Note 366 — Chapter II · THE ARTIST IN THEORY (continued 2)

Much of his laborious insistence on the proper relation between word and tone was due to the disregard of any coincidence between verbal and musical accents in most of the German opera texts and translations of his time, and to the bad enunciation of so many of the singers. He was still complaining of this latter—"the chaotic vocal style of our singers"—in 1879. See Über das Opern-Dichten und Komponieren im Besonderen, in G.S., x. 166.