different interpretation by different lawyers, also was aware of the
fact that interpreters are persons who, being masters of several
languages, act between two people ignorant of each other's tongue,
or whose office it is to translate orally in their presence the
words of parties speaking different languages, but I never connected
the term with music, which, I thought, being a language spoken and
understood all the world over, did not require the services of an
interpreter. This, of course, was a very youthful notion. But even in
later years the question did not interest me very much, and it was
not until three or four years ago the editor of an American musical
magazine asked me to write for his paper an article which he wished
to be entitled "Some Elementary Truths on Song-Interpretation" that
the matter attracted my serious attention. I remember answering the
gentleman: "My dear sir,--Since we are still waiting for a satisfactory
answer to the ancient question 'What is truth?' I must confess myself
utterly incompetent to gratify your flattering desire; indeed, without
immodesty, I hope, should be reluctant to accept any mortal's opinion
regarding a question of art as truth." Somehow or other, however, the
thing got hold of me and I began to be curious to see what could be
said, or at any rate what I might be able to say on the subject. So,
first of all, I consulted the Oxford Dictionary to see whether among
the various definitions of the word "Interpretation," which that
wonderfully complete book was sure to offer, there might not be one
applicable to music, or altogether to art. And there I found that "To
interpret" may mean:
Expound the meaning of, bring out, make out the meaning of, explain,
understand, render by artistic representation or performance.
Well, this was something to start from, anyhow. Let us see: "Expound
the meaning of."
From the oracles of old, not infrequently more obscure on purpose to
give them greater importance, down to a speech from the front benches,
utterances in _words_ may, and indeed often do, need expounding
the meaning of, but it seems to me in music, and, perhaps, in art
altogether, the necessity for explanation nearly always indicates a
certain degree of inferiority. I cannot imagine anyone looking at a
Velasquez, or Titian, or Rembrandt, or Michelangelo asking "What _does_
it mean?" but I am sure we all have heard that question, very likely
emphasised by the addition of two little words, like "on earth," or
something stronger, at exhibitions of Futurist art.
So in a piece of absolute music, _i.e._, music without words, for an
orchestra or a solo instrument, any attempt at expounding the meaning
of, make out the meaning of, must, in my humble opinion, always be
more or less of a failure, whilst, of course, there can be no need
of such an attempt at all if the music be programme music, or if, by
the title given to it, like, for instance, Elegy, Reverie, Humoreske,
Nocturne, Barcarolle, and so on, the composer clearly has indicated his
intention. There is no need asking what Bach, Beethoven, Brahms meant
by their symphonies, their fugues.
You might as well ask what the meaning of a cathedral. These things
are there for us to wonder at the greatness and power of the human
mind, to lose ourselves in admiration of the various forms of beauty
in which they reveal themselves, to bow down, to worship. On the other
hand, in music with words, the poems chosen by the composer are rarely
sufficiently obscure or eccentric to require "expounding the meaning
of."
It seems to me, therefore, that the only definition of the word
interpretation with which we need concern ourselves is "Render by
artistic representation or performance." And that would seem simple
enough were it not that when it comes to a song we have to deal with
a compound of poetry and music which complicates matters inasmuch as
there is art required for reciting a poem as well as for singing the
music.
That the music of a song, as such, may be beautifully rendered by an
instrument other than the voice we all know. Who--to quote only one
example--has not heard Schubert's _Ave Maria_ played on a 'cello?
And the words of a song detached from the music may find an ideal
interpreter in the person of a talented reciter, who, as regards music,
may not know one note from another. The perfect interpreter of a song,
therefore, would have to combine in him or herself the talents and
qualities of both a reciter and a singer, and it will be seen at once
that, as in song the music is of the first importance, not only should
an intending singer make a point of studying music as well as singing,
but the study of theory, harmony, counterpoint, etc., that is to say,
of music as a _creative_ art should always be made the foundation on
which all special studies for expressing that art should rest.
I have just said that in a song the music is first in importance.
Should, therefore, by any chance a composer have failed, as some of
the best have been known to now and then, to make the music fit the
words completely, it would be the duty of the singer to consider the
_musical_ phrase in the first instance and fit in the words as well as
possible under the circumstances, even at the risk of breaking between
two words which otherwise it would be better not to separate.
The question of breathing is altogether one which puzzles a great many
singers. Take, for instance, a Bach or Handel aria, with semiquaver
runs, often extending over half-a-dozen bars or more. There are singers
who deem it beneath their dignity to breathe during such a run, and
go on until they are red in the face, or else, if they see they must
after all, put in additional words. This is quite unnecessary. Such
occasions should be treated instrumentally. Give such a run to, say,
an oboe player and you will find that he now and then will take an
instantaneous little breath which enables him to do justice to every
note and carry the thing through successfully and without exhaustion.
It is generally the childish fear of being thought lacking in physical
strength which induces some singers to delay breathing until the
thought of their bursting a blood vessel remains the only one left
in the poor listener, rendering anything like interpretation and,
therefore, artistic enjoyment of such a performance utterly impossible.
If you know _how_ to breathe, _i.e._, how to replenish your lungs in
the twinkling of an eye and imperceptibly, you cannot really breathe
too often, for by such judicious breathing you are infinitely better
able to satisfactorily accomplish the task before you. I remember being
asked, years ago, to hear, with a view to giving my opinion on her
talent and voice, a young singer, now quite famous, and being horrified
at her utterly mistaken idea as to breathing. Disregarding all thought
of intelligent phrasing, she actually never breathed unless positively
obliged to do so. I stood it as long as I could and then got really
angry. I stopped her short and said, "My dear young lady, do you wish
to show the people what wonderful lungs you have, or what a beautiful
song it is you are singing?" You can only do one of the two things at
a time. Supposing even your breathing be good, which, being neither
inaudible nor invisible, I am sorry to say it is not; you will have
to learn that an accomplishment, be it ever so great, in anything
pertaining to a detail in the mere _technique_ of an art becomes a
fault the moment attention is drawn to it. A singer who after the
singing of a beautiful song is complimented on the excellent management
of his breath or the wonderful articulation of his words should go home
and resolve to do better next time, and not rest satisfied until he
feels that the singer's highest aim should be the full appreciation and
enjoyment on the part of the listener of the work interpreted. That
aim being achieved he need wish for no greater praise.
For an intelligent and thoroughly satisfactory rendering of a song it
is absolutely imperative that the vocal technique of the singer--and
the breathing is as important a part of it as the actual singing--be
developed to a state of efficiency, such as to need no more thought
than, for instance, a pianist interpreting a Beethoven sonata should
have to give to the fingering. All technical difficulties should have
been overcome once for all and technique itself become a matter of
course before an attempt at interpretation is made.
The two principal factors in the technique of singing are
vocalisation and articulation, the one referring to music, the
other--articulation--to speech, each complementing the other, though I
hold that of the two articulation is the more important, since it is
not the vowels but the consonants which enable a singer to "bring out
the meaning of," _i.e._, to interpret a word. You may sing the vowel,
for instance, of the word "soul" ever so beautifully, it is not until
you add the "l" with the same intensity of purpose that the word puts
on flesh and blood, as it were, and becomes a living thing. Or take the
word "remember." No actor, impersonating, for instance, the ghost of
Hamlet's father, could make an impression with the word by dwelling on
the vowel "Reme-e-e----," but leaving the vowel quickly and continuing
to sound the "m" a good actor could walk almost across the whole stage
holding on to that consonant without exaggeration--"Remem-m-m-ber."
It is the consonants, as I said before, which convey the meaning of
a word, and they should be made the subject of special study. If you
wish to interpret you should, in the first place, strive to make
yourself understood, and that, with the best vocalisation in the world,
you can do only by a mastery of the consonants, _i.e._, by a perfect
articulation. You all know that delicious story of the dear old lady
coming home from a village concert, where the hit of the evening had
been made by a girl singing, "Wae's me for Prince Charlie." Being
asked whether she had enjoyed the concert, she said, "Not very much;
I couldn't understand half the people who sang, except one girl who
sang a nice funny song." "Do you remember the title?" "No, but she kept
on asking 'Where's me fourpence, Charlie?'" This singer evidently had
_not_ made a special study of consonants.
In vocalisation, too, there are certain details which often fail to
receive, on the part of the singer, the attention which should be
paid to them. One of them, and, in my opinion, a very important one,
because of its great help towards interpretation, is the _colouring_
of the tone. I have heard many an otherwise good singer whose singing
became exceedingly monotonous after a while by reason of a lack of
variety in tone-colour, and I remember one lady in particular, the
possessor of a beautiful rich contralto voice, from whose singing--had
it not been for the words--you could not possibly have told whether
what she sang was sad or cheerful. And yet our five vowels A, E, I, O,
U being what we may call the primary colours of the voice, a singer
should be able, by skilful and judicious mixing of these colours,
to produce as many different shades of, let us say, the vowel A as a
painter of the colour, say, of red. I have in my long experience of
a teacher found it of the utmost value to make a pupil sing even a
whole song on nothing but the vowels of the words, with the object of
expressing the character of the music by mere vocalisation. We all
love that glorious aria in the _Messiah_, "He was despised." Well, let
a student try to convey its sadness, its deeply religious feeling in
that way, _i.e._, without words, by the instrument of the voice alone,
and, if after a while she succeeds, she will have taken a very big
step toward realising, _i.e._, toward interpreting, the full beauty of
that exquisite blending of words and music. For a thoroughly artistic
rendering of emotional songs of that kind or of songs of dramatic
character, such as ballads in which the singer has to impersonate
character and run up and down the gamut of passion, it is of the
greatest importance that the singer should have under perfect control
not only his technique, but his feelings too. If your feelings get
the better of you before the public, you are apt temporarily, and for
physical reasons, to lose the mastery of your technique. There is a
story told of the famous American actor, Edwin Booth, whose daughter,
his severest critic, always, at his request, had to be in the stage-box
where and whenever he acted. On one occasion the play was Victor Hugo's
_The King's Jester_, known to us all from Verdi's _Rigoletto_. The
part of the Jester was considered one of the best of Booth's many fine
impersonations. When the harrowing scene came in which the poor man
finds the body of his murdered daughter in the sack, Booth on that
night for some reason or other was so overcome by the situation that
actual tears ran down his cheeks, and he thought he had never acted
that scene better or with greater feeling. The first thing his daughter
said to him as they met in his dressing-room after the play was, "Were
you quite well, father?" "Quite. Why?" "Because that scene with Gilda's
body never made so little impression on me and on the people, as far as
I could see."
And naturally. When you lose control of yourself you must not expect to
be able to control your audience.
On the other hand, there was a great singer, Wilhelmina
Schroeder-Devrient, the greatest exponent of the part of Leonora in
Beethoven's _Fidelio_. In that wonderful scene in the underground
prison when, disguised as the jailor's boy, and unrecognised by her
unfortunate husband, the chained prisoner Florestan, she hands the
starving man a crust of bread, singing to Beethoven's touchingly
appealing notes, and in a voice choked with emotion, "There, take this
bread, thou poor, poor man," that great singer was often known to
actually crack a little aside joke with old Rocco, the jailor, whilst
the front of the house was in tears. That is what I call art. Very
likely she had cried herself many a time over that same scene when
studying it.
Of course the actor--and by that I mean the operatic-singer as
well--has a not inconsiderable advantage over the concert-singer, in
that he possesses in facial expression and gesture two additional aids
to interpretation, both important and powerful. I say two, although
facial expression is available to the concert-singer as well, but
whilst that and gesture form an essential part in the training of
the actor, facial expression is hardly ever systematically studied
by the singer of songs who, in this respect, is left to his own
resources with often rather curious results. I have listened to many
a singer--I am sorry to say mostly of the fair sex--who, very likely
for fear of making grimaces, maintained throughout a whole song,
and heedless of the varying moods and sentiments expressed in it, a
sickly, inane, apologetic sort of a smile, whilst, on the other hand,
I remember hearing a famous singer who, in Schubert's great song,
_Der Doppelgänger_, allowed his features already during the short
prelude to the song to assume a most ghastly expression of pain and
terror which, quite apart from such a proceeding being apt to have
the opposite effect, was in this case quite the wrong thing to do,
for the opening of the song is merely a sad recollection, on the part
of the unfortunate lover, of happier times when his beloved was still
inhabiting the house he is passing. "The night is still, the streets
are silent, 'twas in this house my true love lived." The tragedy and
horror only commence with "There too stands a man and gazes up on high,
and wrings his hands in agony of pain," reaching the climax with the
words, "I shudder when I behold his face, the moon reveals to me my
own image." But when this climax came it was robbed of much of its
impressiveness by the singer having anticipated it. He evidently took
it for granted that his listeners knew Heine's poem and Schubert's
song, or had made themselves acquainted with the words beforehand by
looking into the book of words. That is a great mistake. You should
always sing as if the song you are interpreting had never been known
or sung before, and you were the first to make it public. Every one of
you, I am sure, has at one time or other told a little fairy-story to
a child. You know how deliberately such a story should be told, how
distinctly the pronunciation of every syllable, every consonant, in
order that the little ones may grasp the meaning of what you are saying
the very moment you are saying it, so as not to lose the thread of the
tale, to break the spell. Well, that's the way you should sing. Even if
you _know_ that what you are singing is the most well-known, popular,
hackneyed thing, always imagine one person in your audience--sitting
in the very last row--to whom it is something absolutely new, and that
imaginary person should be the child to whom you are telling a story.
So you see all these little details have to be thought out. The singer
should even be careful in the selection of his songs. (When I speak
of "him" and "his" I, of course, mean "her" and "hers" as well.) The
greater the singer's art the more will he be able to force his hearers
into forgetfulness of a possible discrepancy between, for instance, his
personal appearance and the sentiment or character he is endeavouring
to represent. But here, too, some discretion should be exercised. A
lady, for instance, weighing fourteen stone and a half should not, as
I have heard one do, put the audience's capacity for self-control to
too severe a test by singing baby-songs like, "Put me in my little bed,
mother," or "If nobody ever marries me and I don't know why he should."
Yes, even the time of day, and the scene and the occasion should find
a place among the questions to be considered by a singer when choosing
a song for performance, as under circumstances the best interpretation
may not only fail to be appreciated, but even produce an effect utterly
unlooked for.
It was many years ago, two or three nights after Gilbert and Sullivan's
incomparable _Mikado_ had been launched on its triumphal career at the
Savoy, that there was a big evening party at Sullivan's flat, to have
the honour of meeting the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh.
An excellent little programme of music had been gone through, and just
after midnight, supper being over, the whole party once more repaired
to the drawing-room for some jollier things. Nearly all the principal
singers from the Savoy had come over in their _Mikado_ costumes and,
with the composer at the piano, delighted the guests with excerpts like
"Three little Maids from School" and "The flowers that bloom in the
Spring, tra-la," doubly fascinating then on account of the novelty of
the thing.
Everybody, and none the least so the two Royal guests, who occupied
two armchairs in front, with the programme in their hands, enjoyed
the entertainment to the utmost, and the fun was at its height when
one of the guests, a celebrated contralto, famous for her rendering
of ballads--I mean the style of ballads in vogue thirty-five years
ago--was asked if she wouldn't sing one of them. She, of course,
readily consented, solemnly mounted the little platform, and there
was a hush as she stood there, motionless like a statue, her face
expressing a seriousness so strangely in contrast with the mirth and
laughter that had pervaded the room but a few minutes before, that I
noticed the two Royal programmes being brought somewhat nearer the
Royal faces. Then the accompanist struck the first chords of the
introduction and--could we really believe our ears?--the lady began to
sing--you'll never guess--"_The Three Fishers!_" Higher and higher up
went the Royal programmes, a dead silence reigned in the room until
it came to the "Three Corpses," when, little by little, small noises
like half-suppressed sneezes or sobs could be heard here and there,
increasing in frequency and volume, and when it came to the refrain--it
was now a little after 1 a.m.--"The sooner it's over the sooner to
sleep," the last "moa-oa-oa-ning" was drowned in a vociferous applause
of a character such as I am sure that ballad had never before evoked.
And now I should like to mention another factor in the rendering
of music, the importance of which is often underrated, and that is
the _tempo_. Good music, I have found, not only does not lose but
rather gains by the _tempo_, whatever it might be, being taken with
deliberation. There are degrees in any designation of time, and one is
apt to forget that the Italian words in common for that purpose may
refer, not only to the metronomic measure, but also to the character,
the mood of a piece. Allegro means lively. But there are degrees of
liveliness. An elephant may be lively, but I take his liveliness to be
of a somewhat different kind from that, for instance, of the frisky
little chap whose antics are so deliciously and humorously described
in Goethe and Berlioz's immortal "Song of the Flea" in _Faust_. I
remember once hearing Schubert's _Erlking_ taken at such a break-neck
speed that I wondered both father and child were not killed before the
end of the first stanza. It reminded me of a rather amusing series of
telegraphic versions of celebrated poems, which many years ago appeared
in the _Fliegende Blätter_--the Continental _Punch_--and of which that
of the _Erlking_ might be rendered in English by something like this:
"Night wild--Father and child--Ride through the dark--Erlking out for a
lark--Boy frightened--Father's grip tightened--Father, ride on--Yes, my
son--Reach home in fear and dread--Father alive, child dead."
When we recall the definition of the word Interpretation as it refers
to music and poetry, viz., Rendering by artistic representation or
performance, we shall find that that little qualification "artistic"
makes all the difference in the world, inasmuch as it clearly shows
that a mere representation or performance may not necessarily be an
interpretation and that it requires an artist to make it such. And it
follows that there must be any amount of variety in the interpretation
of one and the same thing. An old Latin proverb says: "Duo si faciunt
idem, non est idem." When two people do the same thing, it isn't the
same thing. Well, if that be true in any undertaking, how infinitely
great must be the possibility of such variety when the two people
of the proverb are artists! For though we speak of the artistic
temperament as if it were something absolute and definable, we know in
how many different ways such a temperament may manifest itself.
There are no two painters who, put before the same landscape, would
paint it, _i.e._, interpret it, in the same way. Neither, I maintain,
are there two actors who would interpret Hamlet, or two singers who
would sing the same song exactly alike. They each have, when they have
attained maturity, their own style, and style, as an eminent painter
of the last century has admirably expressed it, is the leaving out of
everything superfluous, a definition which fits our subject equally
well. No two artists will think the same thing superfluous; indeed,
what the one considers so, the other may deem essential. Here, too,
the actor--to come back to poetry and music--is better off than the
musician. He has a far greater scope, _i.e._, a far wider outlet for
his imagination. He is given the words to do what he likes with. One
actor--to keep to Hamlet--might after long study have come to the
conclusion that, for instance, the last lines of that fine monologue at
the end of the second act should be triumphantly exclaimed in a loud
voice:
The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.