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Now for the other and brighter side of the picture. It is infinitely refreshing to note the highly vitalized, receptive, open-minded and impressionable mentality of the typical American audience. Hardly ever is to be seen a trace of that blasé, cynical element too often met with in the old world, and this notwithstanding the fact that the larger cities here are overwhelmed with musical events of every kind. As it is, seldom has the Conductor, Player, or Singer to face that most formidable of foes, "ennui" or indifference: and thank Heaven for this demonstration of America's fresh youth! So with the students as a body there is a young enthusiasm and zest, above all an unsparing endeavour to make the utmost of sometimes limited potentialities—often leading to quite amazing results-which have a most happy and rejuvenating effect on musical sojourners from older and more tired countries.

The more I proceed with the topic under discussion, the more apparent becomes the impossibility of attempting to separate the musical psychology of the nation, in certain respects, from its attributes in other directions. What, however, baffles the analyst is the incongruity of the so essentially objective, practical, definite mentality of this country, allied with an enthusiasm for an art in every way the antithesis of all the nation stands for in other ways. Music here, however, could never be defined as a false or simulated cult; the love of it along certain lines is whole-hearted and unstinted. Yet it is something not akin to that love of music existing in other nations, and the object of this article was to analyse those salient features in America's conception of the art which seem most to mark this peculiar and subtle divergency.

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THE FLUTE AND FLUTISTS IN THE FRENCH ART OF THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

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By LOUIS FLEURY

HOSE who visit the National Gallery in London have an opportunity of admiring an important French painting, in all respects worthy of the celebrated institution which harbors it, whose subject is one calculated to claim the attention of the historian as well as of the art lover. The work which we have in mind is the great quintuple picture by Hyacinthe Rigaud, which the author of the catalogue describes in the following terms:

ASCRIBED TO RIGAUD

2081. Lully and the Musicians of the French Court.
A 'cellist in grey, seated, left, full figure, looking
toward Lully who stands, right centre, in a brown per-
ruque, turning a leaf of the score- -on each side of him
a flutist, seated, in blue, drab and tabac-to the left
stands a fourth musician, in slate color, etc.

We shall not quarrel with the cataloguer with regard to his caution in merely attributing the picture to Rigaud, although the excellence of workmanship and the style of this canvas favor the theory that Rigaud painted it. The art is not our own, yet we would have appreciated the exercise of greater caution in the description of the personages represented, for the one given is full of mistakes. We are asked to accept the portrait as one of Lully flanked by two flutists. Now this person who is standing, turning over the pages of a score with his right hand and holding a species of baton in his left, is a third flutist. It is quite beyond dispute that it is a flute which rests upon the table, and not the baton of an orchestral conductor. It might be remarked, incidentally, that Lully never used a baton for conducting, but a large cane and it was while insistently beating time with this cane on the floor that he wounded his foot in such wise that blood-poisoning set in, of which he died.

The portion of a title which may be seen on the score reads: "Trio by M. Lab. . . Sonates pour flûte," and the date of the

costumes worn by the personages of the picture leads to the supposition that the standing flutist may be Michel de la Barre while the two others who are seated may be either the brothers Hotteterre or the brothers Piesche (the latter supposition having been advanced by M. de la Laurencie, of whose notable researches I have often availed myself in writing this study). An examination of the Picard engraving which serves as a frontispiece to Hotteterre's "Treatise," and which undoubtedly represents Jacques Hotteterre, inclines us to accept M. de la Laurencie's hypothesis. As to the violinist-for the instrument is unmistakably a viola da gamba and not a violoncello—it is generally admitted that he is the famous Antoine Forqueray (Senior). We refuse to believe, as certain commentators contend, that the person standing behind him is his son. It is positive that the latter, born in 1700, was still a mere child, an adolescent, at the time when this picture was painted.

Yet, aside from these considerations, this picture contains an element still more surprising for the music-lover of this day: and that is the make-up of the instrumental ensemble represented. The musicians have evidently gathered to give a concert. Now, are not three flutes out of proportion in a quintet? To the modern music-lover this is an unheard-of proportion. Three flutes—it is exactly that number of flute-stands which complete an orchestra of eighty musicians. And three flutes in chamber music are never heard in our day. When a composer introduces a novel element in a chamber music composition (which is easily enough discovered, for the case is rare), he usually does so with wise discretion.

Now this abundance of flutists in the orchestra was something altogether natural in Lully's time, and even in the times of Hyacinthe Rigaud, who survived Lully by a matter of some fiftysix years. The orchestra, much smaller and much less varied than our own, comprised a large proportion of wind instruments, and the flutes played an important part in it. In chamber music we find flute sonatas for two, three and four parts common, and until well into the eighteenth century the flute was employed much more often than the violin. Now, from the end of the eighteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, the flute above all others was the noble instrument, the instrument preferred by music-lovers, especially among the aristocracy, and even by princes. The virtuoso flutists of the day occupied a position equal if not superior to that of the contemporary clavecinists and, especially, the violinists. The reasons for this superiority

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