The general public are becoming educated in music and are beginning to
realise that shouting two or three high-pitched chest notes does not
constitute dramatic singing--"a short _beau moment_ does not compensate for
a _mauvais quart d'heure_." It would be hard to describe or define the
qualities that make a voice appeal to the multitude. Different singers with
a similar timbre of voice and register may sing the same song correctly in
time, rhythm, and phrasing, and yet only one of them may produce that
sympathetic quality necessary to awaken not only the intellectual but the
affective side of the mind of the hearers. Undoubtedly the effects produced
upon the mind by dramatic song largely depend upon circumstances and
surroundings, also upon the association of ideas. Thus I was never more
stirred emotionally by the human voice than upon hearing a mad Frenchman
sing at my request the Marseillaise. Previously, when talking to him his
eyes had lacked lustre and his physiognomy was expressionless; but when
this broad-chested, six foot, burly, black-bearded maniac rolled out in a
magnificent full-chested baritone voice the song that has stirred the
emotions and passions of millions to their deepest depth, and aroused in
some hope, in others despair, as he made the building ring with "Aux armes,
citoyens, formez vos bataillons" I felt an emotional thrill down the spine
and a gulp in the throat, while the heart and respirations for an instant
stayed in their rhythmical course.
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