Singer's Pilgrimage. By Blanche Marchesi. (Richards. 18a.) Most well-known singers
who condescend to write books provide us with a cloying record of floral tributes, prolonged applause, and royal compliments, with an occasional minor mishap thrown in as comic relief. Madame Marchesi, however, not only takes her work, both as a singer and a teacher, seriously, but gives us a volume of reminiscences that clearly reflects her serious interest. Her first few chapters are devoted to singing masters, the Garcias and others ; after that she plunges into reminiscence and takes us into some very 'good company indeed ; but before she has finished she is back again to the subject of teaching, of style in song, of methods, and so forth. She has a most entertaining chapter—enter- taining, at least, to those who have no immediate interest in voice production—on some of the quack methods of singing masters. We learn about those masters who make their pupils put wire cages in their mouths, who make them hang pieces of lead on their tongues, who make their pupils lie on the floor and do breathing exercises, who teach that sound has to be produced through the eyes, who sell Italian water in bottles because the voice in Italy is good owing to the quality of the water, who sell, for five shillings, tubes of compressed Italian air, who make their pupils expectorate before attacking a note—a German method, this last. No profession has more absurd quackery to show, and it is to be hoped that such a book as this, by a serious artist, will fall into the hands of every aspiring young singer and make her (it is generally a "her ") consider the quality of the musical instruction she is receiving. As for the general reader, who does not care how singing is taught, he can find entertainment in Madame Marchesi's chapters of reminiscence.
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