Chopin and Other Musical Essays

GERMAN VOC

shades of tone on his instrument, yet every instrument has a well-defined characteristic timbre, which justifies us in speaking, for instance, of the majestic, solemn trombone, the serene flute, the amorous violoncello, the lugubrious bassoon, and so on. The human voice, on the other hand, is much less limited in its powers of tonal and emotional coloring. It is not dependent for its resonance on a rigid tube, like the flute, or an unchangeable sounding-board, like

eded by an instrumental era, in which the voice merely plays the part of the second fiddle and is maltreated by composers, who do not understand its real nature. So far is this opinion from the truth that it must be said,

indefinite. A piece of instrumental music can express an eager, passionate yearning for something, but it cannot tell what that something is-whether it is the ardent longing of an absent lover, or the heavenward aspiration of a religious enthusiast. The vo

considered of secondary importance in practice, until Gluck and Schubert laid the foundations for a new style, in which the distinctively vocal side of singing has gradua

hts and being understood. Now, the modern opera, which was originated about three hundred years ago by a number of Florentine amateurs, although it sprang from a desire to revive the ancient Greek drama, in which music was united with poetry, represents at the same time a reaction against this unintelligible Netherland style. The new opera at first went to the opposite extreme, making the distinct declamation of the text its principal object and neglecting vocal ornament

s, could not ward off a second reaction, in favor of song pure and simple, which set in with Scarlatti, the founder of the Neapolitan school, whose first opera was produced a little over two centuries ago. From this time dates the supremacy, in Italy, of the bel canto, or beautiful song, which, howe

species of fioriture, or vocal somersaults, were introduced in every song, in such profusion that the song itself was at last barely recognizable; and this kind of stuff the audiences of that time applauded frantically. Everybody has heard of the vulgar circus tricks performed by the most famous of the sopranists, Farinelli-how at one time he beat a famous German trumpeter in prolonging and swelling his notes, and how, at another time, he began an ari

ught to breathe a spirit of melancholy, appear to have been especially selected as background for these vocal fireworks. I need not dwell on the unnaturalness of this style. To ru

troduce many reforms in Italian opera. He enriched the orchestral accompaniments, removed some of the superfluous arias, and for the first time wrote leading solo parts for the bass-an innovation for which he was violently attacked, on the ludicrous conservative ground that the bass could only be properly used as a basis of harmonies. But Rossini's greatest merit lies in this, that he refused to write for the sopranists, and would not even let them sing in those of his operas which were brought out under his own supervision. Furthermore, to prevent the singers from spoiling his melodies with their florid additions, "he supplied his own decorations, and made them so elaborate that the most skill

f execution; consequently sensuous beauty of tone and facility of execution were almost the only things that the teachers aimed at. This is illustrated by an anecdote concerning the famous teacher Porpora and his pupil Caffarelli, which, although doubtless exaggerated,

ument, as it were, with which the singer must subsequently learn the higher arts of expressing human emotions in tones,

terest beyond the surprise that their exact performance would create." People did not ask themselves whether it was worth while for singers to go through the most arduous training for five years, for the sake of learning to execute runs which any fiddler or flute-player could learn to play in a few weeks. Look at the fioriture which, to this day, Mme. Patti sings in "Lucia," "Semiramide," etc. She is the only living being who can sing them with absolute correctness and smoothness. Not another singer can do it-wh

ntabile means "song-like." But now, note how the sins of one period are visited on the next. The evils of the florid style did not terminate with its supremacy. They cast a shadow before, which prevented the real nature of human song from being discovered even after the vocal style had become more simple and rational. During the period in which the vocalists were in the habit of singing from a dozen to a hundred or more notes to a single syllable of the text, they, as well as the public, had become so indifferent to the words and th

rs and Italian teachers were masters of the situation to the exclusion of all others. And the habit thus contracted of hearing and admiring compositions in a foreign and unknown tongue, engendered in the English public a lamentable indifference to the words of songs, which reacted with evil effect both on the composer and the singer.

which has so little regard for the distinctively vocal side of singing, is the only true method for the voice. It is time to call a halt in this matter, time to ask if the Italian method is really the one best adapted for teaching pupils to sing in English. That it is the best and only method for singing in Italian,

talian and German singers, has its dark and its bright side, and that the cosmopolitan American style of the future ought to try to combine the advant

a much wider compass than in most other countries; and an unctuous ease of execution is readily acquired. Their language, again, favors Italian singers quite as much as their climate. It abounds in the most sonorous of the vowels, while generally avoiding the difficult U, and the mixed vowels ? and ü, as well as the harsh consonants, which are almost always sacrificed to euphony. And where the language hesitates to make this sacrifice, the vocalists come to the rescue and facilitate matters by arbitrarily changing the difficult

not always be approved. Nor does this by any means exhaust the catalogue of Italian virtues. As a rule, Italian singers have a better ear for pitch, breathe more naturally, and execute more easily than German and French singers, whose guttural and nasal sounds they also avoid. The difference between the average Italian and German singers is well brought out by Dr. Hanslick, in speaking of the Italian performances which formerly used to alternate with the German operas in Vienna: "Most of our Italian guests

st perfect vocalist, not only of this period, but of all times. I, for my part, have never cared much for the bel canto as such, because it is so often wasted on trashy compositions. Yet, when I heard Mme. Patti for the first time in New York, I could not help indulging in the following rhapsody: "The ordinary epithets applicable to a voice, such as sweet, sympathetic, flexible, expressive, sound almost too commonplace to be applied to Patti's voice at its best, as it was when she sang the valse Ombra Leggiera from 'Dinora,' and 'Home, Sweet Home.' Her voice has a natural sensuous charm like a Cremona violin, which it is a pleasure to listen to, irrespective of what she happens to be singing. It is a pleasure, too, to he

me time, she has shown more and more anxiety to win laurels as a dramatic singer. But here the vocal style which she has exclusively cultivated has proved an insuperable obstacle. Although free from the smaller vices of the Italian school, she could not overcome the great and fatal shortcoming of that school-the maltreatment of the poetic text. She could not find the proper accents required in operas where the words of the text are as important as the melody itself; and she has failed therefore to give satisfaction even in such works as "Faust" and "A?da," which are intermediate between the old-fashioned opera and the music-drama proper. I have been often surprised to hear how

ough Lilli Lehmann's voice is almost as mellow in timbre as Patti's, and much richer and warmer, we never think of it as a bird-like or vague instrumental tone, but as a medium for the expression of de

chool was so predominant that German composers of the first rank-Gluck, Weber, and Beethoven-found it difficult to assert their influence against it. In Vienna, during the season of 1823, the Rossini furore was so great that none but Rossini's operas were sung; and in Germany almost everyone of the three dozen big and little potentates

ew composers who, instead of stooping down to the crude taste of the fioriture-loving public, elevated that taste until it was able to appreciate the poetic and dramatic side of music; a

en Luther compared the singing in cathedrals and monasteries at his time to the "braying of asses." At a more recent period, Frederick the Great, on hearing of the proposed engagement of a German singer, exclaimed: "What! hear a German singer! I should as soon expect to derive pleasure from the neighing of my horse!" Beethoven knew that the chief reason why he could not compete with Rossini on the stage was the lack of good German singers. He often la

lle. Lind, who is almost a German, and many others, do not form magnificent exceptions; but, upon the whole, German vocalists sing, and do not howl; the screaming school is not theirs; they make music." Nevertheless, about the same time, Liszt complained that a perfect training of the voice such as he admired in Viardot Garcia, had almost becom

erman teachers have tried to adapt the voices of their pupils to the Italian canto, which is incompatible with the German language. "Hitherto," he says in another place, "the voice has been trained exclusively after the model of Italian songs; there was no other. But the character of Italian songs was determined by the general spirit of Italian music, which, in the time of its full bloom, was best exemplified by the sopranists, because the aim of this music was mere enjoyment of the senses, without any regard for genuine depth of feeling-as is also shown by the fact that the voice of young manhood, the tenor voice, was hardly used at all at this period, and later

, breathing, or phrasing, have often sufficed to show to a singer that a passage which he had considered unsingable, was really the easiest thing in the world, if only the poetic sense were properly grasped and the breath economized. It is difficult to realize how much of their art and popularity the greatest dramatic singers of the period owe to Wagner's personal instruction. Materna, Malten, Brandt, Tichatschek, Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Niemann, Vogl, Winkelmann, Betz, Scaria, Reichmann, and many others have had the benefit of his advice; and if Wagner could have carried out

mand to-day is for dramatic, and not for lyric, singers. Formerly, it was the bravura singer who bought dukedoms with his shekels; to-day, with the solitary exception of Patti, it is the dramatic soprano or tenor that gets from $500 to $1,000 a night. When will teachers and pupils wake up and recognize the new situation? When will American girls cease flocking by the hundreds to Milan to learn such r?les as Lucia or Amina, for which there is now no demand, either in Europe or America, if we except the wild Western audiences to which Emma Abbott caters. A good Elsa or Brünnhilde will get an engagem

a, so far as the language is concerned. But until that happy epoch arrives every aspirant to operatic honors cannot be too strongly urged to begin his or her studies by learning the French and German languages. Almost all the greatest singers of the century have been able not only to sing but to speak in several languages. Above all things, students of song should learn to speak their own language. Mr. H.C.

tinct speech in song. Julius Hey, of Munich, who has just published a vocal method which will mark an epoch in the teaching of singing, devotes the whole of his first volume to an analysis of the elements of speech, and to exercises in speaking. The second and third volumes contain vocal exercises for male and female voices, while the fourth volume, which has just appear

err Hey, too, admits that there is no branch of the Italian method which the German teachers can afford to ignore. In the emission of a mellow tone, the use of the portamento, in the treatment of scales, of trills, and of other ornaments, and in facile vocalization in general, all nations can learn from the Italians. But the Italian method does not go far enough. It does not meet the demands of the moder

d. A most happy illustration this, I repeat, for it indicates exactly what vocal teachers of the old school are doing. They choose the easiest of the vowels and the easiest melodic intervals, and make the pupils exercise on those constantly, ignoring the more difficult ones; and the consequence is, that when, subsequently, the pupils are confronted with difficult

ly can the vowels which at first sound dull and hollow, like U, be made as sonorous as A (Ah), but that, by practising on U, the A itself is rendered more sonorous than it can ever become by exclusive practice on it alone. Not only does the German method in this

tant factor in modern opera that musicians would be unwilling to have it reduced in size-the tendency being, in fact, the other way; and at the same time opera is such an expensive luxury that it can only be made to pay in a very large theatre, which obliges the singers to have stentorian voices. Conse

to pronounce any harsh or difficult consonants, and the Italian language therefore presents a picture of sad effeminate degeneracy compared with the more vigorous Latin and even Spanish. Now the English language and the English character have much more of German vigor and masculine strength than of the Italian dolce far niente: hence, the English vocal

s Liszt has some admirable remarks in speaking of the Polish language, which is noted for its melodious beauty, although it bristles with consonants: "The harshness of a language," he says, "is by no means always conditioned by the excessive number of consonants, but rather by the way in which they are united; one might almost say that the weak, cold color of some languages is

vocal scores and note the extremely ingenious manner in which he has made the peculiarities of German consonants subservient to his dramatic purposes. I refer especially to his use of alliteration-the repetition of a consonant in the same or in consecutive lines. This not only insures a smooth, m

a! W

du W

zur

ala

, weial

n the famous love duo in the "Walküre," note the repetition of the liquid consonants, the l's and m's, which give the sound such a soft and sentimental backg

Nibelung Alberich appears presently and tries to catch one of the lovely maidens. But they elude his grasp and

tig g

riger G

eit ic

den und

sse noch

ecke Ges

orld language which all can underst

in stage music; and it is because Wagner taught the singer to express not only sweet sentiments but all dramatic emotions, whether harsh or agreeable, that his new style marks an epoch in the evolution of the art of singing. At the same time, even these harsher passages in Wagner's v

at the Parsifal Festival, in 1882, was one of these exceptions. He reflected the spirit of the gruesome text assigned to him so admirably that Wagner was delighted; but afterward he complained

on his first visit to a theatre, climbed on the stage and administered the villain of the play a sound thrashing; or, like the Bower

ot care to eat cakes and candy all the time; he loves olives and caviare too. These may be acquired tastes, but all taste for high art is acquired. And the time is, apparently, not very distant when Wagner's realistic vocal style will no longer be caviare even to the public at large, but will be

extract from one of those letters, abusive or censorious, which musical editors receive almost daily. "Is it not undeniable," writes a correspondent, "that as long as the world lasts, one of its greatest delights will consist in listening to the music furnished by the human voice? The more highly cultivated, pure, sweet, and flexibl

in writing of Schnorr von Carolsfeld's wonderful impersonation of Tristan, he begs the reader to note that the last act of this work contains "an exuberance of orchestral devices, such as no simple instrumental composer has ever had occasion to call into use. Then assure yourself," he continues, "that this complete gigantic orchestra, considered from an operatic point of view, is, after all, only related as accompaniment to the 'solo' part represented by the monologue of the vocalist, who lies on his couch;

between phrases that are 'declaimed' and 'sung,' but my declamation is at the same time song, and my song declamation." Scaria's method also afforded an eloquent illustration of the wonderful manner in which, in Wagner's vocal style, the melodic accent always falls on the proper rhetorical accent of each word of the text, which is one of the secrets of clear enunciation. He emphasized important syllables by dwelling on them, thus producing that dramatic rubato which Wagner considered of such great importance in his

t having sufficiently mastered the details of the acting to feel quite at ease, and not being able to husband his vocal resources for the grand duo at the close. But at the end of the season, at the eleventh performance, he had become a full-fledged Siegfried, acting the part as by instinct, while his voice was as fresh at the close of the opera as at the beginning: thus affording a striking proof of Wagner's assertion, that the greatest vocal difficulties of his r?les can be readily mastered if the

In the old Italian vocal schools, two centuries ago, the pupils were kept busy six or eight hours a day, devoting one hour to difficult passages, another to trills and to accuracy of intonation, others to expression, to counterpoint, composition and accompaniment, etc. They often practised before a mirror in order to study the position of the soft parts in the mouth, and to avoid grimaces; and sometimes they sang at places where there was a good echo, so as to hear their own faults, as if some one else were singing. Yet, as we have seen, the main stress was laid on agility of technical execution, whereas the modern German method, without in the least neglecting technique, calls upon pupils to devote more attention to the principles of soulful expression and dramatic accentuation. A singer who wishes to appear to advantage as Euryanthe or Lohengrin or Tristan must not only be entirely familiar with his own vocal parts but he ought to be as familiar with the orchestral score as the conductor himself: for, only then, can he acquire that ease which is necessary for producing a deep impression. As he has not the conductor's advantage of looking o

are ascribed to the German method. This, again, is as absurd as it is unjust; for, as I have endeavored to show, the real German method, by insisting on an equal treatment of all the vowels, develops a richer and

f the past and present, that the Italians constitute a small minority as compared with the German, French, and Scandinavian singers of the first rank. The custom so long followed by singers of all nationalities of adopting Italian stage names has confused the public on the subject. And, fina

was degraded to the function of a mere inarticulate instrument; and it remained for Wagner, following the precedence of Gluck, to restore it to its rank as the inseparable companion of poetry. And what led him to do this was not abstract reflection but artistic instinct and experience. He does not even claim the honor of having originated

restored the voice to its true sphere as the wedded wife of poetry. I refer, of course, to the Lied, or parlor song, to which, indeed, I might have devoted this whole essay, qu

e of his operas." Liszt, too, notes somewhere that Schubert doubtless exerted an indirect influence on the development of the opera by means of the dramatic realism which characterizes the melody and accompaniment of his parlor songs (such as the "Erl King," the "Doppelg?nger," etc.)-a realism which

art will have to adopt. I have been told that since the revival of German opera in New York, the Italian teachers in the city have lost many of their pupils. Obviously, if they wish to regain them they will have to adopt the best features of the German method, just as the Germans have adopted all that is good in the Italian method. It cannot be denied that the pupils turned out by the average vocal teachers are quite unable to s

w many would have comprehended, probably for the first time, the meaning of such expressions as 'Speech and Poetry in Music,' 'Words in Harmony,' 'ideas clothed in music,' etc., and would have learned that the finest poems of our greatest poets may be enhanced and even transcended when translated into musical language." It is humiliating to be obliged to confess that good schools of singing, the absence o

which the sopranists and prima donnas of the bel canto period used to receive for the meaningless colorature arias which they compelled the enslaved composers to write, or manufactured for themselves. And there is another way in which singers of the new style can become creative. Chopin speaks in one of his letters of a violoncellist who played a certain poor piece so remarkably well that it actually appeared to be good music. Similarly, a good vocalist (like Fr?ulei