The Voice in Singing Part 7

As, when the voice is not wholly directed to the front of the mouth, it does not move the external air quickly enough and so does not reach far, the speaker commonly tries to help himself by a greater expenditure of force. Misled by false views, speakers usually attempt by a great waste of breath and by exertion alone to produce an effect which can be realized only by skilful management of the most delicate and easily moved of all things, the air.

IV

THE aeSTHETIC VIEW

OF THE ART OF SINGING

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

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

Hitherto we have had to do with fixed, irreversible laws, which are to be implicitly followed in order to render singing as perfect as possible. We have seen how the decline of the art of singing had to follow as a necessary consequence the non-observance of these laws.

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

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

It is given to only a very few to recognize at once the high and beautiful in art. In most the sense of the beautiful awakens only with a riper spiritual development. It is thus the fruit of a higher stage of culture. To children and persons wholly uneducated a brightly painted picture-book is more beautiful than the Dresden Madonna, that great masterpiece of painting.

And most people take greater pleasure in a waltz by _Strauss_ or _Lanner_ than in a symphony by Beethoven or Mozart. Beauty depends upon principles, i.e., rules and laws, which are founded in the nature of the human reason. The appreciation, therefore, of beauty accompanies the development in man of his reason.

Music, above all the other arts, finds the earliest and most universal recognition, and almost every one listens to it with pleasure. Helmholtz says that music is much more intimately related to our sensations than all the other arts put together.

Tones touch the ear and are instantly felt to be agreeable or disagreeable, while the impressions of painting, poetry, &c., upon our senses must be brought to our consciousness, and be judged of there by comparison. But it is not only through the direct effect of tones, as it appears to me, but more through the life (_Belebung_) which animates it, that music comes so close to us, and is so natural and near of kin to us. That must needs be the most interior of the arts whose office it is to express the various moods of the human soul in their tenderest and most secret fluctuations. The incorporeal material of tone is far better fitted to express these different moods (_Stimmungen_) than it is possible for poetry to do. Peculiar, definite feelings it cannot, indeed, distinctly denote without the help of poetry.

But it is this very indefiniteness that enables music so to insinuate itself into the soul of the hearer that the tones heard seem to be the expression of his own feelings, and not those of another. Hence it is that music, in its whole nature, acts beneficently and soothingly, because its ruling principle is always a striving after repose, after a rest in _consonances_, just as this is the innermost aim and struggle of our own life.

In the other arts this is much less the case. Aristotle, in his twenty-seventh and twenty-ninth problems, distinguishes the influences of music as the expression of tones of feeling (_Stimmungen_), and not of definite feelings. And _Brendel_, who, in his history of music, holds to the order among the arts received by the Greeks, by which architecture takes the lowest place, then sculpture, painting, music, and, lastly, as the highest of the arts, poetry, remarks, that "Music, by virtue of its power to express the most delicate shades of sentiment, would certainly take the highest rank were it more definite." It has always been attempted to extend the boundaries of music by calling in the a.s.sistance of painting and poetry. Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, etc., have imitated in their compositions the singing of birds, the rippling of water, storms, &c. And now our modern musicians of the future endeavor to express in tones definite thoughts and feelings, imagining that here a new epoch in art is to open. But these new compositions always require elaborate explanations. Music until now, at least, has not yet given up its ethereal, indefinite character.[18]

It is essential to the full effect of a work of art that the artist should create it, and the hearer or beholder should enjoy it, without thinking of the rules and laws of beauty. A work of art must act immediately upon the feelings; it must appear to be spontaneous, and must be felt without reference to any aim or plan. What is aesthetically beautiful pleases a cultivated taste at once without any reflex consideration. But when, by the help of the understanding, we seek to account for the harmony and perfection of the several parts, and find by more searching study that the work is in conformity to the laws of reason, our enjoyment will naturally be enhanced. But this study must always come as a consequence of the first effect upon the soul, otherwise all effect is wanting. The _unconscious_ enjoyment of the legitimate in art is the first condition of the influence of the beautiful upon the soul. The happy, elevated feeling which all works of art immediately awaken in us is thus only an unconscious recognition of the reasonable, the harmonious, the symmetrical. But this unconscious impression is instantly disturbed by any, the least imperfection, before we perceive where and in what it consists, for the human mind is not able fully and at once to examine a production of art in its entirety to its minutest parts.

An artist must, therefore, be esteemed according as his works excite and ravish the hearers or beholders without their knowing why, and he stands all the higher the simpler and the more naturally--i.e., the more _unconsciously_--this takes place.

In order to reach such a height, and to be able to act upon the souls of men with an elevating and informing power, it is first of all necessary that an artist should cultivate the form, or the _technique_, of his art to its greatest possible perfection, and have such perfect command of it, that the practical application of it is as natural to him as to breathe. _For empty and dead as all technical knowledge is unless it is animated with a soul, yet no product of art aesthetically beautiful is possible without a perfect technique._

But the culture of the _technique_ in the art of singing requires a special faculty in the teacher, and, together with the finest power of observation, an ear, which not only perceives the purity of the tone, whether high or low, but feels also the direction of the aerial column, the too much or too little of the breath, the coloring of the timbre, &c. An aesthetically artistic education demands likewise that the singer should have the highest general culture. As soon as the technical education has advanced so far that it no longer makes any demand upon the attention of the learner, the infusion of life and soul into the singing must be begun. The teacher must then be so filled with the spirit of his art that he shall be able so to inspire his pupils that, forgetting themselves, they may be absorbed in the high ideal work of their art, and regard their well-trained voices simply as expressing the n.o.blest and most varied sentiments (_Stimmungen_). And on this account a teacher should seek to act upon the souls of his pupils, and awaken in them above all things a feeling for the high and the n.o.ble, that they may be able to find the correct mode of expressing it in singing. It is a very hard but not impossible work to educate true artists, who, penetrated with faith in the high worth of their art, shall fulfil its aim by exercising a refreshing and elevating influence upon their fellow-men. But, in order to be able to form true artists, a teacher must be devoted without intermission to his own culture, scientific and general; must strive with pleasure, and love, and inspiration to accomplish the high work of his calling, and make the severest demands upon himself, before he can expect anything great of his pupils.

Having spoken of those parts of the _technique_ of the art of singing which rest upon impregnable natural laws, such as the registers of the voice, the formation of tones in regard to strength, pitch, and timbre, &c., let us consider more closely those other parts of the _technique_ which rest upon psychological, i.e., aesthetic principles (_Motiven_). To these belong _Rhythm_, _Correct understanding of the Tempo_, _Composition_, _Execution, that is, the delivery of the sentiment of the composition, and the aids thereto_.

RHYTHM

To the principles of beauty belong, above all things, order and regularity. In music this order consists in measures of time. All measurement by time, even the scientific, depends upon rhythmic, regularly returning results, as in the revolutions of the earth, of the moon, and in the vibrations of the pendulum, &c. Thus, by the regular interchange of accented and unaccented sounds in music and poetry, we obtain the rhythm of the work.

But while in poetry the structure of verse serves only to reduce to artistic order the external accidents of expression by language, rhythm is not only the external measure of time in music, but it belongs to the innermost nature of its power of expression, giving to music its distinctive character. There is, therefore, a finer and much more various culture of rhythm necessary in music than in poetry. Here rhythm determines not only the time, how long a note is to be maintained, and how many notes fall within a certain s.p.a.ce of time, but it also distinguishes those notes which are to be sung with more or less emphasis.

We know that in a bar of 2/4 time the first beat must be more accented than the second; in a bar of 4/4 time the rhythmical accent falls upon the first and third beats; in a bar of 3/4 and 3/8 time only upon the first; and in 6/8 upon the first and fourth. This rhythmical accentuation must become a second nature to the learner before he can express any particular sentiment in a piece of music, and therefore he must be early practised in it.

Rhythmical accentuation can always be employed very differently according to the character (_Stimmung_) of a composition, and the most different effects in expression are thus produced. One can, by a greater or less degree of strength, or by a sudden impulse of the breath, change the accent, as well as by a slight r.e.t.a.r.dation of the note. Also, by transferring the accent to those notes naturally not accented, that is, in the 2/4 time to the second beat, or to the second half of the first, by so-called _syncopes_, the whole character of a piece is changed. In musical pa.s.sages in which many notes come upon one beat and the character of which is light and pleasing, a peculiar charm is produced when several rhythmical accents are made upon the same beat, and likewise in slow pa.s.sages the swelling of the tone upon the accented note is very pleasing. Let the same phrase in a song be sung with different rhythmical accents, and we may easily see how such changes will give the pa.s.sage quite another character.

The old Italian singers understood to a remarkable degree the use of rhythm in the execution of vocal music. But the poetical rhythm of the words accompanying the voice gives to the singer a guide, reference to which shows him at least how and where he may employ the nicer shades of musical rhythm.

CORRECT UNDERSTANDING OF THE TEMPO

To give the pupil the feeling for the correct tempo of a composition is more difficult than to teach him to understand rhythm. Our best musicians, whose merits deserve the fullest acknowledgment, often fail here, making the tempo of a piece of music either too slow or too quick, and so weakening its whole effect. This happens especially with the old compositions which preceded the introduction of the metronome. The old Italian vocal compositions are in this respect treated the worst by our musicians, who belong to the strictly cla.s.sical school. The character of these pieces is prevailingly sentimental, and the _tempi_ were not so quick then as now. If a piece thus composed in slow time is set, without reference to its sentiment, to the quickest possible tempo, it becomes ordinary and vulgar in character; the most beautiful adagio may in this way be degraded to a street-ballad. The songs of our modern composers have to be sung to a quicker tempo than that to which they are set, or they are tedious and wearisome. This is particularly the case with the compositions of Schubert, and the whole effect of his beautiful songs is often ruined by a degree more or less too rapid. Singing too slowly, or in false tempo, is now-a-days a very prevalent fault. And yet the singer has in the words a surer guide than is granted to the instrumental performer.

Therefore, by well considering these and getting them by heart without the music, as if they were the outpouring of his own feelings, he will be most likely to strike the correct tempo in singing them. In this way many of our recent favorite songs gain a somewhat fresher tempo than that at which they are usually sung. The choice of the time, being dependent upon the taste of the artist, requires special attention and study.

Although the tempo is usually indicated by some designation, as, for example, allegro, adagio, &c., yet the allegro or adagio may be given with different degrees of quickness, and the designations still be perfectly correct. We have no precise designations for the nicer degrees of tempo, and yet a very slight degree has an influence upon the character of the piece. The metronome, by which in instrumental music the tempo is defined, is only occasionally used as a guide in vocal compositions, because the singer may be guided by the words and by the sentiment which the words indicate.

The _tempi_ must be ascertained by a knowledge of the composers, and by reference to the periods in which their compositions first appeared. It would be an error to play an andante by _Bach_ or _Haydn_ like one of _Chopin's_ or _Hiller's_, or sing the allegro of an aria by _Pergolese_ or _Caraffa_ as quickly as the allegro of one of _Meyerbeer's_ arias. But whether a piece of music be light and ornamental in character, or heavy and labored, weak or powerful, quiet or pa.s.sionate, depends on rhythm and tempo.

COMPOSITION

Cla.s.sic art sought as the only aim in its works to represent pure beauty. In the compositions of the old masters regard was had only to the sweetness of melody, and everything was excluded from them that did not fall agreeably upon the ear.

But in modern music what is even unfavorable to sensuous pleasure is accepted, and we have accustomed ourselves to a more vigorous and powerful mode of representation, the aim being to excite by sudden contrasts.

In so far as music is to represent the most secret life of the soul, and as in art everything natural, so far as it admits of being idealized and represented, is allowable, this tendency of art in music has its justification. But here, as in everything in which the principles of beauty are concerned, the true limit must not be overstepped. The old masters composed only in consonances, and _Helmholtz_ has shown scientifically that consonances alone have an independent right to existence.

Dissonances, according to _Helmholtz_, are only permissible as transition points for consonants, having no right of their own to be. Down to _Beethoven_ we find dissonances correctly employed by all the old masters. And greater and n.o.bler effects were attained than are possible to our modern musicians with their acc.u.mulation of dissonances and sudden contrasts.

With the two composers in whom our modern cla.s.sic epoch reached its zenith, begins the gradual decline of the art of singing.

_Mozart_ held it necessary to his musical education to study in Italy the vocal compositions of the old masters, and to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the qualities of the singing voice. Hence the vocal compositions of Mozart will remain beautiful and to be held up as models for all time, for they unite the sweetest and loveliest melody with an appreciation of sentiment the n.o.blest and most ideal.

The giant genius of _Beethoven_, inspired and artistic, found the material developed to perfection by his predecessors, and with overpowering strength forced it to yield itself to his service. His masterworks of composition, in the grandeur of their style, excel everything that had been produced before him. But he has treated the human voice as a subordinate instrument.

Because all that _Beethoven_ produced was grand and beautiful, he has been blindly imitated, and it has been wholly forgotten that music has in all times drawn its best nourishment from song, and only by means of song has it risen to its high estate, and that instruments can never reach what is possible to a thoroughly educated human voice.

A musician, exclusively devoted to the piano, never dreams of writing a concert piece for the violin, because he knows that he is not sufficiently acquainted with the peculiarities of that instrument; but every musician imagines himself able to compose for the human voice, although its peculiar qualities are far more numerous and far more difficult to be rightly dealt with.

The strictly cla.s.sical musicians of the present reject all Italian music as bad. The objection made to it is, that the music is never adapted to the words, but often expresses something wholly different and sometimes directly opposite to their meaning, and that it never gives back to us any high, poetic sentiment, but aims to bribe us with ornaments only, and accidents. In regard to modern Italian music this judgment may be just. These superficial compositions are a product of Italian music in its decline, and can force for themselves a certain popularity only by their pleasant and easy melodies.

Even the old Italian music seems at first sight to pay little or no regard to the sense of the words, especially when the time, according to the cla.s.sic German method, is set too quick. Upon closer study, however, we soon perceive that, although the music is treated as the chief thing, the meaning of the words is certainly given when the music is rightly performed. Were it not so, our music would hardly ever have been able to form and develop itself upon and through these old vocal compositions.

As the pictures of t.i.tian, Rubens, and other great painters of that time, who were masters of form as well as of color, will always be considered as works of art and models, so the compositions of the old Italian singing masters and of those who went from their schools are to be held up as examples for vocal composition. In their works, as in all the works of art of that time, form takes precedence of the spirit, that is, the words and their poetic significance are treated as secondary matters. But all the peculiar properties of the human voice find therein due consideration; everything at variance with them is avoided, and every interval, every vowel, is so introduced that the voice can flow out with the greatest perfection.

These ornamented compositions can be sung more easily and with less effort than a simple aria of a modern composer.

The fine tact and the correct feeling with which in those old vocal compositions what nature directs was observed, show that they are the works of singers of the golden age of the art of singing, of artists who with an exact knowledge of the beauties and capabilities of the voice possessed, and in those days were compelled to possess, the most thorough culture in the theory of music.

In opposition to this old, cla.s.sic Italian style of composing song, which considered and treated music for its own sake alone, and regarded the words only in so far as they aided the voice and the expression of the music, stands the cla.s.sic style of Germany. In this latter the first attention is paid to the poetic meaning and expression of the text. Rightly to apprehend the sense of the words and to give it, by means of the music, a deeper, n.o.bler expression--to transfigure it, as it were--is, according to this style, the purpose of the composer, who commonly has only the slightest reference to the peculiar qualities of the voice and the fitness of the composition to be sung. In the cla.s.sic Italian style the form predominates--in the German, the inspiration or soul of the composition. In the Italian the music and the singing capability of the composition are attended to almost exclusively. In the German, the main thing is the poetical expression of the signification of the words. When we now sing the wonderful and exquisite compositions of _Schubert_, _Schumann_, _Mendelssohn_, etc., we soon feel the impossibility of giving one or another tone as beautifully as it should be given according to the quality of the voice, and as we are able to give it by itself. Or it is hard for us to strike this or that tone with perfect purity or with the requisite force, &c. These songs are _not_ adapted to the voice as the old Italian arias were, but composed without accurate knowledge of the voice, and therefore cannot develop the voice in its highest perfection. _Mendelssohn_ often lays the strongest expression in his soprano songs upon the f?, the transition tone from the falsetto register to the head voice. For the expression of the highest pa.s.sion, which requires strength, the head voice is not adapted, at least not in its transition tone. Accordingly, it is usually sought to sound this tone with the falsetto register, to which it is not natural, and is therefore hard to be sung, and also becomes sharp and offensive in the male voice especially, where this note is formed just upon the transition from the second chest register into the falsetto. _Schubert_, again, in his songs commonly so places the words that the favorable vowels seldom come upon the right tones. _Schumann_ also very often uses intervals which come upon the boundary tones of the register, and can hardly be struck with purity. Thus there are very many hindrances to a fine development of the voice, oftentimes in the most beautiful compositions of our times, hindrances, which many of our composers are more or less chargeable with putting in the way.

It is evident from what has been said that it is by no means a matter of indifference how the words of a song are translated into another language. Compositions easily sung naturally lose by translation, for it is generally left entirely to chance whether the appropriate vowels fall upon the right tones.

A teacher must take great care, especially in beginning instruction, to give his pupils compositions adapted to singing. All the exercises and solfeggi should be expressly arranged for the purpose, and also so arranged that the pupil shall have steadily increasing difficulties to encounter, in order that the vocal _technique_ may be fully ill.u.s.trated.

Along with these exercises and solfeggi, arias should be practised, particularly at the beginning. The older Italian compositions are the best adapted to vocal culture, because they were made with special reference to the qualities of the voice. Arias are preferable to songs, because they usually require more flexibility of voice, and therefore a.s.sist the _technique_. In arias the music is more prominent than in ballads, and the sentiment more marked and consequently more easily apprehended. The same words are commonly more often repeated, and must, of course, be sung differently, and thus the pupil is brought acquainted at once with the different external aids to a fine execution.

EXTERNAL AIDS TO A FINE EXECUTION

A teacher must see to it at first with the utmost attention that all the tones according to their pitch are struck with purity, and this can be done only by his repeating them over and over again to his pupil, because, as we have already remarked, our pianos, according to the present method of tuning, are never sufficiently pure to form a singing tone. When the learner has once become familiarized to the fine sound of pure tones, he will hear and distinguish them, and learn to strike them correctly with our pianos. How important to a fine timbre of the tones the right direction of the breath is and its control, as well as the best mode of securing these points, we have already described at some length. The old Italian masters had established distinct rules by which the breath was to be renewed.