Spanish or Negro folksongs with an equalized scale. Almost all folk-music, indeed, exacts a vocal method of its interpreter quite distinct from that demanded by the art-song.
We are aware at last that true beauty lies deeper than in the emission of perfect tones. Beauty lurks in truth and expressiveness. The new art of the singer should develop to the highest degree the significance of the text. Calvé once said that she did not become a real artist until she forgot that she had a beautiful voice and thought only of the proper expression the music demanded.
Of the old method of singing we may be sure of the persistence of only one quality in the late twentieth century, and that is style. The performance of any kind of music demands a knowledge of and a feeling for its style, but style is about the last thing that a singer ever studies. When, however, you find a singer who understands style, there you have an artist.
Style is the quality which endures long after the singer has lost the power to produce a pure tone or to contrive accurate phrasing, the quality that makes it possible for an artist to hold his place on the stage long after his voice has become partially defective or, indeed, has actually departed. It is a knowledge of style that ac-
