MUSICAL COURIER
Musical Courier Readers
16
DR. MARAFIOTI REPLIES TO CARL FABIAN
May 3, 1923
truth about the art of singing in the foregoing quotation than all the singing teachers all over the world have said or written since teaching exists. But alas, if Sir Conan Doyle would obligingly summon Wagner’s spirit on his private spiritualistic wire and take his picture we would have occasion to see his disappointment on learning that the writer in question disdains to associate with him in matters of singing. The same would hold true for Victor Hugo, the Frenchman who dared to say: “Le mot, qu ’on le sache, est un etre vivant—le mot est le verbe et le verbe est Dieu.” (The word, it must be known, is a living being—the word is the verb, and the verb is God.)
His compatriot, Lionel Dauriac, went much farther than merely to agree. He said:	“If we deprive music of the
meaning of the words for which it is composed it has nothing to say to the brain or to the heart. A fugue of Bach or a sonata of Beethoven, no matter how great it is, being dependent on a spiritual factor, without words, remains a form of art purely acoustic, made up of sounds. The composer of music without words is often worried about the title to be given to the composition, because that title must suggest a definite significance for the emotions the composer wishes to convey with his music.” Read his Psychologie du Musicien. It will do you no harm.
Henry T. Finck, an American, who has been kind enough to read a great deal about my ideas without taking offense, and wrote about them most emphatically on different occasions, in a long article in the New York Evening Post, August 5, 1922, says, among other things:
All these revelations regarding Caruso, so suggestive and valuable to singers and teachers, are mere details used by Dr. Marafioti by way of illustrations and proofs of his new theory of vocal pedagogy, which is that not the throat but the mouth is the physical center of the voice; that there is no fundamental difference between the speaking and the singing voice; that it is necessary to cultivate first the speaking voice as the essential basis for beautiful and correct singing, and that the basis for superior vocal art of the future must therefore be laid in elementary public schools. Music teachers should welcome this plan, which will make their work so much easier, with open arms.
Dr. Marafioti realizes that his theory that “singing must first be saying” is identical with Wagner’s ideas, which he quotes on page 182, and concerning which he enthusiastically declares that they contain more truth and sound precepts about singing than the dozens of books he has read on voice culture. A remarkable confession for an Italian! Almost as. remarkable as his assertion that Caruso “was the first in his class to abolish the conventional though beautiful style of singing of the bel canto school, refusing to bend towards the traditional temptation of making the words slaves to the tones.”
Is it a wonder Caruso predicted Dr. Marafioti’s book would “cause a commotion?”
In a letter of Madame Calve, dated January 12, 1922, the original of which, with others of Caruso, Victor Maurel, Galli-Curoi and Ruffo, are shown in my recent publication, “Caruso’s Method of Singing,” she writes:
Dear Doctor:
I have just read your admirable book, in which you explain with clarity a perfect method in which voice culture must be based on new scientific principles adaptable to the exigencies of the music of today. This new method has become a necessity because of the evolution of the. modern school, which demands above all lyrical declamation rather than the Bel Canto heretofore required.
Dear doctor, you who through your science have so marvelously known how to fathom the mystery of the voice, you are the one designated for entering into this reform, in which you should be encouraged and highly praised.
“The sound soars to the sky,” the great Baudelaire said. Thanks to you it will raise us, I hope, to the spheres of eternal harmony— our aim for all.
Your sincere friend,
Emma Calve.
Discouraging as it looks, there are a few unknown people who agree with me. Apropos, read the article on Antonio Scotti, by Deems Taylor in the Sunday World of April IS.
In reference to the dozens of letters I have received from different countries praising and encouraging my attempt to promote a radical reform of voice culture based on my principles, I will not inform the writer unless he is interested enough to pay me a call and see them for himself.
I could stop here and let this controversy die a natural death, but there are a few quotations of my lecture so distorted that it is my duty to call the excited writer to a reconsideration. Every one knows that by taking parts of phrases from here and there, even the Bible can be incriminated. For instance, he quotes from my lecture the following : “In some cases several singers could at the same time, and to the same music, express their, love and joy, as well as their jealousy, defiance or hate, without offending the common sense of our undiscriminating forefathers, just because the listeners were satisfied with beautiful melody. That was certainly the age of the decadence of singing music, and it was quite natural for singers to have followed that conception.”
Then, triumphantly he refutes it: “O tempora! O mores ! How we do live and learn, to be sure! Although the lecturer gives them credit for having ‘common sense’ what a lot of queer people our ‘undiscriminating forefathers’ must have been just because they were satisfied with beautiful melodies. .And then he declares:	‘That was certainly the age of the
decadence of singing.’ Shades of Patti, Gerster, Jenny Lind, Nilsson, Tamagno, Campanini, Mario, and a host of others we were always taught to believe were great singers! How terribly mistaken they all were, both the singers and the listeners, just because those artists used the bel canto in their singing and loved beautiful melodies and beautiful tones.”
I am glad to see that the writer is so well versed in the classics, but does he realize that he is refuting an entirely distorted quotation? When I say, “that certainly was the age of the decadence of singing music, evidently every one can see that I am talking about the decadence of composition, not of singing. In the comment he is quoting the same sentence omitting the word music, and attributing to me the crime of saying “that certainly was the age of the decadence of singing!” Then he calls upon the shades of Patti, Lind, Tamagno, etc., to come back and defend their singing. Patti, Lind and Tamagno, don’t disturb yourselves; it is a false alarm; another blunder;
Next the writer complains: “And isn’t it a little strange that in the English opera company referred to by the lecturer, the one foreigner in the company was the only one whose English could be understood? It is very singular how much more some foreigners know about our language than we know ourselves. Verily, ‘there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in thy philosophy.’ ”
Unfortunately, it is precisely so. Ask any critic of the years 1910 and 1911 when Mona, by Parker, was given at the Metropolitan. The foreign singer was Albert Reiss; the others, all Americans, need not be mentioned. Write to Grenville Vernon, who was at that time associated as a critic with the New York Tribune. He will inform you.
a new point of view about voice culture. My accuser was not there.
Following are the points which made the writer of the contrary view uncomfortable. ׳ From my lecture he quotes: “The idea of centering all attention and effort in producing perfect tones is the preoccupation of the great majority of singers today, yet it is a conception which should belong only to the past. Voice culture should be freed from this misleading influence which retards the evolution of the modern art of singing.”
Then he comments: “If the acquisition of beautiful tones or a beautiful voice is a ‘misleading influence which retards the evolution of the modern art of singing’ why study voice culture at all? What is voice culture if not the development of beautiful tones? If the art of singing to be modern must be devoid of all tonal beauty the necessity for voice culture is entirely done away with, it seems to me, and the vocal teacher’s occupation is gone.”
My view that the preoccupation of the majority of singers in centering all their attention and effort in producing perfect tones is a misleading influence in modern music, because it implies neglect of the words, does not mean that the modern art of singing must be devoid of all tonal beauty, and that we must abolish voice culture. That is a ridiculous exaggeration. To make the word the leading factor in singing does not imply the destruction of the beauty of the tone. On the contrary, there is an intrinsic tonal beauty in every word through which we express our emotions, even when not sung, provided we produce the word beautifully. Salvini, Bernhardt, Duse, Julia Marlowe, Yvette Guilbert and other celebrated actors all over the world have shown with their speaking voices that the real tonal beauty is molded on the word. Were they singers instead of actors, they would emphasize the beauty of their words with the rhythm of song. To center the tonal efficiency in the word, because in the word principally lies the significance of the song, should be the modern conception of singing. Whoever had the good fortune to hear Chaliapin in his recent performances at the Metropolitan could not help seeing, feeling and realizing this truth. When this exceptional artist was singing his great power lay in his words and their significance. Ask Chaliapin his opinion about the word and tone.
The writer need not fear that as a result of these views his occupation as vocal teacher is gone. Indeed not 1 He has only to brush up old ideas and modernize himself to conform with the principles of modern vocal art.
There is a modern school of painting, of composition, of orchestration. There must also be a modern school of singing better suited to modern music—Wagner; the modern Italians, from Verdi of the third period, and the modern French. These cannot be sung with the old conception of the romantic period with the preoccupation of perfect tones. A tenor who would come out to exhibit the tonal beauty of his voice while singing “Io son disonerato” of Aida would make the audience laugh, and Aida is not so modern.
The writer of the contrary view made this statement: “The lecturer says he has ‘chosen to express some views on the radical reform in voice culture’ and I am sure his reform is radical enough. If he finds any who agree with him in those views I certainly shall not be among the number.”
Strange to say, there are a few obscure people who made the mistake of agreeing with me. One of them is the German, Richard Wagner, of Bayreuth; another, Victor Hugo, an unknown writer of France; Enrico Caruso, a tenor never heard of; Victor Maurel, Emma Calvé, Lionel Dauriac, Henry T. Finck of the New York Evening Post, Deems Taylor of the World, and a few others, but not very few.
That little musician and chorus singer of Germany who wrote the trifling operetta Meistersingers, in a book, Actors and Singers (every singing teacher should read it), intruding into the sacred field of singing, wrote as follows:
“If today I seek out singers for a passably correct performance of my own dramatic works, it is not the ‘scarcity of voices’ that alarms me, but my fear of their having been utterly ruined by a method which excludes all sound pronunciation. As our singers do not articulate properly, neither for the most part do they know the meaning of their speeches, and thus the character of any role entrusted to them strikes their minds in none ■but general hazy outlines, after the manner of certain operatic commonplaces. In their consequent frenzied hunt for something to please, they light at last on stronger tones (Tonaccente) strewn here and there, on which they rush with panting breath as best they can, and end by thinking they have sung quite ‘dramatically’ if they bellow out the phrase’s closing note with an emphatic bid for applause.
“Now it has been almost amazing to me, to find how quickly such a singer, with a little talent and good will, could be freed of his senseless habits if I led him in all brevity to the essentials of his task. My compulsorily simple plan was to make him really and distinctly speak in singing, whilst I brought the lines of musical curvature (die Linien der Gesangsbewegung) to his consciousness by getting him to take in one breath, with perfectly even intonation, the calmer, lengthier periods on which he formerly had expended a number of gusty respirations; when this had been well done, I left it to his natural feeling to give the melodic lines their rightful motion, through accent, rise and fall, according to the verbal sense. Here I seemed to observe in the singer the salutary effect of the return of an overwrought emotion in its natural current, as if the reducing of its unnatural and headlong rush to a proper rate of motion had spontaneously restored him to a sense of well being; and a quite definite physiological result of this tranquiliza-tion appeared forthwith, namely, the vanishing of that peculiar cramp which dries our singers to the so-called head-note (Gaumentonn, lit. ‘palatal tone’) that terror of our singing masters, which they attack in vain with every kind of mechanical weapon, although the enemy is but a simple bent to affectation, which takes the singer past resistance when once he thinks he has no longer to speak, but to ‘sing,’ which means in his belief that he must do it ‘finely,’ that is, make an exhibition of himself.”
This poor musician, who is also responsible for Tristan and Götterdämmerung, strange as it may seem, said more
To the Musical Courier:
In your issue of April 19 there was a “contrary view” to the statements I made before the New York Singing Teachers’ Association in a lecture pleading for a radical reform in Voice Culture. My main point was that the word more than the tone should be the leading factor in modern vocal art.
The writer of the contrary view denounced me in sarcastic and bitter terms for the contents of my lecture, and I think he had a perfect right to. In my address before the Singing Teachers’ Association, a most intelligent audience, I said:
“These views I submit to you for discussion and criticism, for I feel that only through an impartial exchange of ideas among open-minded teachers can real advancement be brought about in this most important branch of art. . . . I will therefore be as frank and explicit in conveying my impressions as I hope you will be in your criticism.”
On the basis of freedom of thought, which governs all balanced minds, I started my lecture by asking for complete freedom in expressing my ideas. It was most cordially accorded me, even during the two hours of discussion which followed the lecture; no one was enraged; no one asked that I be deported. But that was a select audience of intelligent, broad-minded teachers, interested only in discussing
With the Portland, Ore., Symphony Orchestra-March 29th 1923
MORNING OREGONIAN
Miss Steeb played the E Flat major Concerto No. 1 of Liszt. From the announcement of its first big broad subject, to the last crashing chords, the dynamic little pianist held the audience in the silence of delight. Olga Steeb is a pianist without any affectations. She compelled the maximum of music from the instrument with the minimum of apparent effort. The soloist was fully and splendidly alert to the opportunities and Liszt’s delicate musical embroideries rippled under her fingers in threads of gold and silver tone. At the conclusion of the concerto she was applauded to the echo, being recalled many, many times.
DAILY JOURNAL
Miss Steeb played the difficult Liszt concerto, accompanied by the orchestra, with powerful effect. There is no indecision in her technique, no faltering of intention. She is in truth a dynamic pianist and one who rises triumphant over the mechanics of her art. The three piano solos which Miss Steeb offered were enthusiastically received.
TELEGRAM
The assisting artist was Olgo Steeb, young American pianist, who has been heard here before, but never with orchestral accompaniment. Miss Steeb’s rendition of the Liszt Concerto in E Flat major was brilliant in execution and was marked by beautiful clarity of musical thought rather than by forcefulness and power. Her technique is flawless, her trill is a marvel, and her light finger work is absolute perfection. In her group of solo numbers “The White Peacock” by Griffes stands out in one’s memory as a thing of haunting beauty.
Olga Steeb will be available singly or on Transcontinental Tour with the Griffes Group, season 1923-24.
Exclusive Direction of CATHARINE A. BAMMAN 53 West 39th Street, New York City