Part 7

Rapid runs downwards are easily executed correctly when care is taken that with every tone the same movement is made as in the case of trills, and the breath is kept back as much as possible. Voices wanting in flexibility may soon acquire the desired quality by singing every tone _piano_ upon the syllable _koo_.

Ascending runs can properly be taught only when the descending have been correctly sung, for, in opposition to the former, every tone of the latter must be formed by a light impulse with increased breath. The softer the piano in which the pupil practises, and the more loose the consequent movement of the larynx, the more distinctly and the more purely will the pupil gradually execute these embellishments.

Intelligible as these movements are in practice, it is difficult to describe them. To be able to make all ornaments in singing beautifully and easily requires long practice, for in a thoroughly artistic piece of vocal music it is essential, as the great artist _Schröder-Devrient_ said, that all the notes of ornamentation (_Coloratur_) should be like a string of pearls on black velvet, each distinct in itself, round and beautiful, and yet so connected with the rest in one whole that no gap is discernible. Carefully and correctly directed exercises in ornamentation are in the highest degree necessary to the formation of tone; they tire the voice far less than sustained notes, and accustom it to an exact enunciation of the tones. But because persevering practice is necessary to the cultivation of vocal flexibility, the teaching of this is to be begun at the very first; and not until later, when the voice is habituated to a right touch and to a perfectly clear tone, is the pupil to be given those favorite exercises with long-sustained notes, which are sung with one continuous breath. That we so rarely meet with clear vocal fluency is again owing to our mode of teaching. We do not seek to cultivate formation of tone and fluency at the same time. Oftentimes it is only after years spent in singing sustained tones that ornaments are allowed to be practised, and then, instead of using as little breath as possible, the flexibility of the larynx is hindered by singing too powerfully with full chest and unintermitted crowding of the breath. Without denying that in regard to vocal flexibility different individuals and nations may be variously gifted, it is nevertheless certain that _with due practice every one may acquire more or less of vocal fluency_.

_Frederick Wiek_ has composed for his pupils a large number of simple exercises, in which all kinds of ornaments are introduced, and which at the same time are so melodious that they easily catch the ear. They mostly comprise only a few tones, at the most an octave, and are sung in half tones, ascending in different keys. Next to these exercises come, as highly adapted to the culture of vocal flexibility, the solfeggi of _Mieksch_, _Mazzoni_, _Rossini_, _Crescentini_, &c. There is, indeed, no want of excellent exercises and solfeggi. Their use, however, depends upon the way in which the teacher requires them to be practised. Notwithstanding the abundance of these exercises, I have always found it necessary to prepare special ones for my pupils, as every voice requires peculiar treatment and guidance.[15] In every pupil peculiar faults are to be overcome and peculiar qualities come into play, and the vocal organ shows as many differences as the human face. But the right way is sure to be found when the irreversible laws of nature, which lie at the foundation of our art, are once recognized. The practical advantages of this knowledge the singer, like every other artist, must endeavor to secure orally, that is, by sound instruction. Ornamentation, however, can become distinct and clear only by uniting these with a distinct, pure touch, as we have already endeavored to describe, when, with the beginning of the tone, the pitch is struck lightly, quickly, distinctly, elastically, with certainty and perfect correctness. But as it is by no means easy to introduce a tone quickly and correctly, so that it will sound equally pure from the first, this flexibility is extremely rare among our singers. Instead of it, the most hateful mannerisms have stolen into practice; the tone is struck too low, and forced up by an increase of breath, or the tones are so drawled one into another that one cannot tell where they begin or where they cease. Impure intonation is much more disagreeable in the high tones than in the low. This is quite natural; for when, for example, the low _c_ is sung one-tenth too low or too high, then it will cause an octave higher twice as many vibrations, and two octaves higher four times as many, and these in proportion to their number produce a more intense effect. In the higher registers of the tones little discords (_Verstimmungen_) call forth a much larger number of beats (which are not to be confounded with vibrations) than in the lower, and thus the impurity of the musical intervals is felt much more strongly. Purity in the art of singing is, however, such a primal condition of its beauty, that a piece of music purely executed, even by a weak and slightly-cultivated voice, always sounds agreeably, while the most sonorous and practised voice offends the hearer when it is out of tune or forced upwards. The training of our singers by pianos, as they are now tuned, by equal temperament, is altogether unsatisfactory. The singer who practises with the piano has no safe principle by which he can measure the height of his tones with any exactness. But persons of good musical talent, made aware of this disadvantage by a competent teacher, and practising accordingly, can nevertheless overcome this difficulty caused by our present method of tuning, and learn to sing correctly and purely.

Until the seventeenth century, singers were drilled by the monochord, for which _Zarlino_, in the middle of the sixteenth century, re-introduced the correct, natural tuning. The drilling of singers was conducted at that time with a care of which we have now no idea. The church music of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries is arranged upon the purest consonant chords, depending upon this for its whole effect, which would naturally be injured if not executed with perfect purity. Our opera singers now-a-days are seldom able to sing without accompaniment a composition for several voices so purely that its whole beauty is felt; the accord almost always sounds sharp and somewhat uncertain, and therefore cannot satisfy a really musical ear.

SPEECH

The vowels and consonants are, in speaking, produced by certain noises (_Geräusche_), which in singing sound together with the tone. These sounds are produced by local diminutions of the cavity of the mouth, or by the opening or closing of the lips and teeth, as well as by movements of the tip of the tongue, &c., while a single pulse of the air passes through the tolerably wide open glottis and through the cavity of the mouth without regular vibrations. For the air rushes more directly out of the mouth in speaking than in singing. Of this we may be easily convinced by holding a feather before the mouth; it will show far more motion in speaking than in correct singing. If, in speaking, people would take pains to form the vowels in the front of the mouth--a habit so necessary in singing, and which is easily acquired by practice--our common speech would be much more melodious, far-sounding, and less strained. We see the truth of this when we hear words called out from a height and from a distance; the different consonants then mostly disappear, excepting the _m_ and _n_, which are formed mostly in the front of the mouth. The vowels, on the other hand, are more or less plainly heard, according to the places in the mouth where they are formed. Certain it is that for the beauty of our common speech, the resonance of the cavity of the mouth peculiar to each vowel may be rendered available. A singing tone in speaking is very disagreeable. Every one who is not used to it, finds the singing dialect of Saxony in the highest degree offensive and unpleasant. Nevertheless, a more attentive observation soon teaches us that behind the noise which characterizes the several sounds in language, a timbre is heard similar to the tone in singing, and in various instances there occur regular musical intervals, as at the end of a sentence or in the special accentuation of single words. Thus, at the conclusion of an affirmative sentence the voice usually falls about a fourth from the medium pitch, and at the end of an interrogatory sentence rises about a fifth above the usual speaking tone. Words specially accented are usually a tone higher than the rest, &c. In public speaking and in dramatic representations these variations of sound are more numerous and complicated, and the inventor of the modern Recitative, _Jacob Perri_, even declares that he formed it by imitating in singing these variations of sound, in order to restore again the declamation of the ancient tragedians.[16]

Tedious and intolerable as it is to hear so much sing-song in common speech, it is equally wearisome when people drone on always in a dry speaking tone at the same pitch, without ever letting the voice rise or fall. The most interesting matter thus delivered will lull the hearer to sleep. It cannot be denied that a rich field is here offered for farther scientific observation, and those natural laws which lie at the foundation of the art of singing may certainly be applied with advantage to the perfecting of the mode of speaking, especially in those who have to speak in public.[17]

To extend these remarks any farther does not come within our present purpose, which is concerned exclusively with the voice in singing and its cultivation. For this reason I leave unnoticed many most interesting phenomena relating to music in general, but not particularly to the culture of the voice, although they are of the deepest interest to the educated musician.

[7] Tyndall.

[8] The concert pitch in different places and at different periods has undergone great changes. The Grand Opera in Paris in the year 1700 established 404 vibrations to a second as the concert pitch of a¹, which gradually rose higher, as the wind instruments became more perfect and had a more important part assigned them in concerted music, until 1858 it had attained the height of 448 vibrations in a second. In this same year (1858) at Berlin and St. Petersburg it reached its greatest height--451½ vibrations in the second. In Mozart's time, in Vienna, it had only 422 and 428 vibrations.

[9] As long as melody alone was aimed at in music, and was accompanied only by octaves, the tones preserved their natural purity. But with the rise of harmony (the accord of different tones) there was rendered necessary a more regular system, to which the purity of the tones was sacrificed.

[10] “It is not possible to sound a stretched string as a whole without at the same time causing to a greater or less extent its subdivision; that is to say, superposed upon the vibrations of the string we have always, in a greater or less degree, the vibrations of its aliquot parts. The higher notes produced by these latter vibrations are called the _harmonics_ of the string. And so it is with other sounding bodies; we have, in all cases, a co-existence of vibrations. Higher tones mingle with the fundamental tone, and it is their intermixture which determines what, for want of a better term, we call the _quality_ of the sound. The French call it _timbre_, and the Germans call it _Klangfarbe_. It is this union of high and low tones that enables us to distinguish one musical instrument from another. A clarionet and a violin, for example, though tuned to the same fundamental note, are not confounded....

“All bodies and instruments, then, employed for producing musical sounds, emit, besides their fundamental tones, tones due to higher order of vibrations. The Germans embrace all such sounds under the general term _Obertöne_. I think it will be an advantage if we, in England, adopt the term _over-tones_, as the equivalent of the term employed in Germany. One has occasion to envy the power of the German language to adapt itself to requirements of this nature. The term _Klangfarbe_, for example, employed by Helmholtz, is exceedingly expressive, and we need its equivalent also. You know that color depends upon rapidity of vibrations--that blue light bears to red the same relation that a high tone does to a low one. A simple color has but one rate of vibration, and it may be regarded as the analogue of a simple tone in music. A _tone_, then, may be defined as the product of a vibration which cannot be decomposed into more simple ones. A compound color, on the contrary, is produced by the admixture of two or more simple ones; and an assemblage of tones, such, as we obtain when the fundamental tone and the harmonics of a string sound together, is called by the Germans a _Klang_. May we not employ the English word _clang_ to denote the same thing, and thus give the term a precise scientific meaning akin to its popular one? And may we not, like Helmholtz, add the word _color_ or _tint_ to denote the character of the clang, using the term _clang-tint_ as the equivalent of _Klangfarbe_?” (Sound: A course of Lectures delivered at the Royal Institution of Great Britain by John Tyndall, LL.D., F.R.S., Professor of Nat. Phil. in the Royal Institution and in the Royal School of Mines. English edition, pp. 116-118.)--Tr.

[11] As to the characteristic sounds of the different keys, the views of musicians are to the present day divided. Many even of our most eminent theorists, as Hauptmann, for example, in Leipsig, have maintained that all keys (_Tonarten_) are only transpositions of one major and minor key, and that like musical effects may be produced with one as well as with the other. The majority of musicians are, however, of the opinion that each key has its peculiar character, and that by transposition into another key the musical effect is changed. My son, Carl Seiler, has discovered that each key has its own peculiar, prominent over-tones, which determine its distinctive character. A table of all the keys (_Tonarten_), in which the prominent over-tones of each are given, shows also that the mutual relation of the keys (_Tonarten_) is elucidated by these over-tones. And thus again scientific investigation confirms what the founders of the theory of music, with their sound sense for the beautiful, recognized as correct.

[12] The position of the body in singing must be such as in no way to interfere with the easy drawing of the breath. One sings most easily standing as erect as possible, quiet and unconstrained, the chest somewhat projected, the body slightly drawn in, and the hands folded.

[13] It was instruments of this class--trumpets, horns, bugles, etc.--in whose timbre the highest inharmonic over-tones overpower all the rest, that were painfully offensive to the exquisite musical organization of Mozart from his earliest childhood.

[14] It is all but impossible to give an idea of what is meant by _Tonansatz_, without a practical illustration. It is that striking of the note or the air corresponding to the touch in piano-playing.

[15] A selection of such exercises, prepared by the present writer, has recently been published by Mr. O. Ditson in Boston, and also two books of old Italian solfeggi from Mieksch and Mazzoni, arranged to the present pitch.

[16] According to _Boethius_, the _lyra_, which was used by the Greeks to accompany declamation, embraced, in the tuning of its strings, the principal intervals used in speaking.

[17] Since the appearance of this book I have often been consulted by persons whose calling required them to speak in public, and whose vocal organs were no longer competent thereto. Here also I have found in most cases that there was an incorrect use of the registers, and that men especially form the lowest sounds with that forced enlarging of the windpipe already mentioned (that is, with the so-called _Strohbassregister_). Many have probably fallen into this unnatural and exhausting manner by attempting to speak or to sing loudly. Together with the incorrect use of the registers, there is also an incorrect management (_Leitung_) of the vibrating air, which so often renders speaking so difficult to public speakers. As, when the voice is not wholly directed to the front of the mouth, it does not move the external air quickly enough and so does not reach far, the speaker commonly tries to help himself by a greater expenditure of force. Misled by false views, speakers usually attempt by a great waste of breath and by exertion alone to produce an effect which can be realized only by skilful management of the most delicate and easily moved of all things, the air.

IV

THE ÆSTHETIC VIEW

OF THE ART OF SINGING

Having treated, in the two preceding divisions of this book, of the physiological and physical laws lying at the basis of singing tones, and of their practical application to the formation of the voice, we come now to the better known--the æsthetic--part of our task.

The reader will bear in mind that as, in the preceding sections, our attention has been confined to what directly relates to the culture of the voice in singing, notwithstanding the strong temptation to transcend the limits which our present design prescribes, so in this section also the same purpose is kept in view, and it is not to be regarded as treating of the æsthetics of music in general.

Hitherto we have had to do with fixed, irreversible laws, which are to be implicitly followed in order to render singing as perfect as possible. We have seen how the decline of the art of singing had to follow as a necessary consequence the non-observance of these laws. In speaking thus far of the agreeable and the disagreeable, of the beautiful and its opposite, we have had no reference to artistic feeling. We have been concerned only with direct sensuous pleasure or pain, not with æsthetic beauty. We have been occupied thus far with the _technique_ of our art--the form. But with the animating spirit of this form, the _æsthetic_, we enter upon a broader field, which, dependent upon purely psychological reasons (_Motiven_), may undergo a change, either from the general progress of mankind or from the culture of the practised artist. Thus, although from Aristotle down to Lessing and our own times the principles of beauty in all the arts are the same, yet every period, in which art has nourished, has produced works, various indeed, and corresponding to the spirit of the age, works, which, however, notwithstanding all differences, have still conformed to the demands of the principles of beauty. Thus, in architecture, sculpture, painting, music, &c., there are different styles of art, every one of which, however, has its justification and its peculiar beauty. We are not, therefore, to judge these different styles of art by the taste and ideas (_Auffassung_) of the present, but by the character of the times that produced them. Although the mode of thinking may vary in accordance with the different stages of culture of individuals and mankind, there are, nevertheless, certain principles of beauty which all nature announces.

By beauty we understand the highest perfection of the single parts in a perfectly represented whole, and the most intimate union of the ideal with the material, i.e., of the spiritual with the formal, which must have as its basis a certain proportion and order in the position of the several parts as well as in their relation to the whole work. In the perception of the beautiful, everything must tend to awaken the feeling of repose and pleasure; and the more susceptible we are of the impression of the beautiful, the more shall we be disturbed by defects, even the least, in any work of art. The pleasure which we take in any work of art, which, however faultless in certain respects, shows any glaring defect, is greatly abridged. The ugly spot will absorb our attention and destroy the pure enjoyment of its beauty, and still more disagreeable will be the effect if the different _parts_, otherwise beautifully shaped, are thrown out of their due symmetry and proportion. In the successive arts, as music, the dramatic art, &c., proportion (_Maassvolle_) is an essential condition of beauty, more than in the simultaneous arts; and an artist whose _technique_ is altogether perfect, and who can succeed in reproducing every emotion of the mind in his work, is a true artist only when he never transgresses by an excess of passion the fine boundary lines of beauty.

It is given to only a very few to recognize at once the high and beautiful in art. In most the sense of the beautiful awakens only with a riper spiritual development. It is thus the fruit of a higher stage of culture. To children and persons wholly uneducated a brightly painted picture-book is more beautiful than the Dresden Madonna, that great masterpiece of painting. And most people take greater pleasure in a waltz by _Strauss_ or _Lanner_ than in a symphony by Beethoven or Mozart. Beauty depends upon principles, i.e., rules and laws, which are founded in the nature of the human reason. The appreciation, therefore, of beauty accompanies the development in man of his reason.