Hints for Pronunciation in Singing, with Proposals for a Self-Supporting
Academy. By Georgina Weldon. (Goddard and Co.)—Mrs. Weldon has a system of instruction superior, she assures us, to every other for the training and development of the voice ; but, as she frankly declines to reveal it, criticism must be silent. The testimonials she brings forward from such men as Gounod and Jules Benedict would be conclusive as to its value, if they did not leave it a little doubtful how far the results vouched for may be owing to skill in the teacher rather than to any marked peculiarity of method. This method Mrs. Weldon desires to try on a large scale by the establishment of a Musical Academy, in which pupils may be trained free of charge, on their entering into an agreement to repay the expanses of their education with more or less liberality, according to their after success in life. Mrs. Weldon's wider ambition of reforming the whole musical profession will not probably be realised, but the means she is taking are commendable, and her sincerity is tested by her submitting to the drudgery of personal teaching and to singing in public, in order to defray the cost of her infant academy. Her hints to singers are avowedly published by way of advertisement, but in bees of benefiting her readers, so it matters the less that after reading them we quite agree with her that it is not from a book that any art can bo learnt. Correct as we doubt not Mrs. Weldon's vocal pronunciation is, it has a strange and bewildering aspect under its given phonetic equivalents.
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