Excerpt from The Water Lily: A Romantic Legend for Soli, Chorus and Orchestra
Some, perhaps, may object to this as a caricature, and say that only mechanical players transpose in this way, while all who have any ear for the inner spirit Of music transpose by mentally regarding each note as the first, fifth, seventh, &c., of the key. No doubt this is true. But we are now considering the Staff Notation merely as a picture of the keyboard, and if players choose to see beyond that picture, into key-relationship it is another matter, although doing so brings them very near to the Tonic Sol-fa system. By whatever mental process transposition at sight from the Staff Notation is accomplished, it gives trouble to the player. But what is the case with the singer? To him all keys are alike. The key of C is no more commonly used than F or D, and m point of convenience it is no more natural or easy than B. The process which the choir undergo in the case we have imagined is very different to that which the organist experiences. When he lowers the chant a semitone, few if any of the singers will notice it; they have no altered relationships of fingering or perpetual contradiction of signs, and they sing on as easily as before.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
