My general education was very carefully guarded by my father, who sent
me to the best schools in Milan, one of which was under the management
of Germans, and it was there that I acquired my acquaintance with the
German language. I was then sent to the Conservatorio, and graduated
with a gold medal as a pianist. This won me some distinction in Italy
and enabled me to tour as a pianist. I did not pretend to play the big,
exhaustive works, but my programs were made up of such pieces as the
_Abeg_ of Schumann, studies by Scharwenka, impromptus of Chopin, the
four scherzos of Chopin, the first ballade, the nocturnes (the fifth in
the book was my favorite) and works of Bach. (Of course, I had been
through the Wohltemperiertes Clavier.) In those days I was very frail,
and I had aspired to develop my repertoire so that later I could include
the great works for the piano requiring a more or less exhaustive
technic of the bravura type.
Once I went to hear Busoni, and after the concert, came to me like a
revelation, "You can never be such a pianist as he. Your hand and your
physical strength will not permit it." I went home in more or less
sadness, knowing that despite the success I had had in my piano playing,
my decision was a wise one. Figuratively, I closed the lid of my piano
upon my career as a pianist and decided to learn how to sing. The memory
of my grandmother's voice singing Bellini's _Qui la Voce_ was still
ringing in my ears with the lovely purity of tone that she possessed.
Mascagni called upon us at that time, and I asked him to hear me sing.
He did so, and threw up his hands, saying, "Why in the world have you
been wasting your time with piano playing when you have a natural voice
like that? Such voices are born. Start to work at once to develop your
voice." Meanwhile, of course, I had heard a great deal of singing and a
great deal of so-called voice teaching. I went to two teachers in Milan,
but was so dissatisfied with what I heard from them and from their
pupils that I was determined that it would be necessary for me to
develop my own voice. Please do not take this as an inference that all
vocal teachers are bad or are dispensable. My own case was peculiar. I
had been saturated with musical traditions since my babyhood. I had had,
in addition, a very fine musical training. Of course, without this I
could not have attempted to do what I did in the way of self-training.
Nevertheless, it is my firm conviction that unless the student of
singing has in his brain and in his soul those powers of judging for
himself whether the quality of a tone, the intonation (pitch), the
shading, the purity and the resonance are what they should be to insure
the highest artistic results, it will be next to impossible for him to
secure these. This is what is meant by the phrase--"singers are born and
not made." The power of discrimination, the judgment, etc., must be
inherent. No teacher can possibly give them to a pupil, except in an
artificial way. That, possibly, is the reason why so many students sing
like parrots: because they have the power of mimicry, but nothing comes
from within. The fine teacher can, of course, take a fine sense of tonal
values, etc., and, provided the student has a really good natural voice,
lead him to reveal to himself the ways in which he can use his voice to
the best advantage. Add to this a fine musical training, and we have a
singer. But no teacher can give to a voice that velvety smoothness, that
liquid fluency, that bell-like clarity which the ear of the educated
musician expects, and which the public at large demands, unless the
student has the power of determining for himself what is good and what
is bad.