Bel canto

“ The proposition confronting the singer is a difficult one. When he attempts the dramatic he finds that it destroys his legato. He loses the sustained quality of the organ tone, which is the true singing tone, and bel canto is out of the question. ”

“ In this they are encouraged by the teachers, who habitually neglect the less sonorous vowels and make their pupils sing all their exercises on the easy vowel A. No wonder, then, that the tones of an Italian singer commonly sound sweet: he makes them up of nothing but pure sugar. Characterization, dramatic effect, variety of emotional coloring, are all bartered away for sensuous beauty of tone; and hence the distinctive name for Italian singing—bel canto, or beautiful song—is very aptly chosen.
Now, sensuous beauty of tone is a most desirable thing in music. ”

“ For Italians as for Frenchmen, the search after a fine vocal phrase is a fault in proportion as it is carried out to the detriment of truth and nobility of expression. But when a musican is an Italian and possesses genius, the right expression comes to him naturally in the form of bel canto. ”

“ From the Italians we can learn the connection of the vowels, from the French the use of the nasal tone. The Germans surpass the others in their power of expressiveness. But he who would have the right to call himself an artist must unite all these things; the bel canto, that is, beautiful—I might say good—singing, and all the means of expression which we cultivated people need to interpret [Pg 221] master works of great minds, should afford the public ennobling pleasure. ”

“ Next we were favoured with a song in bass, accompanied with the piano—in which a male voice was so closely imitated as to defy the most acute ear to make it anything else; a male voice, however, highly refined—deeper, stronger, sweeter—than ever before fell upon our ear. The feelings of all present were delightfully stirred,—even the atmosphere in which we sat seemed trembling with emotion.
These were followed by other songs, enough to exhibit the vocal charms and operatic talent of this wonderful cantatrice, in all their strength and compass. ”

“ And so easily are our musical sensibilities awakened, and so readily are we influenced by song-power, that these effects may be exerted upon us, to a very considerable extent, even by the singer of ordinary abilities. But by a beautiful cantatrice, gifted with a pure, resonant, sympathetic voice, its natural sweetness and power supplemented by careful artistic cultivation, possessing a pleasing, unaffected manner of appearance and expression, all these effects may be amplified, intensified. ”

“ Praed’s longest poem, contains much that is very charming. The first two cantos of it were published in Knight’s Quarterly. Praed’s secession from the Magazine interrupted the continuation. Only a portion of the third canto was ever written. The poem is very indeterminate in character, and might have been carried on indefinitely, as each canto brings the hero into a new field of adventure, and supplies a tale or episode complete in itself. ”

“ The tone of the romance is monotonous, and we dare not affirm that this song, receiving the honors of written notation, could satisfy the dilettante and the melodrama. But its charm, or, if you will, its enchanting grace, consists in the modulations of the voice in singing, as it were to cast out certain notes, to blend them, to balance them, so to say, very softly, in raising or lowering the tone, in swelling it or allowing it to die. It is thus that the romance, composed of a number of notes strongly bound, presents the great difficulties of expression, and the purity of execution. ”

“ The highest form of such euphony is song; the singing voice gives to the sounds it utters the thrill of tonality,—a thrill itself dependent, as we know, on the numerical proportions of the vibrations that it includes. But this kind of euphony and sensuous beauty, the deepest that sounds can have, we have almost wholly surrendered in our speech. Our intelligence has become complex, and language, to express our thoughts, must commonly be more rapid, copious, and abstract than is compatible with singing. ”

“ The globe of poets then, The choir of angel-men, Each sing a different song, That doth to each belong. Yet the songs one and all, Are of a single call. And make one body free, Doth with itself agree. Then in society. Rises an anthem high, 'Tis as a perfume cast From all flowers far and fast ; A STRANGE BOOK 359 And every fibre heaves With perfume in its leaves, And every part doth thrill With perfume from its will. But when men sing on earth, Song hath no heavenly birth. ”

“ In fact, it was proved that their power as singers held sway wherever they sang; wherever was found a soul in unison with melodious sound, a heart capable of human emotion. It was not so much the words of their songs—these, it is true, were not without merit in a religious sense—as the strangely pathetic and delightful melody of their music, and the freshness and heartiness of the rendering, that gave them their greatest charm. ”

“ Clearly I call, keeping the melody, An old evening-singer unceasing in song, To earls in their houses I bring great bliss; When I chant my carols in varying strains, Men sit in their dwellings silent and still. Say what I’m called who mimic so clearly The songs of a jester, and sing to the world Many a melody welcome to men. ”

“ Every canto has an introduction, as ingenious in thought as it is beautiful in expression. The most interesting Introduction is probably that of the last canto, where he represents his contemporaries congratulating him on the completion of so arduous a work; but others deserve scarcely less praise ”

“ When my Lord comes I trust I shall
—through all the loving rotations of the crude hymn-tune. Such song-births of spiritual enthusiasm are beyond enumeration—and it is useless to hunt for author or composer. Under the momentum of a wrestling hour or a common rapture of experience, counterpoint was unthought of, and the same notes for every voice lifted pleading and praise in monophonic impromptu. ”

“ The chanting must have been much like the sing-song that some people fall into when reading verses now. The first thing in scanning a line of poetry is to drop into its rhythm,—to let it sing itself. When the regular accent is felt, the lines can easily be separated into their metrical feet. ”

“ This effect, the finest in music—for what taste would compare a Sinfonia to a song?—he accomplished by the admirable management of a sweet voice, though but of small compass, accompanied by a few chords of the instrument, rather filling up the intervals of the voice than leading them: the whole rather an exquisite recitation than a song; the singer more the minstrel than the musician. ”

“ At the beginning we have a joyous chant full of sound and colour, gradually changing into the elegiac strain of foreboding, the dread of pitiless divinities, the lamentation for the hero's unmerited fate. The exquisite [Pg 268] modulations of the verse, the splendid choral antiphonies captivated all who were susceptible to the enchantment of poetry. The delicate adaptation of the English language to quantitative harmonies in high resonant lyrics showed extraordinary skill in the difficult enterprise of communicating the charm and cadences of the antique masterpieces. ”

“ For he will note as the years continue how, while all other pleasures lose their value and gradation, Song remains, until at last the notes of singing become like a sort of sacrament outside time, not subject to decay, but always nourishing men, for Song gives a permanent sense of futurity and a permanent sense of the presence of Divine things. ”

“ Continue as long as thou canst this melody in the gatherings of the beloved; thus may the minds find rest and joy and become in tune with the love of God. When eloquence of expression, beauty of sense and sweetness of composition unite with new melodies the effect is very great, especially if it be the anthem of the verses of oneness and the songs of praise to the Lord of Glory. ”

“ To present each hymn with its tune appeared the natural and most satisfactory way, as in most cases it is impossible to dissociate the two. The melody is the psychological coëfficient of the metrical text. Without it the verse of a seraph would be smothered praise. Like a flower and its fragrance, hymn and tune are one creature, and stand for a whole value and a full effect. ”

“ The singing makes me, out of what I was,
Even as a potter shaping Eden clay.
Ever Love sings, and saith in words that sing,
'Beloved, thus art thou; and even so
Lovely art thou, Beloved!'—Even so,
As the Sea weaves her path before the light,
I hear, I hear, and I am glorified.
Love sang to me, and I am glorified
Because of some commandment in the stars.
And I shall grow in favour and in shining,
Till at the last I am all-beautiful;
Beautiful, for the day Love sings no more.
THE FEASTER Oh, who will hush that cry outside the doors,
While we are glad within? ”

“ Song and death may go hand in hand, and such a song may be a beautiful one, unsung, unuttered until this moment when Nature demands the final payment for what she has given so lavishly. In the open, the dominant note is the call to a mate, and with it, that there may be color and form and contrast, [217] there is that note of pure vocal exuberance which is beauty for beauty and for nothing else ”

“ We may observe of this ballad, in conclusion, that its subject is more physical than is usual in Germany. Its images are rich rather in physical than in moral beauty. And this tendency, in Song, is the true one. It is chiefly, if we are not mistaken—it is chiefly amid forms of physical loveliness (we use the word forms in its widest sense as embracing modifications of sound and color) that the soul seeks the realization of its dreams of Beauty. It is to her demand in this sense especially, that the poet, who is wise, will most frequently and most earnestly respond. ”

“ As this chant draws closer and closer, as the day drives farther back the night, that whir and soughing of the air—which had erewhile sounded like the eerie cry of souls condemned—now rises to ever gladder waves, so that when the sun ascends at last in splendor and the pilgrims' chant proclaims in ecstasy to all the world, to all that live and move thereon, salvation won, this wave itself swells out the tidings of sublimest joy. 'Tis the carol of the Venusberg itself redeemed from curse of impiousness, this cry we hear amid the hymn of God. ”

“ Then follows [263] a full chorus beginning with male voices in unison (“Why, my Soul, art thou cast down?”) , answered by the female voices (“Trust thou in God”) . Again the soprano voice is heard in pathetic recitative (“O my God! my Soul is cast down within me; all Thy Waves and thy Billows are gone over me”) . A beautiful quartet of male voices with string accompaniment replies: “The Lord will command His Loving-kindness in the Day-time; and in the Night His Song shall be with me, and my Prayer unto the God of my Life.” The response is full of hope and consolation ”

“ It is a moot point with students whether the ballade or chant royal is the earlier and original poem. The chant royal in the old form is usually devoted to the unfolding of an allegory in its five stanzas, the envoy supplying the key; but this is not always observed in modern examples. Whatever be the subject, however, it must always march in stately rhythm with splendid imagery, using all the poetic adornments of sonorous, highly-wrought lines and rich embroidery of words to clothe a theme in itself a lofty one. ”

“ It is artificial to speak in the ordinary manner, while the priests' chant, and every chant are purely natural. For the proof of this you have only to read a little—a very little—about primitive, or "natural" peoples, or, more simply, to listen to children at play. You will always find that where convention has not cast out nature, some kind of "sing-song," some sort of chant is the entirely natural utterance of man in his most fervent, that is, his most natural moments. ”

“ In writing a ballad the secrets of success are definiteness of aim, directness of execution, and singleness of idea. The language must be simple, but so vigorous that every word tells; the metre must also be simple, but the versification demands a musical swing, a rush of rhyme, the talent for which is rare. To smell of the lamp is fatal to the ballad ”

“ There seems little reason to doubt that the old Italian masters sacrificed many things, clarity of diction included, to beauty of tone. This they placed above everything. True, beauty of tone is the first essential of artistic singing, but it is not the only essential. If song is speech vitalized by music, then speech, the words to which music is set, has some claim to consideration. In fact, the singer's diction should convey the import of the spoken word with the added emotional eloquence of music. ”

“ The romantic and above all the modern lyric, no doubt more exceptionally so in such songs, in which the temper, the emotional mood is predominant, and the function of music is to emphasize and expand this inner beat of soul-life in actual melody—are no doub [Pg 225] t most readily adapted to such melodic fusion. The folk-song is an obvious example which both delights in and demands a musical accompaniment. We shall find in modern times more rarely a composer for the canzonet, elegy, epistle, or even the sonnet. ”

“ The highest result which can be exhibited of literary culture and a corresponding vocal culture, is an organic melody, in the reading of a great poem, the outcome of the poem's organic life. By melody, in reading, is meant that organic variety in the use of all the vocal functions and affections, that arabesqueness of expression, which does not allow the ear of the hearer to detect a regular recurrence of any of these functions and affections. There is melody of pause, of inflection, of rhyme, of rhythm, of time, of force, of emphasis, and of every vocal affection. ”