Advice to Singers

by Frederick James Crowest

[ON STYLE, EXPRESSION, &c.]

The study of language, articulation, and deportment, the gradual formation and building-up of the singing voice, and the incessant practice of scales and exercises, are in reality only the necessary preliminaries to singing itself. Singing, or the proper use of the voice combined with the due enunciation and expression of the words, is nothing unless due attention be also paid to style, to the fit and effective execution of the music selected, due regard being paid both to taste and tradition.

Traditional Styles.—Although the groundwork of all good singing is the same, the music to be sung varies greatly in style. There is church music, oratorio music, and opera music, as well as ballad music; and a certain nondescript—half recitative, half declamation—which is of modern growth, gives pleasure to many people (both performers and audience), and comprises the greater number of modern German "songs."

Modern German Lieder.—This latest development of vocal performances, of which I desire to speak with all due respect, has no traditions whatever, but it has a style, decided, though (in my opinion) bad. It has, however, one merit: it imperatively demands that the singer should understand the meaning both of words and music, for the whole thing depends on expression and modulation. The composers of these works generally do their part fully in the way of modulations and accompaniment; but as they frequently forget to supply anything in the shape of a melody, the singer must do his best to touch or move his audience by his expressive delivery of the words in the musical inflections which (with this class of composers) occupy the place of a "tune." However, if you admire this kind of music, and have been properly taught to sing before you attempt to execute it, I have not a word to say against it: so long as you use your voice legitimately, this style of music can do you no harm, and if you study dramatic expression and elocution properly, you may doubtless produce an effect very pleasing to others who admire it. But the danger of such music to the untrained voice and untaught singer is very great indeed; and I do not hesitate to say that the frequent performance of it by such an one must result in the ruin both of voice and style.

The Cathedral School.—The one point in music wherein England has just reason to boast of her past, is the existence of a distinct class of music composed for her church service, and that music of a high order of merit. Distinctive in character, this church music—"services" and "anthems"—has created for itself a distinct school of singers, and, by tradition, demands a distinct style of performance. I have elsewhere stated that the "Cathedral School" of singing is "detestable for solo work," and so it is for any solo work except cathedral solo work, where the operatic or oratorio style of singing would seem to us, who have always been familiar with the traditional and one accepted style, out of place, and irreverently suggestive of the concert-room. It is difficult to describe upon paper the peculiarity of this style of singing, and it could only be learnt by imitation in its own home, the cathedral. Its chief characteristics are a sort of passionless "statuesqueness," a steadiness of tone akin to the notes of the organ, which is its only fit accompaniment, an absence of all attempt at personal display on the part of the singer. Its faulty tendencies are towards deficiency of expression and slowness of "attack;" these are apparent, generally, when a "cathedral" singer appears in the concert-room; but in church, the pervadingly reverent character of the performance takes off the impression of coldness and tameness in the individual singer, while the ear, accustomed to the slight difference in time with which the various organ-stops "answer," does not notice in the singer that want of "crispness" in the time which the accompaniment of an orchestra reveals at once.

Unless you are really intending to sing professionally in a church or cathedral choir, the study of this style will not be of much use to you; you will find its good points equally insisted on in the oratorio school of singing, while its defects should be avoided in any. For English part-singing there is, however, no training so good, its traditions being exactly those of the finest old English secular part-music—the madrigals of Wilbye, Weekes, and Purcell, &c.

Oratorio.—By oratorio singing—speaking of it as a distinct style—I may say at once that I mean the school of Handelian singing, of which the traditions are distinct, and which has only been slightly modified to suit the more modern oratorios of other composers. Of course, Mendelssohn cannot be sung exactly like Handel or Bach, but the general style of delivery should be the same, and till you can sing Handel, you cannot hope to be able to sing Mendelssohn. The ability to sing Handel, Bach, and Glück, I believe to be the sole foundation for a pure style of singing either in opera or ballad music: the music is such that it cannot be trifled with—the difficulties cannot be evaded, but must be mastered—while the exquisitely smooth and vocal character of these great masters' music trains the singer to an evenness and solidity of style which is most valuable in any music that may be afterwards attempted. Moreover, the songs of Handel form an admirable school for the training of individual taste and judgment in the introduction of ornaments, the variety of phrasing, and other minute details of finish. Not that you may exercise your individual taste in introducing ornaments into Handel or Bach—far from it; but the songs are written with the express intention that certain ornaments should be introduced in particular places, and the style (and in many cases the notes) of these ornaments has been accurately handed down to us; therefore, in learning this traditional manner of singing such music, the student is trained to a knowledge of the appropriate place for the introduction of ornamentation and "grace"—the appropriate character of such embellishments, and the appropriate opportunities for introducing them. For instance, most of Handel's songs commence with a movement which is intended to be repeated at the close of the song, the middle part being generally a movement in some relative key, which is not repeated. The traditional style of giving such songs is to reserve ornamentation for this repeated first part, and thus to avoid the effect of sameness which would result from adhering in the "repeat" to exactly the same rendering of the music with which the singer gave it at first. Such ornamentations were taken for granted by the composer, and it was only because of a tasteless abuse of this privilege of adornment on the part of foolish singers, an abuse which became an unbearable nuisance, that in after years Rossini adopted the plan of writing into his music florid passages which should supply the singer with ornaments which were good of their kind and which were put in in appropriate places, rather then trust his airs to the mercy of inartistic "decorators." Handel, and the composers of earlier times than Rossini, omitted the ornamentation, so as not to hamper the singer, for, as has been well said by an old writer on the subject: "The same execution that would from one singer afford pleasure, might from another excite disgust: the compositions of old masters have no written cadences to a repeated passage, for this very reason, no doubt. But it is understood, and indeed expected, that the singer of talent should display his own taste by the introduction of such fanciful and graceful ornaments as may be best calculated to exhibit his voice to advantage, and thereby heighten, instead of lessen, the effect of the composition."

The same writer, in explaining the reason for the introduction of such ornaments and changes, goes on to remark: "In conversation, though we frequently repeat words and even sentences, in expressing any particular subject, yet we might as naturally expect to see a person laugh without a smile, as give such repetitions without some variation in voice and manner.

"The first part of an air is often written to be repeated. In justice to the author, when that is the case, simplicity of style should be inviolably preserved; but, on repeating the strain, free scope may be given to the imagination, taking it for granted that no person would be vain enough to attempt the introduction of his own fanciful graces, unless sufficiently master of the science to feel the propriety of going so far and no farther."

Perhaps I may make the meaning of all this clearer by giving a few specimens of these traditionally accepted adornments in repeated passages.