Bel canto
Encyclopedia
Bel canto (Italian
, "beautiful singing"), along with a number of similar constructions ("bellezze del canto"/"bell’arte del canto"), is an Italian opera
term. It has several different meanings and is subject to a wide array of interpretations.
The earliest use of the term "bel canto" occurred in late 17th-century Italy, when it was applied to a sophisticated model of singing
that was evolving there among practitioners of opera
tic and sacred music. The term did not become widely used, however, until the middle of the next century, which was the heyday of opera seria
, the static but technically challenging da capo aria
, and the now-extinct castrato
voice.
In the mid-19th century, bel canto gained a more specific meaning when it was employed to distinguish what by now had developed into the traditional Italian vocal model from more forceful, less ingratiating styles of singing. These newer styles of singing had arisen as a result of 19th-century operas growing increasingly dramatic, pitting performers against louder and denser orchestral accompaniments in bigger theatres. Nonetheless, "neither musical nor general dictionaries saw fit to attempt [a] definition [of bel canto] until after 1900". The term remains vague and ambiguous in the 21st century and is often used nostalgically to evoke a lost singing tradition.
As generally understood nowadays, the term "bel canto" refers to the Italian-originated vocal style that prevailed throughout most of Europe during the 18th century and lingered in a less elaborate but still dominant form until around 1840. The hallmarks of the bel canto style were:
Operas and oratorio
s highly conducive to this method of singing were composed by George Frideric Handel
(1685–1759) and his contemporaries during the Baroque
period. They contained da capo aria
s which were designed to provide solo singers with plentiful opportunities to display their technical skill and demonstrate their ability to improvise on the spot by embellishing the written score in a (hopefully) tasteful and illuminating manner. Da capo arias featured extensive and elaborate ornamentation, demanding much from the vocalist in the way of fluent runs, trill
s, turns (gruppetti), mordent
s, morendi, roulade
s, staccato
passages, appoggiaturas, acciaccaturas, marcato
notes, messa di voce
effects, rapid scales, wide leaps spanning two octaves or more and brilliant cadenza
s. In short: what is commonly referred to by opera-goers as coloratura
.
Two famous 18th-century teachers of coloratura vocalism were Antonio Bernacchi
(1685–1756) and Nicola Porpora
(1686–1768), but numerous others existed. A large proportion of these teachers were castrati. Singer/author John Potter declares in his book Tenor: History of a Voice (Yale University Press, 2009, p. 31) that: "For much of the 18th century castrati defined the art of singing; it was the loss of their irrecoverable skills that in time created the myth of bel canto, a way of singing and conceptualizing singing that was entirely different from anything that the world had heard before or would hear again."
In a narrower application, the term "bel canto" is sometimes attached exclusively to Italian opera of the time of Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868), Vincenzo Bellini
(1801–1835) and Gaetano Donizetti
(1797–1848). These three composers wrote bravura
works for the stage during what musicologists call the bel canto era, which lasted approximately from 1805 to 1840. The bel canto era preserved many of the Baroque's musical values, although such characteristic forms as opera seria and the da capo aria did not survive the passing of the 18th century. Changing tastes and social standards also killed off the operatic castrato voice and ensured the concomitant rise to singing supremacy of the prima donna
soprano
and the virtuoso tenor
. (The last important opera role for a castrato was written in 1824 by Giacomo Meyerbeer
[1791-1864].)
Actually, the phrase "bel canto" did not enter common usage until the middle of the 19th century, when it was set in opposition to the development of a weightier, more powerful style of speech-inflected singing associated with German opera and, above all, Richard Wagner
's revolutionary music dramas. Wagner (1813–1883) decried the Italian singing model, alleging that it was concerned merely with "whether that G or A will come out roundly". He advocated a new, Germanic school of singing which would draw "the spiritually energetic and profoundly passionate into the orbit of its matchless Expression".
Interestingly enough, French musicians and composers never embraced the more florid extremes of the 18th-century Italian bel canto style. They disliked the castrato voice and because they placed a premium on the clear enunciation of the texts of their vocal music, they objected to the sung word being obscured by excessive fioritura
.
The popularity of the bel canto style as espoused by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini faded in Italy during the mid-19th century. It was overtaken by a heavier, more ardent, less embroidered approach to singing that was necessary in order to perform the innovative works of Giuseppe Verdi
(1813–1901) with maximum dramatic impact. Tenors, for instance, began to inflate their tone and deliver the high C (and even the high D) directly from the chest rather than resorting to a suave head voice/falsetto
as they had done previously—sacrificing vocal agility in the process. Sopranos and baritone
s reacted in a similar fashion to their tenor colleagues when confronted with Verdi's drama-filled compositions. They subjected the mechanics of their voice production to greater pressures and cultivated the exciting upper part of their respective ranges at the expense of their mellow but less penetrant lower notes. Initially at least, the singing techniques of 19th-century contralto
s and basses
were less affected by the musical innovations of Verdi, which were built upon by his successors Amilcare Ponchielli
(1834–1886) and Arrigo Boito
(1842–1918).
One reason for the eclipse of the old Italian singing model was the growing influence within the music world of bel canto's detractors, who considered it to be outmoded and condemned it as vocalization devoid of content. To others, however, bel canto became the vanished art of elegant, refined, sweet-toned musical utterance. Rossini lamented in a conversation that took place in Paris
in 1858 that: "Alas for us, we have lost our bel canto". Similarly, the so-called German style was as derided as much as it was heralded. In the introduction to a collection of songs by Italian masters published in 1887 in Berlin under the title Il bel canto, Franz Sieber wrote: "In our time, when the most offensive shrieking under the extenuating device of 'dramatic singing' has spread everywhere, when the ignorant masses appear much more interested in how loud rather than how beautiful the singing is, a collection of songs will perhaps be welcome which – as the title purports – may assist in restoring bel canto to its rightful place."
In the late-19th century and early-20th century, the term "bel canto" was resurrected by Italy's singing teachers, among whom the retired Verdi baritone Antonio Cotogni
(1831–1918) was perhaps the pre-eminent figure. Cotogni and his ilk invoked it against an unprecedentedly vehement, unsubtle and vibrato-laden style of vocalism which was being adopted by more and more post-1890 singers in order to cope with:
To make the situation worse, during the 1890s, the directors of the Bayreuth Festival
began propagating a particularly forceful style of Wagnerian singing that placed such an undue emphasis on the articulation of the individual words of the composer's libretti, the all-important musical component of his operas was compromised. Called "Sprechgesang
" by its proponents and the "Bayreuth bark" by its opponents, this hectoring, text-based, anti-legato approach to vocalism spread across the German-speaking parts of Europe prior to World War I
. It was totally at odds with the ideals of "beautiful singing".
As a result of these many factors, the concept of bel canto became shrouded in mystique and confused by a plethora of individual notions and interpretations. To complicate matters further, German musicology
in the early 20th century invented its own historical application for "bel canto", using the term to denote the simple lyricism that came to the fore in Venetian opera and the Roman cantata
during the 1630s and '40s (the era of composers Antonio Cesti
, Giacomo Carissimi
and Luigi Rossi) as a reaction against the earlier, text-dominated "stilo rappresentativo"
. Unfortunately, this anachronistic use of the term bel canto was given wide circulation in Robert Haas
's Die Musik des Barocks (Potsdam, 1928) and, later, in Manfred Bukofzer
's Music in the Baroque Era (New York, 1947). Since the singing style of later 17th-century Italy did not differ in any marked way from that of the 18th century and early 19th century, a connection can be drawn; but the term is best limited to its mid-19th-century use, designating a style of singing that emphasized beauty of tone and technical expertise in the delivery of music that was either highly florid or featured long, flowing and difficult-to-sustain passages of cantilena
.
In the 1950s, the phrase bel canto revival was coined to refer to a renewed interest in the operas of Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini. These composers had begun to go out of fashion during the latter years of the 19th century and their works, while never completely disappearing from the performance repertoire, were staged infrequently during the first half of the 20th century, when the operas of Wagner, Verdi and Puccini held sway. That situation changed significantly after World War II
with the advent of a group of enterprising orchestral conductors and the emergence of a fresh generation of singers such as Maria Callas
, Joan Sutherland
and Beverly Sills
, who had acquired bel canto techniques. These artists breathed new life into Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini's stage compositions, treating them seriously as music and re-popularizing them throughout Europe and America. Today, some of the world's most frequently performed operas, such as Rossini's The Barber of Seville
and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor
, are from the bel canto era.
Not coincidentally, the 18th-century operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756–1791), which require adroit bel canto skills if they are to be performed well, also experienced a post-war revival that shows no sign of abating, while the florid operas composed by Mozart's predecessor Handel have undergone a similar surge in popularity during recent decades. "I should think that performances of Handel operas now outnumber all others," avers classical music commentator Simon Callow
in the April 2010 issue of Gramophone magazine (p. 26).
Musicologists occasionally apply the label bel canto technique to the arsenal of virtuosic vocal accomplishments and concepts imparted by singing teachers to their students during the late 18th century and the early 19th century. Many of these teachers were castrati.
"All [their] pedagogical works follow the same structure, beginning with exercises on single notes and eventually progressing to scales and improvised embellishments," writes Potter on p. 47 of his Tenor: History of a Voice. "The really creative ornamentation required for cadenzas, involving models and formulae that could generate newly improvised material, came towards the end of the process." (Today's pervasive idea that singers should refrain from improvising and always adhere strictly to the letter of a composer's published score is a comparatively recent phenomenon, promulgated during the first decades of the 20th century by dictatorial conductors such as Arturo Toscanini
[1867-1957], who championed the dramatic operas of Verdi and Wagner and believed in keeping performers on a tight interpretive leash. See, for instance, Volume 1 of Michael Scott
's survey
The Record of Singing [Duckworth, London, 1977], pp. 135–136; also Potter, p. 77.)
Potter notes, however, that as the 19th century unfurled, "The general tendency ... was for singers not to have been taught by castrati (there were few of them left) and for serious study to start later, often at one of the new conservatories rather than with a private teacher. The traditional techniques and pedagogy were still acknowledged, but the teaching was generally in the hands of tenors and baritones who were by then at least once removed from the tradition itself."
Early 19th-century teachers described the voice as being made up of three registers. The chest register was the lowest of the three and the head register the highest, with the passaggio
in between. These registers needed to be smoothly blended and fully equalized before a trainee singer could acquire total command of his or her natural instrument, and the surest way to achieve this outcome was for the trainee to practise vocal exercises assiduously. Bel canto-era teachers were great believers in the benefits of vocalise
and solfeggio. They strove to strengthen the respiratory muscles of their pupils and equip them with such time-honoured vocal attributes as "purity of tone, perfection of legato, phrasing informed by eloquent portamento
, and exquisitely turned ornaments", to quote from the introduction to Volume 2 of Scott's The Record of Singing
(Duckworth, London, 1979).
Major refinements occurred to the existing system of voice classification during the 19th century as the international operatic repertoire diversified, split into distinctive nationalist schools and expanded in size. Whole new categories of singers such as mezzo-soprano
and Wagnerian bass-baritone
arose towards the end of the 19th century, as did such new sub-categories as lyric coloratura soprano, dramatic soprano
and spinto
soprano, and various grades of tenor, stretching from lyric through spinto to heroic. These classificatory changes have had a lasting effect on the way singing teachers designate voices and the way in which opera house managements cast their productions.
It would be wrong, however, to think that there was across-the-board uniformity among 19th-century bel canto adherents when it came to passing on their knowledge and instructing students. Each of them had their own training regimes and pet notions; but, fundamentally, they all subscribed to the same set of bel canto precepts, and the exercises that they devised in order to enhance their students' breath support, dexterity, range and technical control remain valuable and, indeed, are still employed by some teachers.
Manuel García
(1805–1906), author of the influential treatise L'Art du Chant, was the most prominent of the group of pedagogues that perpetuated bel-canto principles in their teachings and writings during the second half of the 19th century. His like-minded younger sister, Pauline Viardot (1821–1910), was also an important teacher of voice, as were Viardot's contemporaries Mathilde Marchesi
, Camille Everardi
, Julius Stockhausen
, Carlo Pedrotti
, Venceslao Persichini, Giovanni Sbriglia
, Melchiorre Vidal and Francesco Lamperti
(together with Francesco's son Giovanni Battista Lamperti
). The voices of a number of their former students can be heard on acoustic recordings made in the first two decades of the 20th century and re-issued since on LP and CD. Some examples on disc of historically and artistically significant 19th-century singers whose bel canto-infused vocal styles and techniques pre-date the "Bayreuth bark" and the dramatic excesses of verismo opera are:
Sir Charles Santley
(born 1834), Gustav Walter
(born 1834), Adelina Patti
(born 1843), Marianne Brandt
(born 1842), Lilli Lehmann
(born 1848), Jean Lassalle (born 1847), Victor Maurel
(born 1848), Marcella Sembrich
(born 1858), Lillian Nordica
(born 1857), Emma Calvé
(born 1858), Nellie Melba
(born 1861), Francesco Tamagno
(born 1850), Francesco Marconi
(born 1853), Léon Escalais
(born 1859), Mattia Battistini
(born 1856), Mario Ancona
(born 1860), Pol Plançon
(born 1851), and Antonio Magini-Coletti
and Francesco Navarini (both born 1855).
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
, "beautiful singing"), along with a number of similar constructions ("bellezze del canto"/"bell’arte del canto"), is an Italian opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
term. It has several different meanings and is subject to a wide array of interpretations.
The earliest use of the term "bel canto" occurred in late 17th-century Italy, when it was applied to a sophisticated model of singing
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
that was evolving there among practitioners of opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic and sacred music. The term did not become widely used, however, until the middle of the next century, which was the heyday of opera seria
Opera seria
Opera seria is an Italian musical term which refers to the noble and "serious" style of Italian opera that predominated in Europe from the 1710s to c. 1770...
, the static but technically challenging da capo aria
Da capo aria
The da capo aria is a musical form, which was prevalent in the Baroque era. It is sung by a soloist with the accompaniment of instruments, often a small orchestra. The da capo aria is very common in the musical genres of opera and oratorio...
, and the now-extinct castrato
Castrato
A castrato is a man with a singing voice equivalent to that of a soprano, mezzo-soprano, or contralto voice produced either by castration of the singer before puberty or one who, because of an endocrinological condition, never reaches sexual maturity.Castration before puberty prevents a boy's...
voice.
In the mid-19th century, bel canto gained a more specific meaning when it was employed to distinguish what by now had developed into the traditional Italian vocal model from more forceful, less ingratiating styles of singing. These newer styles of singing had arisen as a result of 19th-century operas growing increasingly dramatic, pitting performers against louder and denser orchestral accompaniments in bigger theatres. Nonetheless, "neither musical nor general dictionaries saw fit to attempt [a] definition [of bel canto] until after 1900". The term remains vague and ambiguous in the 21st century and is often used nostalgically to evoke a lost singing tradition.
History of the term and its various definitions
- an impeccable legatoLegatoIn musical notation the Italian word legato indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected. That is, in transitioning from note to note, there should be no intervening silence...
production throughout the singer's (seamless) range - the use of a light tone in the higher registers,
- an agile, flexible technique capable of dispatching ornate embellishments,
- the ability to execute fast, accurate divisionsDivision (music)Division in music refers to a type of ornamentation or variation common in 16th and 17th century music in which each note of a melodic line is "divided" into several shorter, faster-moving notes, often by a rhythmic repetition of a simple musical device such as the trill, turn or cambiata on each...
, - the avoidance of aspirates and the eschewing of a loose vibratoVibratoVibrato is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterised in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation and the speed with which the pitch is varied .-Vibrato and...
, - a pleasing, well-focused timbreTimbreIn music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
, - a clean attack,
- limpid diction, and
- graceful phrasing rooted in a complete mastery of breath control.
Operas and oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
s highly conducive to this method of singing were composed by George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
(1685–1759) and his contemporaries during the Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
period. They contained da capo aria
Aria
An aria in music was originally any expressive melody, usually, but not always, performed by a singer. The term is now used almost exclusively to describe a self-contained piece for one voice usually with orchestral accompaniment...
s which were designed to provide solo singers with plentiful opportunities to display their technical skill and demonstrate their ability to improvise on the spot by embellishing the written score in a (hopefully) tasteful and illuminating manner. Da capo arias featured extensive and elaborate ornamentation, demanding much from the vocalist in the way of fluent runs, trill
Trill (music)
The trill is a musical ornament consisting of a rapid alternation between two adjacent notes, usually a semitone or tone apart, which can be identified with the context of the trill....
s, turns (gruppetti), mordent
Mordent
In music, a mordent is an ornament indicating that the note is to be played with a single rapid alternation with the note above or below. Like trills, they can be chromatically modified by a small flat, sharp or natural accidental...
s, morendi, roulade
Roulade
The word roulade originates from the French word "rouler" meaning "to roll". Typically, a roulade is a European dish consisting of a slice of meat rolled around a filling, such as cheese, vegetables, or other meats. A roulade, like a braised dish, is often browned then covered with wine or stock...
s, staccato
Staccato
Staccato is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation it signifies a note of shortened duration and separated from the note that may follow by silence...
passages, appoggiaturas, acciaccaturas, marcato
Marcato
Marcato is a musical instruction indicating a note, chord, or passage is to be played louder or more forcefully than surrounding music. The instruction may involve the word marcato itself written above or below the staff or it may take the form of an accent mark, ^ , an open vertical wedge...
notes, messa di voce
Messa di voce
Messa di voce is a musical technique that involves a gradual crescendo and decrescendo while sustaining a single pitch. That is, a note is sung at a very quiet volume, gradually and smoothly made louder until it reaches a high volume, then similarly made quiet again...
effects, rapid scales, wide leaps spanning two octaves or more and brilliant cadenza
Cadenza
In music, a cadenza is, generically, an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist or soloists, usually in a "free" rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display....
s. In short: what is commonly referred to by opera-goers as coloratura
Coloratura
Coloratura has several meanings. The word is originally from Italian, literally meaning "coloring", and derives from the Latin word colorare . When used in English, the term specifically refers to elaborate melody, particularly in vocal music and especially in operatic singing of the 18th and...
.
Two famous 18th-century teachers of coloratura vocalism were Antonio Bernacchi
Antonio Bernacchi
Antonio Maria Bernacchi was an Italian castrato, composer, and teacher of singing. He studied with Francesco Antonio Pistocchi. His pupils included Farinelli, for a brief period during 1727, and the tenor Anton Raaff...
(1685–1756) and Nicola Porpora
Nicola Porpora
Nicola Porpora was an Italian composer of Baroque operas and teacher of singing, whose most famous singing student was the castrato Farinelli. One of his other students was composer Matteo Capranica.-Biography:Porpora was born in Naples...
(1686–1768), but numerous others existed. A large proportion of these teachers were castrati. Singer/author John Potter declares in his book Tenor: History of a Voice (Yale University Press, 2009, p. 31) that: "For much of the 18th century castrati defined the art of singing; it was the loss of their irrecoverable skills that in time created the myth of bel canto, a way of singing and conceptualizing singing that was entirely different from anything that the world had heard before or would hear again."
In a narrower application, the term "bel canto" is sometimes attached exclusively to Italian opera of the time of Gioachino Rossini (1792–1868), Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
(1801–1835) and Gaetano Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
(1797–1848). These three composers wrote bravura
Bravura
In classical music, a bravura is a virtuosic passage intended to show off the skill of a performer, generally as a solo, and often in a cadenza. It can also be used as an adjective , or to refer to a performance of extraordinary virtuosity. The term comes from the Italian language for great skill....
works for the stage during what musicologists call the bel canto era, which lasted approximately from 1805 to 1840. The bel canto era preserved many of the Baroque's musical values, although such characteristic forms as opera seria and the da capo aria did not survive the passing of the 18th century. Changing tastes and social standards also killed off the operatic castrato voice and ensured the concomitant rise to singing supremacy of the prima donna
Prima donna
Originally used in opera or Commedia dell'arte companies, "prima donna" is Italian for "first lady." The term was used to designate the leading female singer in the opera company, the person to whom the prime roles would be given. The prima donna was normally, but not necessarily, a soprano...
soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
and the virtuoso tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
. (The last important opera role for a castrato was written in 1824 by Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
[1791-1864].)
Actually, the phrase "bel canto" did not enter common usage until the middle of the 19th century, when it was set in opposition to the development of a weightier, more powerful style of speech-inflected singing associated with German opera and, above all, Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's revolutionary music dramas. Wagner (1813–1883) decried the Italian singing model, alleging that it was concerned merely with "whether that G or A will come out roundly". He advocated a new, Germanic school of singing which would draw "the spiritually energetic and profoundly passionate into the orbit of its matchless Expression".
Interestingly enough, French musicians and composers never embraced the more florid extremes of the 18th-century Italian bel canto style. They disliked the castrato voice and because they placed a premium on the clear enunciation of the texts of their vocal music, they objected to the sung word being obscured by excessive fioritura
Fioritura
"Fioritura" is the name given to the flowery, embellished vocal line found in many arias from nineteenth-century opera. It is derived from the Italian fiore, meaning "flower".- External links :*...
.
The popularity of the bel canto style as espoused by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini faded in Italy during the mid-19th century. It was overtaken by a heavier, more ardent, less embroidered approach to singing that was necessary in order to perform the innovative works of Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
(1813–1901) with maximum dramatic impact. Tenors, for instance, began to inflate their tone and deliver the high C (and even the high D) directly from the chest rather than resorting to a suave head voice/falsetto
Falsetto
Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...
as they had done previously—sacrificing vocal agility in the process. Sopranos and baritone
Baritone
Baritone is a type of male singing voice that lies between the bass and tenor voices. It is the most common male voice. Originally from the Greek , meaning deep sounding, music for this voice is typically written in the range from the second F below middle C to the F above middle C Baritone (or...
s reacted in a similar fashion to their tenor colleagues when confronted with Verdi's drama-filled compositions. They subjected the mechanics of their voice production to greater pressures and cultivated the exciting upper part of their respective ranges at the expense of their mellow but less penetrant lower notes. Initially at least, the singing techniques of 19th-century contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
s and basses
Bass (voice type)
A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...
were less affected by the musical innovations of Verdi, which were built upon by his successors Amilcare Ponchielli
Amilcare Ponchielli
Amilcare Ponchielli was an Italian composer, largely of operas.-Biography:Born in Paderno Fasolaro, now Paderno Ponchielli, near Cremona, Ponchielli won a scholarship at the age of nine to study music at the Milan Conservatory, writing his first symphony by the time he was ten years old.Two years...
(1834–1886) and Arrigo Boito
Arrigo Boito
Arrigo Boito , aka Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito, pseudonym Tobia Gorrio, was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist and composer, best known today for his libretti, especially those for Giuseppe Verdi's operas Otello and Falstaff, and his own opera Mefistofele...
(1842–1918).
One reason for the eclipse of the old Italian singing model was the growing influence within the music world of bel canto's detractors, who considered it to be outmoded and condemned it as vocalization devoid of content. To others, however, bel canto became the vanished art of elegant, refined, sweet-toned musical utterance. Rossini lamented in a conversation that took place in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1858 that: "Alas for us, we have lost our bel canto". Similarly, the so-called German style was as derided as much as it was heralded. In the introduction to a collection of songs by Italian masters published in 1887 in Berlin under the title Il bel canto, Franz Sieber wrote: "In our time, when the most offensive shrieking under the extenuating device of 'dramatic singing' has spread everywhere, when the ignorant masses appear much more interested in how loud rather than how beautiful the singing is, a collection of songs will perhaps be welcome which – as the title purports – may assist in restoring bel canto to its rightful place."
In the late-19th century and early-20th century, the term "bel canto" was resurrected by Italy's singing teachers, among whom the retired Verdi baritone Antonio Cotogni
Antonio Cotogni
Antonio Cotogni was an Italian baritone of the first magnitude. Regarded internationally as being one of the greatest male opera singers of the 19th century, he was particularly admired by the composer Giuseppe Verdi...
(1831–1918) was perhaps the pre-eminent figure. Cotogni and his ilk invoked it against an unprecedentedly vehement, unsubtle and vibrato-laden style of vocalism which was being adopted by more and more post-1890 singers in order to cope with:
- the impassioned demands of the stream of verismoVerismoVerismo was an Italian literary movement which peaked between approximately 1875 and the early 1900s....
operas that were flowing from the pens of Giacomo PucciniGiacomo PucciniGiacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
(1858–1924), Ruggero LeoncavalloRuggero LeoncavalloRuggero Leoncavallo was an Italian opera composer. His two-act work Pagliacci remains one of the most popular works in the repertory, appearing as number 20 on the Operabase list of the most-performed operas worldwide.-Biography:...
(1857–1919), Pietro MascagniPietro MascagniPietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni was an Italian composer most noted for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece Cavalleria rusticana caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the Verismo movement in Italian dramatic music...
(1863–1945) and Umberto GiordanoUmberto GiordanoUmberto Menotti Maria Giordano was an Italian composer, mainly of operas.He was born in Foggia in Puglia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples...
(1867–1948); and - the auditory challenges posed by the non-Italianate stage works of Richard StraussRichard StraussRichard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
(1864–1949) and other late-romantic/early modern era composers, with their strenuous and angular vocal lines and often thick orchestral textures.
To make the situation worse, during the 1890s, the directors of the Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
began propagating a particularly forceful style of Wagnerian singing that placed such an undue emphasis on the articulation of the individual words of the composer's libretti, the all-important musical component of his operas was compromised. Called "Sprechgesang
Sprechgesang
Sprechgesang and Sprechstimme are musical terms used to refer to an expressionist vocal technique between singing and speaking. Though sometimes used interchangeably, sprechgesang is a term directly related to the operatic recitative manner of singing , whereas sprechstimme is...
" by its proponents and the "Bayreuth bark" by its opponents, this hectoring, text-based, anti-legato approach to vocalism spread across the German-speaking parts of Europe prior to World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. It was totally at odds with the ideals of "beautiful singing".
As a result of these many factors, the concept of bel canto became shrouded in mystique and confused by a plethora of individual notions and interpretations. To complicate matters further, German musicology
Musicology
Musicology is the scholarly study of music. The word is used in narrow, broad and intermediate senses. In the narrow sense, musicology is confined to the music history of Western culture...
in the early 20th century invented its own historical application for "bel canto", using the term to denote the simple lyricism that came to the fore in Venetian opera and the Roman cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
during the 1630s and '40s (the era of composers Antonio Cesti
Antonio Cesti
Antonio Cesti , known today primarily as an Italian composer of the Baroque era, he was also a singer , and organist. He was "the most celebrated Italian musician of his generation".- Biography :...
, Giacomo Carissimi
Giacomo Carissimi
Giacomo Carissimi was an Italian composer, one of the most celebrated masters of the early Baroque, or, more accurately, the Roman School of music.-Biography:...
and Luigi Rossi) as a reaction against the earlier, text-dominated "stilo rappresentativo"
Monody
In poetry, the term monody has become specialized to refer to a poem in which one person laments another's death....
. Unfortunately, this anachronistic use of the term bel canto was given wide circulation in Robert Haas
Robert Haas (musicologist)
Robert Maria Haas Austrian musicologist.At the beginning of his career with the Austrian national library, Haas was mostly interested in Baroque and Classical music...
's Die Musik des Barocks (Potsdam, 1928) and, later, in Manfred Bukofzer
Manfred Bukofzer
Manfred Bukofzer was a German-American musicologist and humanist. He studied at Heidelberg University and the Stern conservatory in Berlin, but left Germany in 1933, going to Basle, where he received his doctorate. In 1939 he moved to the United States where he remained, becoming a U.S. citizen...
's Music in the Baroque Era (New York, 1947). Since the singing style of later 17th-century Italy did not differ in any marked way from that of the 18th century and early 19th century, a connection can be drawn; but the term is best limited to its mid-19th-century use, designating a style of singing that emphasized beauty of tone and technical expertise in the delivery of music that was either highly florid or featured long, flowing and difficult-to-sustain passages of cantilena
Cantilena
Il Cantilena is the oldest known literary text in the Maltese language. It dates from the 15th century but was not found until 1966 or 1968 by Prof. Godfrey Wettinger and Fr. M. Fsadni . The poem is attributed to Pietru Caxaro, and was recorded by Caxaro's nephew, Brandano, in his notarial...
.
In the 1950s, the phrase bel canto revival was coined to refer to a renewed interest in the operas of Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini. These composers had begun to go out of fashion during the latter years of the 19th century and their works, while never completely disappearing from the performance repertoire, were staged infrequently during the first half of the 20th century, when the operas of Wagner, Verdi and Puccini held sway. That situation changed significantly after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
with the advent of a group of enterprising orchestral conductors and the emergence of a fresh generation of singers such as Maria Callas
Maria Callas
Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano and one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century. She combined an impressive bel canto technique, a wide-ranging voice and great dramatic gifts...
, Joan Sutherland
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....
and Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s. In her prime she was the only real rival to Joan Sutherland as the leading bel canto stylist...
, who had acquired bel canto techniques. These artists breathed new life into Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini's stage compositions, treating them seriously as music and re-popularizing them throughout Europe and America. Today, some of the world's most frequently performed operas, such as Rossini's The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...
and Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
, are from the bel canto era.
Not coincidentally, the 18th-century operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
(1756–1791), which require adroit bel canto skills if they are to be performed well, also experienced a post-war revival that shows no sign of abating, while the florid operas composed by Mozart's predecessor Handel have undergone a similar surge in popularity during recent decades. "I should think that performances of Handel operas now outnumber all others," avers classical music commentator Simon Callow
Simon Callow
Simon Phillip Hugh Callow, CBE is an English actor, writer and theatre director. He is also currently a judge on Popstar to Operastar.-Early years:...
in the April 2010 issue of Gramophone magazine (p. 26).
The bel canto teaching legacy
"All [their] pedagogical works follow the same structure, beginning with exercises on single notes and eventually progressing to scales and improvised embellishments," writes Potter on p. 47 of his Tenor: History of a Voice. "The really creative ornamentation required for cadenzas, involving models and formulae that could generate newly improvised material, came towards the end of the process." (Today's pervasive idea that singers should refrain from improvising and always adhere strictly to the letter of a composer's published score is a comparatively recent phenomenon, promulgated during the first decades of the 20th century by dictatorial conductors such as Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
[1867-1957], who championed the dramatic operas of Verdi and Wagner and believed in keeping performers on a tight interpretive leash. See, for instance, Volume 1 of Michael Scott
Michael Scott (artistic director)
Michael Scott is the founder of the London Opera Society. In his role as the society's sole artistic director, he brought to London Marilyn Horne, Joan Sutherland, and Boris Christoff. He was also responsible for introducing Sherrill Milnes, Ruggero Raimondi, and Montserrat Caballe...
's survey
The Record of Singing [Duckworth, London, 1977], pp. 135–136; also Potter, p. 77.)
Potter notes, however, that as the 19th century unfurled, "The general tendency ... was for singers not to have been taught by castrati (there were few of them left) and for serious study to start later, often at one of the new conservatories rather than with a private teacher. The traditional techniques and pedagogy were still acknowledged, but the teaching was generally in the hands of tenors and baritones who were by then at least once removed from the tradition itself."
Early 19th-century teachers described the voice as being made up of three registers. The chest register was the lowest of the three and the head register the highest, with the passaggio
Passaggio
Passaggio is a term used in classical singing to describe the pitch ranges in which vocal registration events occur. Beneath passaggio is the chest voice where any singer can produce a powerful sound, and above it lies the head voice, where a powerful and resonant sound is accessible, but usually...
in between. These registers needed to be smoothly blended and fully equalized before a trainee singer could acquire total command of his or her natural instrument, and the surest way to achieve this outcome was for the trainee to practise vocal exercises assiduously. Bel canto-era teachers were great believers in the benefits of vocalise
Vocalise
A vocalise is a vocal exercise without words, which is sung on one or more vowel sounds.-In classical music:Vocalise dates back to the mid-18th century...
and solfeggio. They strove to strengthen the respiratory muscles of their pupils and equip them with such time-honoured vocal attributes as "purity of tone, perfection of legato, phrasing informed by eloquent portamento
Portamento
Portamento is a musical term originated from the Italian expression "portamento della voce" , denoting from the beginning of the 17th century a vocal slide between two pitches and its emulation by members of the violin family and certain wind instruments, and is sometimes used...
, and exquisitely turned ornaments", to quote from the introduction to Volume 2 of Scott's The Record of Singing
The Record of Singing
The Record of Singing is a compilation of classical-music singing from the first half of the 20th century, the era of the 78-rpm record.It was issued on LP by EMI, successor to the British company His Master's Voice — perhaps the leading organization in the early history of audio recording.The...
(Duckworth, London, 1979).
Major refinements occurred to the existing system of voice classification during the 19th century as the international operatic repertoire diversified, split into distinctive nationalist schools and expanded in size. Whole new categories of singers such as mezzo-soprano
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
and Wagnerian bass-baritone
Bass-baritone
A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...
arose towards the end of the 19th century, as did such new sub-categories as lyric coloratura soprano, dramatic soprano
Dramatic soprano
A dramatic soprano is an operatic soprano with a powerful, rich, emotive voice that can sing over, or cut through, a full orchestra. Thicker vocal folds in dramatic voices usually mean less agility than lighter voices but a sustained, fuller sound. Usually this voice has a lower tessitura than...
and spinto
Spinto
Spinto is a vocal term used to characterize a soprano or tenor voice of a weight between lyric and dramatic that is capable of handling large musical climaxes in opera at moderate intervals...
soprano, and various grades of tenor, stretching from lyric through spinto to heroic. These classificatory changes have had a lasting effect on the way singing teachers designate voices and the way in which opera house managements cast their productions.
It would be wrong, however, to think that there was across-the-board uniformity among 19th-century bel canto adherents when it came to passing on their knowledge and instructing students. Each of them had their own training regimes and pet notions; but, fundamentally, they all subscribed to the same set of bel canto precepts, and the exercises that they devised in order to enhance their students' breath support, dexterity, range and technical control remain valuable and, indeed, are still employed by some teachers.
Manuel García
Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García
Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García , was a Spanish singer, music educator, and vocal pedagogue.-Biography:García was born on 17 March 1805 in the town of Zafra in Badajoz Province, Spain. His father was singer and teacher Manuel del Pópulo Vicente Rodriguez García...
(1805–1906), author of the influential treatise L'Art du Chant, was the most prominent of the group of pedagogues that perpetuated bel-canto principles in their teachings and writings during the second half of the 19th century. His like-minded younger sister, Pauline Viardot (1821–1910), was also an important teacher of voice, as were Viardot's contemporaries Mathilde Marchesi
Mathilde Marchesi
Mathilde Marchesi was a German mezzo-soprano, a renowned teacher of singing, and a proponent of the bel canto vocal method.-Biography:...
, Camille Everardi
Camille Everardi
Camille Everardi was a Belgian operatic baritone who had an active international career during the 1850s through the 1870s. He particularly excelled in the works of Vincenzo Bellini and Gioachino Rossini. Several music critics of his day likened his voice to that of Antonio Tamburini...
, Julius Stockhausen
Julius Stockhausen
Julius Christian Stockhausen was a German singer and singing master.- Life :Stockhausens' parents, Franz Stockhausen Sr...
, Carlo Pedrotti
Carlo Pedrotti
Carlo Pedrotti was an Italian conductor, administrator and composer, principally of opera. An associate of Giuseppe Verdi's, he also taught two internationally renowned Italian operatic tenors, Francesco Tamagno and Alessandro Bonci.-Early life:Pedrotti was born in Verona, where he studied music...
, Venceslao Persichini, Giovanni Sbriglia
Giovanni Sbriglia
Giovanni Sbriglia , was an Italian tenor and prominent teacher of singing.A native of Naples, Sbriglia attended the city's music conservatory before making his debut, aged 21, at the Teatro San Carlo. He then performed throughout Italy before being engaged by Max Maretzek for New York City's...
, Melchiorre Vidal and Francesco Lamperti
Francesco Lamperti
Francesco Lamperti was an Italian singing teacher.A native of Savona, Lamperti attended the Milan Conservatory where, beginning in 1850, he taught for a quarter of a century. He was director at the Teatro Filodrammatico in Lodi. In 1875 he left the school and began to teach as a private tutor...
(together with Francesco's son Giovanni Battista Lamperti
Giovanni Battista Lamperti
Giovanni Battista Lamperti was an Italian singing teacher and son of the singing teacher Francesco Lamperti. He is the author of The Technics of Bel Canto and source for Vocal Wisdom: Maxims of Giovanni Battista Lamperti .-Life and career:Giovanni Battista Lamperti was born in 1839 in Milan to...
). The voices of a number of their former students can be heard on acoustic recordings made in the first two decades of the 20th century and re-issued since on LP and CD. Some examples on disc of historically and artistically significant 19th-century singers whose bel canto-infused vocal styles and techniques pre-date the "Bayreuth bark" and the dramatic excesses of verismo opera are:
Sir Charles Santley
Charles Santley
Sir Charles Santley was an English-born opera and oratorio star with a bravuraFrom the Italian verb bravare, to show off. A florid, ostentatious style or a passage of music requiring technical skill technique who became the most eminent English baritone and male concert singer of the Victorian era...
(born 1834), Gustav Walter
Gustav Walter
Gustav Walter was a Bohemian operatic tenor who sang leading roles for more than 30 years at the Vienna Staatsoper in Austria. He was a highly regarded interpreter of the vocal music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the lighter tenor roles composed by Richard Wagner...
(born 1834), Adelina Patti
Adelina Patti
Adelina Patti was a highly acclaimed 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851 and gave her last performance before an audience in 1914...
(born 1843), Marianne Brandt
Marianne Brandt
Marianne Brandt , German painter, sculptor, photographer and designer who studied at the Bauhaus school and became head of the metal workshop in 1928. Today, Brandt's designs for household objects such as lamps, ashtrays and teapots are considered the harbinger of modern industrial...
(born 1842), Lilli Lehmann
Lilli Lehmann
Lilli Lehmann, born Elisabeth Maria Lehmann, later Elisabeth Maria Lehmann-Kalisch was a German operatic soprano of phenomenal versatility...
(born 1848), Jean Lassalle (born 1847), Victor Maurel
Victor Maurel
Victor Maurel was a French operatic baritone who enjoyed an international reputation as a great singing-actor.-Biography:...
(born 1848), Marcella Sembrich
Marcella Sembrich
Marcella Sembrich was the stage name of the Polish coloratura soprano, Prakseda Marcelina Kochańska...
(born 1858), Lillian Nordica
Lillian Nordica
Lillian Nordica was an American opera singer who had a major stage career in Europe and her native country....
(born 1857), Emma Calvé
Emma Calvé
Emma Calvé, born Rosa Emma Calvet , was a French operatic soprano.Calvé was probably the most famous French female opera singer of the Belle Époque. Hers was an international career, and she sang regularly and to considerable acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, and the Royal Opera...
(born 1858), Nellie Melba
Nellie Melba
Dame Nellie Melba GBE , born Helen "Nellie" Porter Mitchell, was an Australian operatic soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian Era and the early 20th century...
(born 1861), Francesco Tamagno
Francesco Tamagno
Francesco Tamagno was an operatic tenor from Italy who sang with enormous success throughout Europe and America. On 5 February 1887, he cemented his place in musical history by creating the role of Otello in Giuseppe Verdi's masterpiece of the same name...
(born 1850), Francesco Marconi
Francesco Marconi
Francesco Marconi was an operatic tenor from Rome who enjoyed an important international career. In 1924, a reputable biographical dictionary of musicians called him 'one of the most renowned and esteemed singers of the last 50 years'...
(born 1853), Léon Escalais
Léon Escalais
Léon Escalaïs was a prominent Gallic tenor, particularly associated with French and Italian heroic roles...
(born 1859), Mattia Battistini
Mattia Battistini
Mattia Battistini was an Italian operatic baritone. He became internationally famous due to the beauty of his voice and the virtuosity of his singing technique, and he earned the sobriquet "King of Baritones".-Early life:...
(born 1856), Mario Ancona
Mario Ancona
Mario Ancona , was a leading Italian baritone and master of bel canto singing. He appeared at some of the most important opera houses in Europe and America during what is commonly referred to as the "Golden Age of Opera".-Career:Ancona was born into a middle-class Jewish family at Livorno, Tuscany,...
(born 1860), Pol Plançon
Pol Plançon
Pol-Henri Plançon was a distinguished French operatic bass . He was one of the most acclaimed singers active during the 1880s, 1890s and early 20th century—a period often referred to as the "Golden Age of Opera".In addition to being among the earliest international opera stars to have made...
(born 1851), and Antonio Magini-Coletti
Antonio Magini-Coletti
Antonio Magini-Coletti was a leading Italian baritone who had a prolific career in Europe and the United States during the late 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. A versatile artist, he appeared in several opera world premieres but was particularly associated with the works of...
and Francesco Navarini (both born 1855).
Quotations
- Bel-canto not a school of sensuously pretty voice-production.
[...]
It has come to be a generally recognised thing that voice, pure and simple, by its very composition, or "placing", interferes with the organs of speech; making it impossible for a vocalist to preserve absolute purity of pronunciation in song as well as in speech. It is because of this view that the principle of "vocalising" words, instead of musically saying them, crept in, to the detriment of vocal art. This false position is due to the idea that the "Arte del bel-canto" encouraged mere sensuous beauty of voice, rather than truth of expression.
– David Ffrangcon DaviesDavid Ffrangcon DaviesDavid Ffrangcon-Davies, M.A. was a Welsh operatic baritone.-Early life and education:David Thomas Davies was born in Bethesda, Gwynedd. He later adapted the name Ffrangcon, an early variant spelling of the nearby valley Nant Ffrancon, as part of his new surname...
: The singing of the future (1907, c1905)
- "Bel-canto" (of which we read so much) meant, and means, versatility of tone; if a man wish to be called an artist, his voice must become the instrument of intelligent imagination. Perhaps there would be fewer cases of vocal-specialising if the modern craze for "voice-production" (apart from linguistic truth) could be reduced. This wondrous pursuit is, as things stand, a notable instance of putting the cart before the horse. Voices are "produced" and "placed" in such wise that pupils are trained to "vocalise" (to use technical jargon) the words; i.e., they are taught to make a sound which is indeed something like but is not the word in its purity. "Tone" or sound is what the average student seeks, ab initio and not verbal purity. Hence the monotony of modern singing. When one hears an average singer in one role, one hears him in all.
– David Ffrangcon DaviesDavid Ffrangcon DaviesDavid Ffrangcon-Davies, M.A. was a Welsh operatic baritone.-Early life and education:David Thomas Davies was born in Bethesda, Gwynedd. He later adapted the name Ffrangcon, an early variant spelling of the nearby valley Nant Ffrancon, as part of his new surname...
: The singing of the future (1907, c1905)
- Those who regard the art of singing as anything more than a means to an end, do not comprehend the true purpose of that art, much less can they hope ever to fulfil that purpose. The true purpose of singing is to give utterance to certain hidden depths in our nature which can be adequately expressed in no other way. The voice is the only vehicle perfectly adapted to this purpose; it alone can reveal to us our inmost feelings, because it is our only direct means of expression. If the voice, more than any language, more than any other instrument of expression, can reveal to us our own hidden depths, and convey those depths to other souls of men, it is because voice vibrates directly to the feeling itself, when it fulfils its natural mission. By fulfilling its natural mission, I mean, when voice is not hindered from vibrating to the feeling by artificial methods of tone -production, which methods include certain mental processes which are fatal to spontaneity. To sing should always mean to have some definite feeling to express.
– Clara Kathleen RogersClara Kathleen RogersClara Kathleen Rogers , was an American composer, singer, writer and music educator.-Biography:Clara Kathleen Barnett Rogers was born into a musical family...
: The Philosophy Of Singing (1893)
- The decline of Bel Canto may be attributed in part to Ferrein and GarciaManuel Patricio Rodríguez GarcíaManuel Patricio Rodríguez García , was a Spanish singer, music educator, and vocal pedagogue.-Biography:García was born on 17 March 1805 in the town of Zafra in Badajoz Province, Spain. His father was singer and teacher Manuel del Pópulo Vicente Rodriguez García...
who, with a dangerously small and historically premature knowledge of laryngeal function, abandoned the intuitive and emotional insight of the anatomically blind singers.
– Paul Newham: Using voice and song in therapy
- Voice Culture has not progressed [...]. Exactly the contrary has taken place. Before the introduction of mechanical methods every earnest vocal student was sure of learning to use his voice properly, and of developing the full measure of his natural endowments. Mechanical instruction has upset all this. Nowadays the successful vocal student is the exception.
David C. Taylor – The psychology of singing (1917)
Articles
- Section on Bel Canto from The Singer's Handbook (1942) by Lazar S. Samoiloff
- Nigro, Antonella. Observations on the Technique of Italian Singing from the 16th Century to the Present Day from the book "Celebri Arie Antiche: le piu' note arie del primo Barocco italiano trascritte e realizzate secondo lo stile dell'epoca" by Claudio Dall'Albero and Marcello Candela. (ref)
Digitized, scanned material
- "Bel Canto" Titles from the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
(e.g. Lamperti, Giovanni Battista: The Technics of Bel Canto) - Harry Plunket Greene: Interpretation in Song (1912). New York: The Macmillan Company. Downloadable versions at the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=Interpretation%20in%20Song - Lehmann, Lilli; Aldrich, Richard, translator (1902): How to sing. New York: Macmillan & Co. Ltd. Downloadable versions at the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
: http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A(Lilli%20Lehmann) - Garcia, Manuel; Garcia, Beata, translator (1894). Hints on singing, new and revised edition. London: E. Ascherberg. Downloadable versions at the Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
: .