THE first impulse, in answering such a question as Mr. Latham here puts forward, is to say ' A song with an essentially good tune.' But a song, we are beginning to learn, consists of words as well as music ; and the tendency more and more is to demand that a song, before we can call it ' good,' shall consist of words and music beautifully wedded. That is why, increasingly, the accompanist is becoming more and more important where the singing of modern songs is concerned. Song, however, covers such a multitudinous field-from aria to lied, from ballad to artsong—that it will be interesting to see what Mr. Latham, in his two talks, of which the present is the first, will arrive at as his ' highest common factor' of goodness in this connection.