Baritone

“ All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments, It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor the beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his sweet romanza, nor that of the men’s chorus, nor that of the women’s chorus, It is nearer and farther than they. ”

“ Of course, it is easy enough to distinguish between the extremes of these, between a "real" tenor and a low bass, but the difference between a high baritone and tenor is rather more difficult to discern, and a young man studying has often been at great disadvantage by imagining, for instance, that he had a tenor voice and trying constantly to sing music too high for him, since he in reality had only a high baritone. ”

“ Those that are known consist of a book of 50 solfeggi for a medium compass of voice, 15 vocalizzi for soprano, 25 for mezzo-soprano, and a book of 25 solfeggi and 15 vocalizzi, 40 in all, for bass or baritone. This coupling together of bass and baritone is as a rule a great mistake, but in the present case the alternative notes given in passages which run low enable baritone voices to make very profitable use of the vocalizzi, and as they do not run very high, ordinary bass voices can sing them with sufficient ease. There is also a set of 30 very good florid exercises for soprano. ”

“ The average compass in male voices is about two octaves minus one or two tones. I mean, of course, tones that are really available when the singer is on the stage and accompanied by an orchestra. Now, a baritone who strives to transform his voice into a tenor, simply loses the two lowest tones of his compass, possibly of good quality and resonance, and gains a minor or major third above the high G (sol) of a very poor, strained character. The compass of the voice remains exactly the same. ”

“ The artist who, seemingly taught by nature, spontaneously [Pg 118] employs the correct registers and sings the most difficult music with ease and accuracy, always has been an unusually gifted person—a vocal phenomenon, in fact.
The preceding chapter gave only the main divisions for male and female voices—alto and soprano for female and baritone and tenor for male. There are subdivisions of these. Contralto is a subdivision of alto, mezzo-soprano of soprano; and soprano itself may be dramatic or florid. Baritone is a division of bass; and tenor is either dramatic or lyric. ”

“ The baritone voice is the name given to a variety intervening between the bass and tenor. In man, the voice is strong and grave; in woman, soft and high. In infancy and early youth, the voice is the same in both sexes, being of the soprano variety: that of boys is both clear and loud, and being susceptible of considerable training, is highly prized in the choral services of the church and cathedral. ”

“ Nothing is easier than to force a voice upward or downward, but to cause it to "recede," as it were, in either direction, [53] is another matter. A baritone who tries to increase his upper range by main strength will surely in time lose his best lower notes, and a light tenor who attempts to force out notes lower than his range will never be able to sing legitimate tenor rôles, and after two or three years may not be able to sing at all. ”

“ The final cadence of the solo [25] becomes, in the chorus, a surprise cadence upon which the baritone re-enters: 'Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth, and mine age is as nothing before thee.' The tension relaxes, and a note of pleading makes itself felt that is strengthened in the choral repetition of the phrase by the movement of the accompanying instruments. Through despondency, through resignation, through questioning, the soul gradually rises to hope: 'Verily man at his best state is altogether vanity. Surely every man walketh in a vain show, surely they are disquieted in vain ”

“ Although the opera was produced after the composer’s death, Jean-Baptiste Faure, the great baritone chosen to create the rôle of Nelusko, studied it with Meyerbeer, who authorized several verbal and musical changes in it.
[Listen]
Without the first alteration it is impossible to realize the composer’s wish for a climax on the word “rien”; the second change is due to the fact that the tessitura of the phrase is somewhat high, and Faure, who was a low rather than high baritone, dreaded the high f♯. ”

“ In Rossini’s Guillaume Tell, although it is written in a different style from his former works, whence less necessity for interpolations and modifications, occurs the following terrible passage for the principal baritone:
[Listen]
Every vocalist knows the difficulty experienced in singing very high tones to different syllables, each requiring a different conformation of the buccal cavity. ”

“ Some voices are so near the dividing line that it requires wide experience and a fine ear for quality on the part of a teacher to determine in what direction they should be developed to greatest advantage. A fine ear may determine that the seeming mezzo is a true soprano, that the notes of the pupil who comes as a baritone have the tenor quality and that his scale safely can be added to, while the would-be tenor has the baritone timbre which will prevent his notes from ever ringing out with the true tenor quality. ”

“ When every one had learned as much as he wished to know, the conversation came to a close, and I stood talking a little while with the baritone, who hummed me an air from the Zarzuela; then I attached myself to one of the chorus, who told me that the tenor was making love to the prima donna; then I went off with the tenor, who told me about the baritone's wife; then I talked with the prima donna, who said disagreeable things about the whole company ”

“ The mere fact of having high tones does not necessarily make one a soprano, neither is a voice always to be classified as alto by reason of not being able to sing high. It is quality that decides what a voice is. Soprano is a quality. Alto is a quality. The terms tenor, baritone, bass, refer to a quality rather than a compass. These qualities are determined primarily by the construction of the organ. ”

“ It may be of interest to the reader to know that in places where there are no adult male altos these voices may be trained with comparative ease. All that is needed is a baritone or bass who has no particular ambitions in the direction of solo singing (the extensive use of the falsetto voice is detrimental to the lower tones) ; who is a good reader; and who is willing to vocalize in his falsetto voice a half hour a day for a few months. ”

“ To exaltation succeeds abasement. We are shown the despondency, that is almost despair, of the soul prostrate before its Lord: 'Lord, make me to know mine end, and the number of my days what it is, that I may know how frail I am.' The movement opens with a baritone solo, supported by basses, drums, and horn, which seems to crave nothing, hope for nothing. Words and melody are, however, immediately repeated in chorus with plain harmonies that somewhat relieve the first impressive gloom. ”

“ On the other hand, Battistini is most lavish with his practising and rarely a day passes that he does not put in one or two hours of solid singing. This no doubt accounts for the extraordinary command he has over tone, phrasing and breathing. There is great truth in the saying that practice makes perfect, but how many of us have the robust and natural organ that Battistini is blessed with. I always thought that the reason of this was the fact that Battistini, who could well have trained as a tenor, elected to become a baritone, thus evading the strain of forcing high “C’s” out of his voice. ”

“ His voice was naturally a deep bass, but finding that after singing at the opera in Paris for five years he was still employed in secondary parts, he entered upon a diligent course of practice, by which he gained several notes in the upper register, and was able to take baritone parts. The strain upon his chest however was too great to be maintained without injury, and after several attacks, he died of consumption at Marseilles at the age of thirty-six. ”

“ In fact, all the birds are talking of nothing else, notably the great baritone who is at last in full song in his favourite chestnut below the paddock. For weeks he has been trying his scales a little doubtfully and tremulously, for he is a late starter, and likes the year to be well aired before he begins ”

“ The important task of discovering whether a voice is bass, baritone, tenor, contralto, mezzo-soprano, or soprano, and the exact character of the general ranges of these voices is a matter of great delicacy, and cannot be decided at one hearing. It is largely individual, and sometimes a matter of health and circumstances. The ranges of different classes of the human voice may be generally stated as follows. In the bass voice two octaves of E, the contralto two octaves of E with a tone and a half more in the upper notes leading{40} to G ”

“ The wood wind, for example, consists of flutes and oboes, which are purely soprano instruments, clarinets, which extended from upper bass to moderately high soprano, English horn, which has a tenor range, bass clarinet, which runs from deep bass up into treble, and bassoons, which comprise bass, baritone, and tenor registers. That organization of instruments is capable of independent performance, possessing, as it does, all the components of full and extended harmony and a wide variety of color. ”

“ He afterwards sang at Vienna, Hamburg, Bremen, Cologne, Mayence, Wiesbaden, and Frankfort, 1851 to 53. From 1853 to the present time he has been engaged at Vienna as principal baritone, where he is a great favourite, being alike excellent both in singing, acting, and in classical and romantic opera. Among his best parts are Don Juan, Count Almaviva, Pizarro, Mikheli (Wasserträger) , Hans Heiling, William Tell, Nelusco, Hamlet, Amonaero, Orestes, the baritone parts in Wagner's operas, etc. ”

“ In the production of L'Africaine, however, Del Puente undertook the rôle of "Nelusko," and met with signal success, so that the recalcitrant baritone was left out in the cold and not missed. This tended still further to rouse his ire, and he resorted to a series of daily statements of some kind or other with the view of discrediting the Opera.
It was, indeed, a trying matter to me. The baritone, De Anna, refused to sing, and Ravelli was in bed with a bad cold; so, too, was Mdlle. Fohström. News, moreover, arrived from Minneapolis that Mdme. ”

“ It is pretty to see people who might be nothing but simply fashionables taking pains to sing fine music in tune and time, with more or less success. One of the baritones we know is a G——, who used to be a swell guardsman, and has happily taken to good courses while still quite young. ”

“ It is round, rich, and clear, of wonderful flexibility, and such astonishing firmness, that it is impossible to suspect any note is passed over unperceived. He has the neatness and precision of execution that Ber and Barizel have acquired on the clarionet or bassoon. The tone is equal in its whole extent, taking and holding F with as much ease as a tenor voice would do, or running over the notes with a vivacity unheard of till now; while its pathetic tones, in the cavatina from La Straniera, Mai tu vieni o misera, move the hearer even to tears. ”

“ The basso continuo of certain organists, who have fallen asleep over their pedals, soon becomes an intolerable nuisance for the audience. We should go wild at a performance of a symphony in which the double-basses played uninterruptedly from the first note to the last. Plain-song itself, thus interpreted, loses its eloquence; although the apparent monotony of its design, closely confined within the limits of an octave, would, above all, seem to be better adapted than any other form of music to a continuous bass. ”

“ It must then be understood that the instrument in C speaks an octave lower, the bass clarinet in B♭ a major ninth and the bass clarinet in A a minor tenth lower. The tenor clef is also frequently used in orchestral works.
The quality of tone is less reedy in the bass clarinet than in the higher instruments. It resembles the bourdon stop on the organ, and in the lowest register, more especially, the tone is somewhat hollow and wanting in power although mellower than that of the bassoon. In the lowest octave the instrument speaks slowly and is chiefly used for sustained bass or melody notes ”

“ Although it has a possible range of three and a half octaves, its principal use is to extend the downward range of the bassoon, thus supplying a solid, deep-pitched foundation for the wood-wind section.
The tones comprising the two lowest octaves are the most valuable. They are employed both in forte and piano passages, though the subduing of the deepest tones requires great skill. The soft attack is all but impossible. The tonal quality differs little from that of the ordinary bassoon. ”

“ I heard the soft plaintive lament breathed out by the flutes, after the storm of the violins and basses died away, and the thunder of the kettle drums had ceased; I heard the lightly touched tones of the violoncello and the bassoon, which fill the heart with irrepressible yearning—again the Tutti enters treading along the unison like a towering huge giant and the hollow lamenting expires beneath his crushing footsteps.
The overture was finished; the man suffered both his arms to drop, and sat with closed eyes, like one who was exhausted by excessive exertion. ”

“ A piano tone should be formed with especial care as to attack, open mouth, etc., and all words associated with the duller, lower-pitched vowels be spoken with the greatest distinctness, both in singing and speaking. At the same time, the barytone and contralto should not boast themselves over the tenor or soprano, if they are more successful with lower tones and the words associated with them, for the latter class of singers can often revel like birds in regions not approachable by the deeper-voiced singers. ”