has its average length, and with each of which the musical world of the particular time can associate something definite, familiar and often apparently unchangeable that has always been and always will be. With a perfectly safe tradition behind them, the composers of such a period see no need to strive for new and ever new forms, and are content to demand a certain amount of freedom or variety within the established tradition. Such a time was, for instance, the age of Mozart, Beethoven and the Romantics, which had its Sonata form with three or four movements each of which was a type that meant something more or less well known to everybody, which had also the Rondo form, Aria form, Opera and Lied form, and so on.

Orlando Gibbons was undoubtedly one of the greatest of English composers. Indeed, his music ranks among the finest written by any European composer of the day. His musical gifts received early recognition, and in 1605, at the age of twenty-one, he was appointed an organist of the Chapel Royal. John Bull and Edmund Hooper were among his colleagues. Doubtless, much of the organ music was written at this time, but since it is all stylistically mature it is impossible to date it accurately. However, some of the best keyboard music was included in Parthenia, and this dates from 1612–13. It is likely that much of the dance music—both for keyboard and for strings—was written after his appointment in 1619 as a musician of the Privy Chamber, for dancing was much in vogue at court and dance-music was enjoyed also in its own right. In 1623 Gibbons was appointed organist of Westminster Abbey, and two years later he died, at Canterbury.

When I chose the title of this paper, not without difficulty, some months ago, I had in mind only the unique nature of Domenico Scarlatti's keyboard compositions themselves, for my approach to this composer had always been musical rather than bibliographical or historical. I am, indeed, no bibliographer or historian, but merely a practical musician whose only qualification to speak on Scarlatti's works is that of having long known them fairly intimately with my fingers. I have played each one of the 550 Scarlatti pieces I possess several times, and a great many of them countless times, though never upon the type of instrument for which they were designed. To my infinite regret I am not a harpsichordist, but in playing my Scarlatti illustrations on the piano I am fortified by a remark made by our President at the first meeting of the Session, to the effect that in performing early music upon modern instruments, musicians were interpreting it as a living art.

Charles Villiers Stanford belongs to history.

He died on 29 March, 1924, a voluntary exile from his native country. For Dublin, city of bis birth, had what proved almost its last sight of him in 1870. It was the year in which he exchanged the Liffey for the Cam. Thereafter he crossed and re-crossed the Narrow Seas, searching the continent for stimuli his native city, for all its fantastically brilliant wit and fascinating society, could not provide.

Some three years ago I had the privilege of addressing the members of this Association on the subject of “Bells and Bell Tones.” On that occasion I dealt with the bell as a musical instrument, and the paper I am about to read on Carillons is nothing more or less than a further instalment of information respecting bells on the same lines. Those of you who are conversant with that lecture will the more readily understand some of the remarks I shall make with reference to the requisite conditions necessary to produce good tone and tune in bells. On this occasion my statements concerning some of their most important characteristics must of necessity be very brief. Any who so desire can find a fuller treatment of these characteristics in the lecture I have mentioned.

The Weimar republic was the outcome of the German Revolution of 1918–19, and the consequent abdication of the Kaiser. It was named after the city in which the first post-war parliament assembled. The choice of Goethe's home town was, of course, intended to have symbolic significance. On the one hand it implied a rejection of the Prussian militarist tradition centred on Berlin, while on the other it was a means of indicating a return to the values of German classical humanism. A corollary to this first session of a democratically elected parliament was the foundation in the same city of the great Bauhaus school. At least in theory, a link was established between constitutional and cultural life.

The study of liturgical organ music has often failed to take into adequate account its liturgical role. The following is an attempt to remedy this failure in respect of French classical organ music. It will reveal something of the nature and the extent of the use made of the organ in French churches and religious houses during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and thereby I hope create a perspective in which the extant literature of organ music of this period may be viewed. The essential nature of my inquiry is that it investigates the organ's role in the liturgy not primarily from the extant literature of organ music, but from the documents issued by the Church to regulate its role. Whilst these documents are prescriptive rather than descriptive, there can be no doubt that they reflect contemporary practices. Indeed, it is clear from a reading of some of them that prescription sprang directly from established usage. After reviewing the types of ecclesiastical legislation upon which we are dependent for our information, the main part of this article will be taken up by a close study of the role of the organ in various liturgical items belonging to the Mass and offices. A final section will discuss the alternation of polyphony with organ music.

Although our chief attention to-night is to be given to Purcell's Sonatas, I feel it would add to the interest of these illustrations if I asked you to listen to an earlier specimen of his writing for strings.

French Baroque composers, like their counterparts all over Europe, regarded the bass viol, the cello, the bassoon and, in some circumstances, the double bass as suitable sustaining continuo instruments. The choice of one or another, or a combination, depended no less upon circumstances than it did on the desire for a specific stylistic nuance or timbre. In this paper I propose to examine the evidence – in memoirs and other accounts, and in manuscript and printed scores – that documents the rise and decline of the bass viol and the emergence of the cello as a chamber music instrument. The nature of the musical evidence is often contradictory in itself, but ultimately it is indicative of a larger process, of which the use of the viol and the cello were a significant part: the assimilation of Italian genres into the French musical idiom.

Mr. Stephens.—Before the paper is read, I wish to make a few observations on the discussion which ensued on the very interesting paper which was read at the last meeting, On that occasion Mr. Whomes challenged the audience, and I accepted the challenge, to name the key of every piece that he played, the pianoforte being concealed from us. I put down on paper, and read afterwards, the key of every piece which he played, as they appeared to me at least, and the Chairman, who had sat at the pianoforte, came afterwards to the table and read out the key in which he had seen Mr. Whomes play. In every case the key in which Mr. Whomes had played on the pianoforte was a semitone higher than the one I had named. Now I am very anxious that any impression should be removed that I had been guilty of a failure on that occasion. It was simply that Mr. Whomes had, for the special purpose of his lecture, caused the pianoforte to be tuned a semitone lower; consequently, I was right in every instance, and Mr. Whomes has kindly come here on this occasion to corroborate what I say, and acknowledge that, for the purpose of his lecture, he was obliged to practise what, applied to my own particular case, would appear a deception, and he will acknowledge, I believe, that I was right in every instance as regards the true pitch, and when a selection from a Concerto of Beethoven in C minor was played, I said, not in C minor, but in B minor, and so it proved. After several of the audience were gone away, we compared the pianoforte with another one in the room, and found it was exactly what I have said, half a tone below pitch; therefore, whatever the position may be with regard to tone colourists, I wish to claim that I was in every instance correct in my judgment as to the key which was played.

The bicentenary of a major composer performs a variety of functions, some praiseworthy and rewarding, some trivial. First and foremost it is an occasion for reassessing his stature at the present time, and partly to this end it calls forth a vast number of performances of his music. Some of the performances are likely to be of unknown or little-performed works, and these, as well as the greater and more familiar pieces, are valuable material for making a second assessment of the composer, this time in relation to his contemporaries. It is from a study of that sort that we gain a surer picture of the circumstances that aided and that limited his achievement, and of the degree to which he was governed by the artistic conventions, habits and ideals of his age, even where he is recognized to have been at the same time the possessor of an original, indeed unique vision. But there is at least one more type of assessment that is surely appropriate to a bicentenary and not necessarily touched on by the other two: an assessment of his working methods. This is my justification for approaching a theme that might otherwise appear somewhat grandiose, namely a discussion of how Beethoven composed.

It has been said, with a great deal of truth, —and I think that few of those present will want to question the validity of the statement,—that a love of discussion is one of the most elementary and most permanent characteristics of the human race. It is, indeed, natural and right that our desire should be to exercise actively those gifts which have placed us above the lower animals; and the progress towards freedom of thought and conduct in all spheres, which is a mark of the English speaking races beyond others, is assuredly due to our highly-developed love of combat in word as well as in action. So true is this, that as a nation we are commonly accused of being willing, and even anxious, to maintain a position we have no belief in, provided only we can thereby provoke and sustain an argument.

The object of this paper is to bring before your notice the clavier or keyboard stringed instruments that preceded the pianoforte; to make it evident, by performance upon instruments of various kinds, wherein they differed from the pianoforte and from each other, and to show, as far as is in a short time possible, the historic development of composition for them and of the corresponding technique. The instruments shown, taken in the order of illustration, are an Italian trapeze-shaped spinet of sixteenth century model, an English transverse spinet of late seventeenth century; a Flemish double keyboard harpsichord, dated 1614; an English double keyboard harpsichord, dated 1771; and a German clavichord made about the middle of the last century. In order of invention the clavichord was first; it will be seen why I prefer to place it last in the historic order of illustration. The use of the spinet began about the year 1500; it was nearly contemporary in its start with the larger harpsichord, and both remained popular until nearly the close of the eighteenth century. Relatively they were met with much as grand and smaller pianos are met with now. As I have said, the clavichord or keyed monochord was invented and came into use earlier, and most likely in the fourteenth century—about the time of the composer Josquin des Près; but it was a pitch carrier or interval measurer only for a very long while, without the least suggestion of independent musical effect. The dawn of such effect in keyboard stringed instruments was due to the invention of the spinet jack, with its quill, or perhaps, at first, brass plectrum, and little cloth damper. This was in the last years of the fifteenth century. As far as we know, independent instrumental compositions or separate accompanying parts to the voices did not exist until about 1529; the keyboard instruments of all kinds and even the lute, viol, and psaltery, were treated as voices, and as such were submitted to the interweavings of contrapuntal ingenuity. When an instrumental treatment, as apart from vocal, arose, it was by grafting upon the counterpoint and canonical imitation, the devices of variation, a natural and world-wide tendency, accomplished chiefly by figuration and passages contrived to display executive skill. The great secular revolution which, following the invention of printing, ushered in the sixteenth century, brought about the recognition of the people's song and dance which the domination of church modes and school theories had hitherto kept out of notice. From this time came about, by degrees, the substitution of the major and minor scales for the ecclesiastical modes, helped no doubt by the facilities the keyboard instruments, including the organ, gave to the practice of harmony, upon which our modern European music rests.

To all concerned with the presentation of music the study of the audience is a matter of obvious moment. To executants and composers who wish to be heard it is vital.

A problem that continually makes its presence felt in the medieval field is that of the use of instruments in church. The sources of sacred music offer little internal evidence, and for a variety of reasons the evidence of the literary and visual arts must be treated with reserve. Many of us would now probably subscribe to F. Ll. Harrison's view that ‘… there is no evidence that any instruments but the organ were normally played in church. …’ It is with the exceptions implied by the word ‘normally’ that this paper is concerned. Documentary evidence shows that other instruments were indeed played in church—that has never been disputed. Granted that these occasions were in some way exceptional, we must set out to answer certain questions: in what circumstances were other instruments used ?—what instruments were involved?—and what traditions, if any, are represented by these apparently isolated occasions? It is the attempts to answer the last of these, especially, that have caused disagreement in the past.

‘Music in 18th-Ccntury Oxford’ perhaps most immediately evokes the names of Handel, Haydn and the Holywell Music Room. But these represent only part of a continuous tradition of music, richly cultivated in Oxford society and established as important in various aspects of Oxford life. The title of this paper might more accurately have been phrased ‘Music in the University of Oxford in the 18th Century’, although in fact, then as now, town and gown appear closely connected from a musical point of view. Music in a university context has received concentrated scholarly attention with regard to an earlier period, but there seems to be no equivalent study of post-Renaissance music from this particular angle. Nor does there appear to be any published survey of music in Oxford. Apparently no one has previously put together information on music in 18th-century Oxford, except, partially but most valuably, the Rev. J. H. Mee in his book on the Holywell Music Room, and Charles Abdy Williams, whose lists of musical degree-holders are complemented by general commentary on university music. In the New Grove article on Oxford, the period up to and including the 17th century, and the 19th and 20th centuries, are, quite rightly, treated to extended discussion; little, however, is said to link the 18th century historically with either of these periods. Yet it was in the 18th century that the outcome of those weekly music meetings which had begun at Oxford during the Commonwealth was seen in the Holywell concerts, and that an interest in early music, again traceable back to origins in the preceding century, developed in Oxford circles; and both of these, and other, aspects of music in Oxford were then taken up into various 19th-century developments.