air of the streets. The Italians are a plump race, with well-developed
muscles, and their vocal chords share in the general muscular health
and development; so that the average voice in Italy has a much wider
compass than in most other countries; and an unctuous ease of
execution is readily acquired. Their language, again, favors Italian
singers quite as much as their climate. It abounds in the most
sonorous of the vowels, while generally avoiding the difficult U, and
the mixed vowels Ö and Ü, as well as the harsh consonants, which are
almost always sacrificed to euphony. And where the language hesitates
to make this sacrifice, the vocalists come to the rescue and
facilitate matters by arbitrarily changing the difficult vowel or
consonant into an easy one. In this they are encouraged by the
teachers, who habitually neglect the less sonorous vowels and make
their pupils sing all their exercises on the easy vowel A. No wonder,
then, that the tones of an Italian singer commonly sound sweet: he
makes them up of nothing but pure sugar. Characterization, dramatic
effect, variety of emotional coloring, are all bartered away for
sensuous beauty of tone; and hence the distinctive name for Italian
singing--_bel canto_, or beautiful song--is very aptly chosen.

Now, sensuous beauty of tone is a most desirable thing in music.
Wagner's music, _e.g._, owes much of its tonic charm to his fine
instinct for sensuous orchestral coloring, and Chopin's works lose
half their characteristic beauty if played on a poor piano, or by one
who does not know how to use the pedal in such a way as to produce a
continuous stream of rich saturated sound. Hence the Italians deserve
full credit for the attention they bestow on sensuous beauty of tone,
even if their means of securing it may not always be approved. Nor
does this by any means exhaust the catalogue of Italian virtues. As a
rule, Italian singers have a better ear for pitch, breathe more