[To TRH EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."] SIE,—The very interesting
article which appeared under the above heading in the Spectator of June 21st rouses me to one protest —viz., that it is not exclusively "the highly trained musician" or "the highly specialised musical temperament" which finds in instrumental (pre-eminently in stringed) music a superiority, axiomatic as generic, over " that emitted by, the human larynx." As in no sense a " trained musician " (still less a " highly trained " one); and also as a person in no way of " highly specialised musical temperament," I can testify to the existence in myself of an absolutely instinctive preference, in- born as ingrained—in the first place, for the music of .stringed over that of wind instruments ; and in the second, for that of either of these two kinds over that of the human voice. Of course, I need hardly say that I here refer to the best of in- strumental, as compared with the best of vocal, music. Distinct inferiority of relative goodness,' in its kind, in the case of any particular example of the former species may sway the balance of my appreciation" in favour of a (relative) great superiority on the part of some specimen 'of the latter. But that an emphatic preference for the former of these kinds, as a whole, over the latter may be wholly instinctive- i.e., anterior to any sort of musical training—the experiences of my own childhood can testify. Indeed, save for the exist- ence of instrumental music, I do not think I could ever have surmounted the extreme, the shuddering aversion to music (an aversion as remote as the most passionate apprecia- tion could be from insensibility, or " tone-deafness ") which I remember on more than one occasion, between the ages of seven and nine, positively driving me out of a room where sing- ing was going on ; indeed, reducing me to a state of almost physical terror. (I wonder, by the way, if this was so purely an individual bit of psychological experience as I have often been tempted to suppose it.) In any case, it was (exclusively) in- strumental music, more particularly that of the violin, which effected my musical " new-birth " or " conversion." But the violin itself proved but the " schoolmaster, to bring me to " an appreciation of that supreme monarch of instruments, the violoncello.—Trusting that the possibly individual nature of my experience may prove my excuse for trespassing on your
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