The youthful essayist repeats a good deal of this, with additions, in an article entitled _Pasticcio_, published in the _Neue Zeitschrift für Musik_ in November of the same year, under the pseudonym of "Canto Spianato."[293] He is greatly concerned at the deplorable fact that there are hardly a couple of dozen well-trained singers in Germany. "Nowadays one hardly ever hears a really beautiful and technically perfect _trillo_; very rarely flawless mordents; very seldom a rounded _coloratura_, a genuine unaffected, soul-moving _portamento_, a perfect equalisation of the registers, and absolute maintenance of the intonation through all the various nuances of crescendo and diminuendo. Most singers, as soon as they attempt the noble art of _portamento_, get out of tune; and the public, accustomed to imperfect execution, overlooks the defects of the singer if only he is a capable actor and knows the routine of the stage."
Nor do our German composers know how to write for the voice; they are like bunglers who presume to orchestrate without having studied the peculiarities of the clarinet, say, as distinct from those of the pianoforte. "Most of our modern German vocal composers appear to regard the voice as merely a part of the instrumental mass, and misapprehend the true nature of Song. Our worthy opera-composers," in fact, "must take lessons in the good Italian cantabile style, taking care to steer clear of its modern excrescences, and, with their superior artistic capacity, give us something good in a good style. Then will vocal art bloom anew; then some day will a man come who in this good style shall re-establish on the stage the broken unity of Poetry and Song." He argues with portentous seriousness for ornate as well as simple Song; and ends with a claim that poetry is the only basis of opera,--poetry, of which words and tones are merely the expression. "The majority of our operas are merely a string of musical numbers without any psychological connection; our singers have been degraded into musical-boxes, set to a certain number of tunes, brought on to the stage, and started by a wave of the conductor's baton." Once more he lays it down that "he will be the master who writes neither Italian nor French--nor even German," and concludes thus: "But would you inspire, purify, and train yourselves by models, would you create living shapes in music, then combine, for example, Gluck's masterly declamation and dramatic power with Mozart's varied art of melody, _ensemble_ and orchestration, and you will produce dramatic works that will satisfy the strictest criticism."[294]