[TRANSLATED]
Mad. E. Seiler has made for herself an honorable name in Germany, not only as a practical teacher of singing, but also by her valuable investigations in regard to the culture of the musical voice. By her own anatomical studies she has acquired a thorough knowledge of the vocal organs, and by means of the laryngoscope has advanced, in the way first trodden by Garcia, to the establishment of the conditions of the formation of the voice. We owe to her a more exact knowledge of the position of the larynx, and of its parts in the production of the several registers of the human voice; and she appears especially to have brought to a final and satisfactory decision the much-vexed question respecting the formation of the so-called fistel tones (head tones). She has been associated with the best powers possessed by Germany in the department of the theory of music and physiological acoustics, standing by the side of the celebrated physiologist, Helmholtz, while he was engaged in his physiologico-acoustic work upon the generation of the vowels and the nature of harmony.
(Signed) E. du Bois-Reymond,
Professor of Physiology in the Royal University of Berlin.
Berlin, July 17, 1866
In a letter, written in English, addressed to the President and Members of the American Philosophical Society, Professor du Bois-Reymond introduces Mrs. Seiler (italicizing the words) “as a lady of truly remarkable scientific attainments.” “Prompted,” he states, “by a spirit of philosophical inquiry, not frequently met with in her sex, she has made herself entirely acquainted with all the facts and theories concerning the production of the human voice. She has entered, deeper probably than any one else before her, into the study of the problem of the different registers of the human voice. Most of her results she has published in a pamphlet under the title: Altes und Neues über die Ausbildung des Gesangorganes (Leipzig, 1861), which has received the approbation of both the physiologists and the singing masters of this country.”
The translator takes the opportunity to state that, as he makes no pretensions to any knowledge either of the science or of the art of music, his translation has been carefully revised by persons entirely competent to correct its musical phraseology.
W. H. F.
Philadelphia, December, 1867.
INTRODUCTION
In giving to the public these fruits of years of earnest labor, and in attempting to bring into harmony things which have always been treated separately, the Science and the Art of Singing, it seems necessary that I should state the reasons that prompted me to this study.
As I had for many years the advantage of the best tuition, both German and Italian, in the Art of Singing, and had often sung with favor in concerts, I was led to believe myself qualified to become a teacher of this art. But hardly had I undertaken the office before I felt that, while I was able to teach my pupils to execute pieces of music with tolerable accuracy and with the appropriate expression, I was wanting in the knowledge of any sure starting-point, any sound principle, from which to proceed in the special culture of any individual voice. In order to obtain the knowledge which thus appeared to be requisite in a teacher of vocal music, I examined the best schools of singing; and when I learned nothing from them that I did not already know, I sought the most celebrated teachers of singing to learn what was wanting. But what one teacher announced to me as a rule was usually rejected by another. Every teacher had his own peculiar system of instruction. No one could give me any definite reasons therefor, and the best assured me that so exact a method as I sought did not exist, and that every teacher must find his own way through his own experience. In such a state of darkness and uncertainty, to undertake to instruct others appeared to me a manifest wrong, for in no branch of instruction can the ignorance of the teacher do greater injury than in the teaching of vocal music. This I unhappily learned from my own personal experience, when, under the tuition of a most eminent teacher, I entirely lost my voice, whereby the embarrassment I was under, so far from being diminished, was only increased. After this misfortune I studied under Frederick Wiek, in Dresden (the father and instructor of Clara Schumann), in order to become a teacher on the piano. But while I thus devoted myself to this branch of teaching exclusively, it became from that time the aim and effort of my life to obtain such a knowledge of the human voice as is indispensable to a natural and healthy development of its beautiful powers.
I availed myself of every opportunity to hear Jenny Lind, who was then dwelling in Dresden, and to learn all that I could from her. I likewise hoped, by a protracted abode in Italy, the land of song, to attain the fulfilment of my wishes; but, beyond certain practical advantages, I gathered there no sure and radical knowledge. In the French method of instruction, now so popular, I found the same superficiality and uncertainty that existed everywhere else. But the more deeply I was impressed with this state of things, and the more fully I became aware of the injurious and trying consequences of the method of teaching followed at the present day, the more earnestly was I impelled to press onward in search of light and clearness in this dim domain.