Listen to a person breathing just before falling asleep, in a slow, rhythmical order; material objects retire into the background and assume a semi-spiritual shape. This is a similar condition to the one we are in and in which we breathe during the production of song. [By the by, sleep can be induced by thinking of a song, that is, by mentally singing it]. No two nations, however, breathe just alike in that condition, any more than they do during their waking moments; the mode of breathing during sleep being a reversion always of the one which obtains during our waking moments. Our mode of breathing, however, always determines our mode of vocal utterance. We can reverse our voice, as we do in whispering, but it is always the same voice, as a garment is the same when we turn it inside out.
Do you know, by the way, that the English whispering voice is the German speaking, and the German whispering the English speaking voice? Try it, and you will find it so. Go on whispering; that is, continue to use your voice in the same mechanical manner, but instead of for whispering, use it for speaking aloud, and you will have the exact mode of the other tongue. An Anglo-Saxon, in so doing, will be able to speak German aloud, but not English; a German will be able to speak English, but not German.
Thinking and speaking are of one and the same order. Thought makes the impression of which speech is the expression. If this were not the case, it would not be possible to pass from thinking to speaking or from speaking to thinking at once, and without an effort. To produce English speech, we must think English in a material way, that is, anteriorly, and in so doing produce an instrument from which English material or speech sounds emanate. To produce English song, we must think English in a spiritual way, that is, posteriorly, and in so doing produce an instrument from which English spiritual or song sounds emanate. We cannot think English in either of these two ways and produce German or Italian sounds for speech or song; nor can we produce the latter sounds in any other manner than by thinking, either materially or spiritually, in these languages, and in the proper idiomatic manner inherent therein.
How can an English-speaking person, physically and spiritually formed for English expression, and for no other expression, produce proper Italian sounds? She will think Italian in an English way; and, while singing Italian words, produce them with an English expression. That is not singing Italian, however, but English. Is it likely that she will succeed in acquiring the Italian mode of expression while her teacher himself is ignorant of just what that mode consists in, and in what it differs from the native mode of vocal expression of his scholar? You might as well attempt to produce on a violin the sounds of a violoncello or some other instrument.
To illustrate the power of the natural voice, it will but be necessary to call attention to what occurs in almost any concert wherein one of America's own daughters, now "prima donna assoluta," is the main performer. She sings a grand aria, the work of an Italian master, highly artistically and perfectly rendered. Musicians are delighted; the public applauds. She reënters, and now the donna, changed to a simple American, sings one of England's or America's own songs. The audience, which before had been languidly listening, at the first notes of this song is stirred, electrified, and now listens intently. When she ceases to sing, there is a storm of applause, as to almost shake the house. Where the artistic sense alone had been engaged before, the hearts and the souls of her hearers have now been touched. Yet I have seen the eccentric Von Buelow deliberately take out his handkerchief after such a demonstration and wipe the "desecration" of the "ditty" from the keys of the piano which had accompanied the song, before he deigned to dignify it with one of his "classic" renderings. No doubt he had much contempt for it all: the song, the singer, and the public. The treasures of that "ditty," however, were of an order similar to those hidden within the breast of every one composing that audience. The pearls, floating through the room from the lips of one of its own daughters, had, with a sympathetic touch, stirred it to its very depths, while the foreign "aria" had left it comparatively cold. Supposing an Italian singer were to sing an English "aria" in the English language to an Italian audience, and, after that, were to produce one of her own simple Italian songs, would not the effect be the same? Would Italians, in fact, care to listen to her English interpretation, no matter how artistically rendered?
It is an entirely different thing, however, for German or Italian singers to come here and sing their own songs in their own native tongue. Though foreign, the production is genuine. They sing what belongs to them, that in which they live, breathe; they sing their own soul. Such a performance we can comprehend and appreciate, even as we view a foreigner with interest, and honor him for that which is great and good in him, and for which he is distinguished. We can soon feel what is genuine and also that which is not; the former being nature's own production, the latter imitated, forced—unnatural. Italians do not sing English or German songs; why should Germans and English-speaking people sing Italian and French songs, to the exclusion, very often, of their own?
It was but recently that I heard a German choral society sing German songs to a delighted American audience. Then came something weird, strange; it was German, yet the words were not German. Looking at the programme, it turned out to be the famous plantation song, "'Way down upon the Suwannee River." The audience looked bewildered; there was no applause, though, judging by the attitude of the singers, they had expected to make this the grand hit of the evening.
The last performance of the great festival of the United German singers in Philadelphia, in 1897, was the production of the "Star-Spangled Banner." Everything in the appearance of the singers showed that this finale was to be the crowning act of the entire festival. All the singers, male and female, participated, and "Old Glory" was waved in the air during the performance. But, as I had feared, it was a complete failure. Instead of the vast audience spontaneously rising to its feet and being carried away by enthusiasm, it remained cold and indifferent, and there was no applause commensurate with what it would have been had the performers sung the words with the true ring in them and the true English accent. The same thing would happen if the "Marseillaise" were sung in France, or the "Wacht am Rhein" in Germany, by foreign singing societies, no matter how excellently schooled, and how artistically rendered.
A similar experience was had by Madame Brinkerhoff, who relates the same in The Vocalist of December, 1896, as follows:
"To show how language is imbedded in the timbre of the voice, I will relate an incident of last season. On the first night of the representation of the 'Scarlet Letter,' by Damrosch, sung by German singers, I was not surprised or in the least displeased at hearing this beautiful opera sung with the German timbre of voice; but after listening to a whole act, I heard no German words; I listened in vain for the shaping of their consonants and vowels, although I heard the German sounds or timbres. So I asked the lady seated next to me what language the people on the stage were singing. 'German,' she replied. I said: 'But I hear no German words. Will you kindly listen and tell me when you hear German words?' She listened and replied, 'No, I do not hear German words, but I thought before it was German.' She asked me if it was English. We could not decide it until the lights were turned on, and looked at the programme, which read, 'sung in English.'