The Voice in Singing

by Emma Seiler

COMPOSITION

Classic 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 nobler effects were attained than are possible to our modern musicians with their accumulation of dissonances and sudden contrasts.

With the two composers in whom our modern classic 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 noblest 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 classical 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 classic 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 Titian, 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.