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April 5,1923
MUSICAL COURIER
THE SECRET OF THE ART OF THE ITALIAN BEL CANTO
Sketches on the Physiology and Pathological Physiology of the Voice and the Hygiene of Vocal Organs
BY MAESTRO ALFREDO MARTINO
(Translation by Josephine V. Cataldi)
flourish the so-called “misteri.” These were sacred representations, imitating the ancient Greek tragedies, wherein in the intervals of the dramatic action the chorus used to sing.
The Abbé Metastasio (also called Pietro Trapassi), a famous poet of the seventeenth century, gave a wiser development to this kind of art in his dramas, and this was the first step toward our melodrama (opera), wherein the art of singing passed, immediately, in the first line.
But this gave rise to “virtuosity,” and then the singer imposed upon the composer all his caprices and his whims, reducing the orchestra to a simple means for the exultation of its trills and its coloraturas.
That this is a period of decline we are agreed, but it is also a period which offers an ampler opportunity for the study of the human voice and for the knowledge of every means and wav to give it beauty and charm.
Later on will come Iphigenia in Tauris, by Gluck, to moderate the abuses, and to demonstrate how music, magnificently accompanied with poetry, may express in the highest manner all human passions and affections.
Melodrama (opera) presents itself on the vast horizon of art, and the art of song, in its splendid evolution, takes great׳ advantage from it.
Virtuosity, which used to interrupt the melodic thought, begins to correct itself, and singing corresponds in a higher degree to the expression of the word and the musical thought.
Gluck was followed by Mozart and Handel, but even in the compositions of these two great musicians the singer is, almost, the absolute lord of the situation, while the orchestra, during entire acts, is limited to the simple accompaniment.
However, the bel canto of the Italian schools was beginning to give its celebrities and was affirming itself, in an excellent manner, throughout the whole of Europe.
They tried to imitate it in Germany, but this endeavor did not give the expected results. The German school was based upon physiological principles and, besides, the language was rugged. The singers it produced were exaggerated and had little power.
But also our Italian school was not without imperfections and sacrificed the music to the singer, being satisfied more with trills than with melodies.
Bellini, Donizzetti, Verdi, who surely regretted this state of affairs, did not know how ff) correct the imperfection, and were unable to provide a remedy. So they let things go, being convinced that “it was what the public wanted” and they themselves, on several occasions, wrote more in order to satisfy some singer’s vanity than out of a real and genuine inspiration.
Verdi tried to gain ground, in his last period, with Othello and Falstaff, but whosoever will examine carefully these two works, will easily find out that the maestro has not been able to detach himself entirely from the rules he had been following in all his difficult and very fruitful career. Whenever opportunity offers he goes back to the old manner with his whole heart. Othello, in particular, may only be sung by tenors of a certain class, and he, in fact, had written it exclusively for Tamagno.
It was otherwise with Rossini, who knew very well how to make the singer subservient to the necessities of the orchestra, thus happily anticipating the Wagnerian opera.
And, in my opinion, the Italian school modifies, corrects and perfects itself constantly. So it is granted, finally, to the public—besides hearing the singer and admiring the volume, the quality, the color and the softness of his voice— the enjoyment also of the orchestral elaboration and the treasures of harmony which have flowed out of the inspired soul of the musician.
The orchestra may describe to us, in a magnificent manner, a hurricane or a beautiful spring day, while the singer may tell us of the tempest of his passion, o־ the sweetness and the joy of his love, without his art suffering for it in any way.
What will the melodrama (opera) of the future be? And what place will the singer occupy in the ever-growing evolution of thé ârt?
At the present time we cannot make any guess, but we are convinced that the future schools of singing will not greatly differ from those of the past, and the methods of teaching may be, in some way, modified but not radically changed, since the vocal organs are always the same throughout the centuries.
parked almost solidly with cars, and the auditorium filled from orchestra pit to the back wall of the balcony. I was puzzled and interested, and did not understand, so I began to study again industriously and absorbedly my favorite set of reference books in four volumes (Volume I—Some People; Volume II—Other People; Volume III—Most People; Volume IV—All People). Also I made a brief survey of the audience. Fashion and Plain Clothes sat side by side; Business was there, as well as Profession; Church and School; Leisure and Industry; Artist and Artisan; American and Spanish-American—a thoroughly mixed audience, which I was to find myself studying attentively evening after evening on the calendar of the Saturday Morning Music Club events until I should at last perhaps discover the something that made this club “different.”
We all know these home talent affairs. We are prepared in advance to be at times interested, more often bored, always dutifully and politely attentive, and possibly surprised and pleased. Consequently my first observation on Night One was the feeling of Expectancy in the house. Obviously it was a festive occasion. Obviously I was not “posted.”
A door at the left of the stage opened, and a sudden silence followed by thunderous clapping greeted the woman who stepped out from it and who stood, erect and smiling, waiting for order. It was a presence at once gracious and compelling, strong and sure, with the poise born of executive ability and well developed talent—Mrs. Heineman, president of the Saturday Morning Music Club of Tucson.
(Continued on page 49)
Copyrighted, 1923, by The Musical Courier Company.
evoking the glories of the dead heroes in slow and touching rhythms, while already Guido d’Arezzo, following the Gregorian “neumi,” creates the seven notes which make it possible to set down and fix in written music the melody which the artist dictates.
Music, therefore, is not born from song alone, but it rises up from the deepest and sincerest feelings of the human soul. With the establishment of the seven notes music began to orientate itself magnificently, and to proceed with marvelous order. To the omophonous singing the "a solo” began to be substituted, and these already required a special “technic” besides a clear enunciation. Singing, therefore, began to detach itself from the choral ensemble and began to exist individually. Hence the necessity for the early training in vocalization, and for the first singing teachers.
But what gave a real development to the Schola Can-torum was the inspired music of the divine Palestrina whom we see arising toward 1530, affirming itself with a marvellous crescendo of beauty and freshness till 1594. The compositions of Palestrina require singers of ability who know how to pronounce correctly the text, overcoming the polyphonic complications.
Hence arises the necessity of some special principles which should regulate the singer, and also that of alternating or joining together different kinds of voices.
The choruses, then, are divided into “first” and “second.” The “first” are those who have the possibility to reach the highest notes; the “second” being for the medium and bass tonalities. Here we have already the chorus, well defined and divided, and the “a solo” singing.
Man has finally understood that he has, in his own throat, the greatest and most beautiful of all the instruments, and is trying to find its greatest effect and its greatest utility.
We see, sporadically, arising in the most important cities of Italy, the first School of Singing, but they are trying to train the singer in the abstrusities of rhythm, and the acrobatics of vocalization rather than in the emission of the voice with clearness and perfection. Thus we see the polyphonic complications reaching up to an importance much superior to the words themselves. Singing is limited to the expression of the ensemble, using the natural voice of which the teachers of singing hardly knew the two principal registers—that of the chest or “dipetto,” and that of the head, “ditesta” or “falsetto.”
The first School of Singing in Italy deserving some consideration is that of Giulio Caccini, a celebrated singer and composer, which arose at the beginning of the sixteenth century and having Peri and Stradella among his followers.
The passion fbr the art of singing was so deeply felt, in those, times, that it carried them as far as to practice the horrible cruelty of eviration.
This was done, especially, in the churches where the liturgical singing tried to imitate that of the angels, such as the artist’s imagination conceived it to 'be, and the so-called “cori bianchi” (White Choruses) were composed of those unfortunates who transmitted, in the sweetness of the singing, all the desolation of their souls, all the misery of their poor, mutilated bodies.
Music became their life, as love is forbidden to them, and they were compelled to ignore the joys of the husband and of procreation upon which are founded all other earthly joys, and the natural finality of human existence.
And, in the shadow of the Sistine Chapel of the Vatican, in Rome, where the sadness of the eunuchs abounded, Caccini and Carissimi founded a new school of singing wherein, at last, each voice was distinguished from the other in its qualities and in its possibilities.
It was agreed that the voice, like any other sound, possesses three qualities—height, intensity and mettle. In accordance with the different sizes of the larynx we have different voices, in relation to the octave, among men and women, which are called soprano, mezzo soprano, contralto, tenor, baritone and bass.
The same rules and the same theories of the Roman school were adopted by that of Naples, which, with Alessandro Scarlatti, reached the climax of its glory; while Pistocchi established at Bologna a new school which furnished the most celebrated singers of the age (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries).
Grand opera is still unknown, but ir. all Europe began to
If some one had told me (before the autumn , of 1922) that it would be possible in a town of about 28,000 population, more than half of which is Mexican and Chinese, to build up within fifteen years (or any number of years!) a music club numbering 875 members, I would have smiled peacefully upon the misguided enthusiast as one smiles upon a college freshman who is about to step forth and reform the world, and would have murmured soothingly—“Dreams, my friend; empty dreams. Be reasonable !”—But happy circumstance brought me in the fall of 1922 southwest to Tucson, Arizona, where the deed above described has actually been performed.
Music news gravitates, by no law whatever, to the music lover. I had not been in Tucson very long without realizing that anybody who is anybody belongs to the Music Club, actively or passively. Hence I rushed out in haste to secure an associate membership, for which I paid what proved to be a magic seven dollars, and received a little card which was to be my passport not only to all local club programs but to the five “artist” evenings booked for the season.
Still I was only an outsider, doing the conventional thing.
The season opened October 27 with a local presentation by the Saturday Morning Music Club of In a Persian Garden, under the direction of the club’s president, Mrs. Simon Heineman. I arrived almost at the last minute, but serenely confident that since it was a local-talent program there would still be ample choice of seats, and that it would not begin on time, anyway. (They never do, you know.) Consequently it was rather disconcerting to find the street curbing
JT is my intention to give a somewhat ample treatment of both the art and the technic of singing.
I will, therefore, take my point of departure from the voice of troglodyte, to the perfection of “il bel canto,” tracing up its evolution through the syllabic songs of early humanity, then, the analectics and the jalenes, the lais and the monodies and so forth, till we reach the ancient Italian schools, which are nearest to our methods of teaching.
How then, did song originate ?
We may only imagine it, but not make a definite and dogmatical assertion. Maybe there was one day of glorious sunshine when primitive man, before the solemn majesty of creation, lifting up his eyes to the blue firmament above, tried to modulate his voice to express the joy with which his soul was filled.
Maybe, as he was wandering through the coolness of primeval forests, he tried to imitate the singing of the birds. Or, maybe, in a cloudless night, as he was considering the ardent mystery of the stars, he heard the singing of a sparkling spring, falling through the rocks, and he tried to repeat that harmony in the squalid solitude of his primeval cavern 1
The truth, doubtless, is that song was born with man, yea, with nature itself 1
The sea, the lakes, the rivers, the torrents,, the birds, the plants, the winds, the hurricanes, all have their song! And, although this song may not be revealed unto us through the different modulations, we are bound to feel it, in the very essence of everything created.
The first rhythmical modulation of the human voice may have happened, suddenly and unconsciously, through one of the many irresistible necessities of our psychology.
Primeval man, before communicating with his neighbors by means of the word, may surely have communicated with them by means of singing. Through the different modulations of his voice he may have expressed his joys, his fears, his sorrows, his mournings and some other individual may have responded, in like manner, as, perhaps today it may happen among inferior beings, although we may not be able to go so deep in this matter so as to thoroughly understand it.
In this way, song has followed man in his evolution, reaching a higher degree of perfection as man was progressing upward, because man has always expressed, through singing, all his highest and noblest passions, giving them a deeper solemnity. Through singing be has expressed his sorrows and his prayers, thus endowing them with a kind of austere sadness and diffusing in them the most vibrant part of his soul.
Going through the history of mankind, we find the earliest traces of a real and properly called song, in the “analectic,” a kind of war songs wherein the warriors, before assaulting the enemy, invoked the gods, and tried by the sound of the voice to place themselves in that state of exaltation which was necessary in order to cause them to confront^ death fearlessly. Likewise we find traces of singing in the “jalanes,” which are a kind of “songs of lamentation” modulated in sorrowful occasions, and are in use even today in some parts of Italy, as the Abruzzi, the Basilicata, Calabria, Sicily and Sardinia.
Later on, from the analogy of the rhythmical motions of the human body and of the hands which accompanied the modulation of his voice, man invented the musical instrument.
The Etruscans, the Messapians, the '/aphetians,^ the Phoenicians, the Assyrians, the Egyptians, whose _ civilizations are lost in the fearful immensity of the centuries, all had their songs, for funerals, for worship, and for war, which they accompanied with an infinite variety of musical instruments.
The earliest poets expressed in songs the treasure of their intellect and of their feelings.
In the Hebrew civilization, the kings sang, on the harp, their inspired Psalms, the Prophets their Lamentations, the bride and the bridegroom their love and their passion.
In the Greek civilization we find singing having already reached the magnificent heights of art. The Rhapsodes sang, on the lyre, the legends of the heroes and of the gods; through singing the gigantic conceptions of the poets were transmitted, and, finally, tragedy arose and affirmed itself through singing.
During the turbulent Roman era, the Emperor glorified himself through singing, and the people bowed before him as if he were a god, still singing. The early Christians, in the Catacombs, lifted up their simple and pure souls toward their risen Lord by singing, while the early martyrs faced the wild beasts in the arena with a song on their lips.
When the first Christian churches arose, the Psalms were transformed into hymns, and the Catechumens advanced toward their new faith while singing them. They sang at the marriage of kings as well as at the humble wedding of the obscure artisan. It seems as if the whole human soul were taking refuge in song, and therein finding its repose. The merriment is transmuted into singing, and into singing tears were transformed. They sing before the mystery of death, and they sing before the mystery of love.
St. Gregory the Great, first of all, stabilized the rhythmical modulations of liturgical songs by means of the “neumi,” and thus he made possible the “Canto Figurato,” which is the Gregorian chant or “cantus firmus” polyphonically elaborated, and the “cantus fractus” or omophonous singing which the priests alternated with the people.
During the middle ages the troubadours wandered from place to place, singing stories of love and adventure; the ladies of the manors sang on golden harps, and the humble maidens on the lute.
The people celebrated in song their carnival orgies, and manifested their hurning passion with songs which were slow and sweet and sad and vibrating with sentiment. While ecclesiastical singing keeps always its grave and solemn measures, being the most serious expression of the human soul, on the other side, the song of the troubadours is modulated in capricious rhythms which alternate with refreshing rapidity or with sweet slowness because they proceed from a natural, lyric feeling and a large melodic vein.
The extempore singers charm the courts of the nobility,
IT CAN BE DONE!
By Catherine Culman