STYLE AND INTERPRETATION
Diction, it may be said, is included in Style; but Style means a good
deal more than diction.
Style may be said, indeed, to mean everything that the singer adds to
the bare notes and directions of the printed page. These notes and
directions are admittedly incomplete--a mere approximation to the
composer’s complete meaning. He supplies in this way the bare facts with
such additional hints as to expression and interpretation as an
imperfect system of notation allows. It is the duty of his interpreters
to supply what is missing--to breathe the spirit of life into the dry
bones and to convert dead printed notes into living human music.
To this end the singer must possess first of all the requisite insight
and understanding to grasp the composer’s purpose, next the personality
and magnetism to be able to realise it for his hearers, and lastly the
musical taste and knowledge required in order to present it in
conformity with the appropriate rules and traditions. In other words,
the singer must not merely sing the right notes, but sing them in the
right way--with the right accent, the right phrasing, and in the right
manner.
What is required may be best realised, perhaps, by comparing the
delivery of a fine piece of poetry by a schoolgirl or schoolboy, say,
with the delivery of the same lines by an accomplished actor or
elocutionist. The words will be the same in both cases, but what a
difference in the result! So in the case of music the notes sung will be
the same whoever sings them, but the effect will be vastly different
when they are sung by the trained artist.
Here it is that the student’s general culture will bear fruit, in the
imaginative insight and understanding, the good taste and the
expression, which he brings to his task. And here, too, will his musical
knowledge and intelligence be more particularly illustrated by the
manner in which he conforms to the requirements of the particular kind
of music which he is interpreting. For to do this aright a knowledge of
the notes alone will not suffice.
He must be familiar also with the varying needs of the different schools
of music, with the historical traditions associated with them, and so
forth. Opera demands one kind of singing, oratorio another, German
_Lieder_ another, and so on throughout; and each of these general
classifications can be subdivided in turn.
How different are the requirements of each is best exemplified by the
fact that so few succeed in all. One singer will be great in opera,
another in oratorio, a third in _Lieder_; but only in the rarest
instances will you find one and the same artist excelling in all. Why is
this? Simply because their respective requirements are so different.
For this reason the average artist will, I think, usually be well
advised to confine himself to the class of work more particularly suited
to his talent. While it is well to cultivate versatility so far as
possible, it is a mistake to sing music of a kind for which you are not
suited. Patti loved Wagner, for instance, and was a frequent visitor to
Bayreuth. But she did not sing his music. She liked to hear it sung by
others, but she realised that it was not for her. Voice, personality,
training, temperament, all impose necessary limitations.
People blame me sometimes, for instance, for confining myself mainly to
music of a certain school. But I think I know best as to this, and that
I am exercising sound judgment in adopting this course. There is much
music which I admire and love, but I do not always try to sing it. In
the same way I may admire frocks which I see on other women, but I do
not necessarily try to wear the same myself. I have the good sense to
recognise that they would not suit me.
Moreover, the field of music is so vast that to cultivate one or two
departments thoroughly will be more than sufficient to tax the energy of
the most ambitious. Make yourself master or mistress in your own chosen
province, and you will have accomplished quite as much as any one need
wish to.
And whatever style you cultivate get as near to perfection in it as you
can possibly. Catalani said of Sontag: “_Elle est la première dans son
genre; mais son genre n’est pas le premier_.” This may or may not have
been true. But Sontag was probably well pleased, in any case, to be “_la
première_.”