of Rossini. And in all the annals of music there is nothing quite so
strange as the extraordinary craze which existed during this time for
_the instrumental style of vocalism_. A special class of singers--the
male sopranists--was artificially created, in order to secure the most
dazzling results in brilliant, ornamental vocalization. Various kinds
of trills, grace notes, runs, and other 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 aria softly, swelled it by imperceptible degrees to
such an astounding volume, and then decreased it again in the same way
to pianissimo, that the public wildly applauded him for five minutes.
Thereupon, Dr. Burney relates, he began to sing with such amazing
rapidity that the orchestra found it difficult to keep up with him.
Dr. Dommer justly comments on this story that, for such racing with an
orchestra, a singer would be hissed to-day by musical people.
It was not only quick and animated songs that were thus overloaded
with meaningless embroideries by the sopranists and the prima donnas
that followed them. Slow movements, which ought 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 run up and down the scale wildly and persistently in singing
a slow and sad song, is as consistent as it would be for an orator to
grin and yodle while delivering a funeral oration.
A question might be raised as to how far the great Italian composers
are responsible for this degradation of the vocal art to the level of
the circus. The public, it might be argued, wanted the florid style
of song; and if Rossini and Donizetti had refused to write in the
style admired by them, they would have been neglected in favor of
other and less gifted composers. I do not agree with this reasoning.
Rossini and Donizetti have revealed enough genius in some of their
sparkling melodies to make it probable that, if they had not so often
stooped to the level of a taste corrupted by the sopranists, they
might have raised the public to a higher standard of musical taste.
Rossini, in fact, _did_ introduce 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 skilled adorner
would have found it difficult to add to them" (Edwards). For thus
emancipating the composers from the tyranny of the singers Rossini
deserves great credit, and still greater honor is due him for having
shown, in his "William Tell," which he wrote for Paris, and in which
he discarded the florid style, that when he _did_ have a public which
appreciated simplicity of style and dramatic propriety in music, his
genius was equal to the occasion. It is a great pity that he did not
write several more operas in the style of "William Tell," for it is
the only one of his works which has preserved a portion of its former
popularity in Paris and elsewhere, thanks to its regard for dramatic
propriety.
Like the composers, the singing teachers in Italy consented to adapt
their method to the universal clamor for decorative, florid singing.
The audiences did not seem to care at all _what_ was sung to them, as
long as it was sung with sensuous beauty of tone, and facility of
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,
nevertheless describes the situation graphically. Porpora, it is
related, gave Caffarelli a page of exercises to which he confined him
for five years. And at the end of that time he exclaimed: "You have
nothing more to learn! Caffarelli is the first singer in the world!"
As if facility of execution or technical skill were not the mere
beginning of vocal culture--the fashioning of the instrument, as it
were, with which the singer must subsequently learn the higher arts of
expressing human emotions in tones, of phrasing intelligently, and of
pronouncing distinctly, so that the poetic qualities of the text may
be appreciated.
In looking over specimens of the vocal music written by Porpora and
his contemporaries, we find passages in which a single syllable is
extended over one hundred and fifty-eight, and even a hundred and
seventy-five, notes. A more atrocious maltreatment of the text, and
misconception of the true function of the human voice, could not be
imagined. As Mr. H.C. Deacon remarks, "The passages in much of the
music of that date, especially that of Porpora, are really
instrumental passages ... and possessing but little interest 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--whereas _every member of her orchestra can
play them at sight_. Does not this show, once and for all, that this
style of singing (which still has numerous admirers) is instrumental,
is unvocal, unsuited to the human voice, and should be abandoned
forever? Rossini showed his real opinion of it by writing his best and
most mature work in a different style; and Verdi has done the same in
"Aida" and "Otello," in which there is hardly a trace of colorature,
while the style often approaches to that of genuine dramatic song.
The colorature or florid style, however, is only one of the varieties
of Italian song. Side by side with it there has always been a
charming, melodious _cantabile_, which in the later period of Italian
opera gradually got the ascendancy. This _cantabile_ is often of
exquisite beauty, and gives Italian and Italianized singers a chance
to show off the mellow qualities of their voices to the best
advantage. The very word _cantabile_ emphasizes, by antithesis, the
unvocal character of the old florid style. _Fioritura_ means
embroidery, while _cantabile_ 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 their poetic meaning, that this habit could not at once be altered
when the _cantabile_ style came more into vogue. The singers continued
to be careless in regard to pronunciation of the words, and the opera
libretti were so very silly that the public really did not care
whether the singers spoke their words correctly and distinctly or not.
Hence even the _cantabile_ style of Italian song continued to be more
or less instrumental in character--telling the audience little more
about the text than the flute or the violins told them about it.
Mrs. Wodehouse, in her article on song in Grove's "Dictionary of Music
and Musicians," calls attention to the injurious action of Italian
opera on the English School by breeding indifference to the text.
"From Handel's time until a very recent date," she says, "Italian
operas and Italian songs reigned supreme in England; Italian singers
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.
Concerned only to please the ears of his audience, the composer
neglected to wed his music to words of true poetic merit; and the
singer quickly grew to be careless in his enunciation. Of how many
singers, and even of good ones, may it not fairly be affirmed that at
the end of the song the audience has failed to recognize its
language?"
These remarks are quite as applicable to America as to England. We
hear singers every week to whom we can listen attentively for five
minutes without being able to tell what language they are singing in.
Most of these singers were trained by the Italian method: And yet we
are told every day that this Italian method, 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, and for interpreting the style hitherto
cultivated by the Italians, no one will deny. But whether it is the
proper method for those who wish to sing in English, French, or
German, and to devote themselves to the modern dramatic style, is
quite another question, which must be, partly at least, answered in
the negative.
A careful examination of the situation, leaving aside all national
prejudice, will show us that each of the two principal methods, as
exemplified by Italian 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 advantages of both, while avoiding their
shortcomings. The dark side of Italian singing has been sufficiently
dwelt upon; let us now consider the bright side.
Italy owes much of her fame as the cradle of artistic song and "The
Lord's own Conservatory," to climatic and linguistic advantages.
Thanks to the mild climate, men and women can spend most of their time
in the open air, and their voices are not liable to be ruined by
constantly passing from a dry, overheated room into the raw and chilly
air of the streets. The Italians are a plump race, with well-developed
muscles, and their vocal chords share in the general muscular health
and development; so that the average voice in Italy has 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 Ö 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 vowel or
consonant into an easy one. In this they are encouraged by the
teachers, who habitually neglect the less sonorous vowels and make
their pupils sing all their exercises on the easy vowel A. No wonder,
then, that the tones of an Italian singer commonly sound sweet: he
makes them up of nothing but pure sugar. Characterization, dramatic
effect, variety of emotional coloring, are all bartered away for
sensuous beauty of tone; and hence the distinctive name for Italian
singing--_bel canto_, or beautiful song--is very aptly chosen.
Now, sensuous beauty of tone is a most desirable thing in music.
Wagner's music, _e.g._, owes much of its tonic charm to his fine
instinct for sensuous orchestral coloring, and Chopin's works lose
half their characteristic beauty if played on a poor piano, or by one
who does not know how to use the pedal in such a way as to produce a
continuous stream of rich saturated sound. Hence the Italians deserve
full credit for the attention they bestow on sensuous beauty of tone,
even if their means of securing it may 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," he says, "distinguish themselves by means of the
thorough command they have over their voices, which in themselves are
by no means imposing; our German members by powerful voices, which,
however, owing to their insufficient training, do not produce half the
effect they would if they had been subjected to the same amount of
training. With the Italians great certainty and evenness throughout
the rôle; with the Germans an unequal alternation of brilliant and
mediocre moments, which seems partly accidental."
It is this element of accident and uncertainty that lowers the value
of many German singers. Herr Niemann, for instance, has moments--and,
indeed, whole evenings--when his voice, seemingly rejuvenated, not
only rises to sublime heights of dramatic passion, but possesses rare
sensuous beauty; while on other occasions the sound of his voice is
almost unbearable. Niemann, of course, is fifty-eight years old, but
many of the younger German singers too often have their bad
quarter-hours; and even Lilli Lehmann--whom I would rather hear for my
own pleasure than any other singer now on the stage--emits
occasionally a disagreeable guttural sound. Nothing of the sort in
Mme. Patti, whom Niemann no doubt is right in pronouncing the most
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 hear under what perfect
control she has it; how, without changing the quality of the sound,
she passes from a high to a low note, from piano to forte, gradually
or suddenly, and all without the least sense of effort. Indeed her
notes are as spontaneous and natural as those of a nightingale; and
this, combined with their natural sweetness and purity, constitutes
their great charm." A few months later, when Patti gave one of her
innumerable farewell performances, I was again forced to admit that
she is the greatest of living lyric sopranos, but took the liberty to
express my conviction that "the charm of her voice is almost as purely
sensuous as the beauty of a dewdrop or a diamond reflecting the
prismatic colors of sunlight."
Patti, in a word, is the incarnation of the Italian style. Her voice
is flawless as regards beauty of tone, and spontaneity and agility of
execution. Moreover, she avoids the small vices common to most Italian
singers, such as taking liberties with the time and the sentiment of
the piece for the sake of prolonging a trill or a loud final high
note, and so on. At an early stage in her career she followed the
custom of the time, and lavished such an abundance of uncalled-for
scales and trills and arpeggios and staccatos on her melody, that even
Rossini entered a sarcastic protest; but in her later years she has
conscientiously followed the indications of the composers. At the same
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 "Aïda," which are intermediate between the old-fashioned opera and
the music-drama proper. I have been often surprised to hear how
Patti, so conscientious in other respects, slights her texts,
obliterating consonants and altering vowels after the fashion of the
Italian school. Having neglected to master the more vigorous vowels
and expressive consonants, she cannot assert her art in dramatic
works. Her voice, in short, is _merely an instrument_. "Bird-like" is
an epithet commonly applied to it by admirers. Is this a compliment? A
dubious one, in my opinion. The nightingale's voice is very sweet, no
doubt, but it is no better than a flute. A bird cannot pronounce words
and sing at the same time. The human voice alone can do that--can
alone combine poetry and music, uniting the advantage of both in one
effect.
On the other hand, have you ever heard anyone compare the voices of
Lehmann, Materna, Sucher, or Malten to a bird's voice? Of course not;
and the reason is obvious. The point of view is different. Although
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 definite
dramatic emotion. And herein lies the chief difference between the
Italian and the German schools. _An Italian adores singing for its own
sake, a German as a means of definite emotional expression._
Now, whether we look at nations or at individuals, we always find
that simple beauty of tone and agility of execution in artistic
singing are appreciated sooner than emotional expression and dramatic
characterization. Hence it is that the Italian school came before the
German school. Even in Germany, a few generations ago, the Italian
school 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 supported his own Italian operatic company. To-day you look
in vain through Germany or Austria for a single Italian company. The
few Italian operas that have remained on the repertory are sung in
German translations by German singers, and all of these operas
together hardly have as many performances in a year as a single one of
Wagner's.
Here is a revolution in taste which may well excite our astonishment,
and arouse our curiosity as to how it was brought about. It was
brought about by the courage and perseverance of a few 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; and it was brought about with the
assistance of German singers, notwithstanding the great disadvantages,
climatic and linguistic, under which these labor in comparison with
Italian singers.
Although the Germans are a more robust nation than the Italians, with
more powerful muscles and voices, their climate is against them,
leading to frequent throat troubles which endanger the beauty of the
voice. Hence, the gift of mellow, supple song does not come to them so
spontaneously as to the Italians. About a thousand years ago, an
Italian compared the singing of some German monks to the noise made by
a cart rattling down a frozen street; and even 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 lamented the inferiority of the German to the
Italian singers, and one day exclaimed to the organist Freudenberg:
"We Germans have no sufficiently cultivated singers for the part of
_Leonora_; they are too cold and feelingless. The Italians sing and
act with their whole souls." Nevertheless, Beethoven refused to adapt
his music to the style of the Italian singers--fortunately; for, if
he had, it would now be as obsolete as most of Rossini's and
Donizetti's.
When Berlioz made his famous tour in Germany, matters had somewhat
improved, to judge from the following remarks in his "À Travers
Chants:" "They say that the Germans sing badly; that may seem true in
general. I will not broach the question here, whether or not their
language is the reason of it, and whether Mme. Sontag, Pischek,
Tichatschek, Mlle. 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 become a legend of the past; and only eight years ago, an
excellent German critic, Martin Plüddemann, wrote that "Germany has
many good orchestras and not a few excellent pianists, even among
amateurs; but a city of 100,000 inhabitants seldom has ten vocalists
whose voices are tolerable, and of these two or three at most deserve
the name of artists."