He proposed that, for people living in cities of from three
to twenty thousand inhabitants, there should be organized "a Nonette Club,
consisting of himself for flute, oboe, clarionet, bassoon, and French horn,
and a string quartette. This club would travel through the smaller cities,
performing original compositions as well as excerpts from
the greatest symphonic orchestral works, and thus educating the masses
to an understanding of orchestral tonal color, and the relations,
in an analytical form, which the wood wind instruments
bore to the stringed family. . . . It was his purpose,
after each movement of a composition, to lecture on the same,
with special reference to the function performed by each instrument,
and in the formation of harmonious tonal color."*
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* Letter from Mr. F. H. Gottlieb to the author.
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While Lanier was giving his time to the perfection of his flute-playing and to
the study of the orchestra, he became interested in the science of music.
Helmholtz's recent discoveries in acoustics inspired him to make research
in that direction. He ransacked the Peabody Library for books on the subject,
many of them yet not unpacked.
While few people ever appreciated more the art of music and its spiritual
message to men, he realized that there was a science of music as well,
"embodying a great number of classified facts, and presenting a great number
of scientific laws which are as thoroughly recognized among musicians
as are the laws of any other sciences among their professors.
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