Ladies and Gentlemen,—Before beginning my paper I wish to preface it with a few remarks as to its title. Some of our professors of harmony may doubtless—through misunderstanding that title—have thought that I was casting a slight on their ability to teach. If any did think so, let me hasten to say that any such idea was absolutely groundless, and entirely foreign from my meaning. As you all know, on the title everything depends. We musicians are but mortals, and unless our attention is arrested by something startling, we are apt to pass a matter over as commonplace.

The Movable Do ! Words pregnant with meaning, instinct with reality to the musician ! The text of the sermons in sounds expounding the universal message which the world calls music.

It is my duty to commence this lecture with a twofold apology or explanation, if you prefer to call it so.

In the first place I would allow myself the usual privilege of construing the term Eighteenth Century in an elastic sense; in the second place I am bound to admit that in many cases it is all but impossible to give a date, even approximately, to some songs to which your attention is to be directed to-day. One may look through numbers of these “broadsides,” or leaflets, and find that not only are composers' and publishers' names wanting, but that the date and price are very seldom given.

Ladies and Gentlemen,—I think I should begin by saying that nowhere in the whole range of music is there a collection of pieces standing on a level with John Sebastian Bach's “Forty-eight Preludes and Fugues.” Through the splendid efforts of the elder Wesley, who lost no opportunity of playing these Fugues both in public and private, and who was continually speaking and writing of them in terms of the highest admiration, these—the Fugues—have now-a-days become well-known. The same cannot be said of the Preludes, though they are quite as wonderful, more brilliant in conception, and the fineness of the workmanship in many of them of the very highest possible order.

Under the title of the “Triune Element in Beethoven” I propose to bring before your notice a certain feature of construction pervading his pianoforte sonatas. This feature consists in the occurrence three times in succession of a sentence or part of a sentence, or merely of a rhythm, figure, or some other fragment of a musical idea. The way in which I became conscious of it may not be without significance in estimating its true nature. Generally, a discovery of any peculiarity of musical construction is the result of analysis. But in this instance it was not so revealed. It came quite unsought. It merely dawned upon me as I played when my thoughts were far enough from anything pertaining to mere form. I mention this fact because it somewhat confirms mein my opinion that this three-fold repetition is not merely a matter of form, but of the essence of the thought, and further that it is not a mere characteristic of style, but an index of the mind. While this feature occurs so frequently in the pianoforte sonatas of Beethoven as to invest it with more or less significance, it is noticeable that it is only to be found to a very limited extent in the compositions of other great composers; and even where it does occur in them it rarely, and I think I may say never, possesses that logical force and that organic development that raise it in Beethoven's works from a dead form into a vital principle. This three-fold repetition would, therefore, appear in this higher sense as a characteristic peculiar to the great master.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies, and Gentlemen,—By the courtesy of your Council, I have the pleasure to bring under your notice the latest development of my Staff Notation Tonal Modulator:— an original invention of mine worked out for the most part several years ago, though only protected and brought out in its present form within the last few months.

In studying the characteristics of a people's native music, some preliminary considerations necessarily claim our attention. First, it is of interest to ascertain by what means or through what channels the particular music in question came to be known and practised as an art of sufficiently distinctive qualifications as to claim comparison with the music of other countries; secondly, we like to inquire, especially with the aid of such literature on the subject that may be extant, what are the internal and external evidences that exist with regard to the power and influence of that music; and then alone can we turn to an analysis of the music itself, noting its peculiar forms of structure—accounting for same when possible—and contrasting the artistic and emotional effects obtained with those general musical traits with which we are already familiar.

The Masque of the English Court in the seventeenth century was the vigorous and richly endowed descendant of a long line of gradually developing progenitors.

Both Italy and England had their share in the nurture and improvement of this species of entertainment; its origin and earlier cultivation belonging to Italy, and its final and most successful elaboration to our own country.

Before speaking of the music of the Queen's reign, it may be well to produce some account of it when our beloved Queen was a girl: and here we can fortunately produce the testimony of a competent authority, Thomas Oliphant, commonly known as Tommy Oliphant, the genial and accomplished secretary of the Madrigal Society. He was born in 1799 and died in 1873, and although an amateur, cultivated music with an ardour and enthusiasm not always found, even amongst professional musicians. He sang bass in the chorus at the great Musical Festival held in Westminster Abbey in June and July, 1834. The Princess Victoria was then fifteen years of age.