PART III
STUDIES IN VOCAL TECHNIQUE
STUDIES IN VOCAL TECHNIQUE
THE UNINTERRUPTED TONE
When a rich, dramatic temperament seeks for its instrument of expression the control of faultless technique the result ought to be art of the highest order. Such is the art of Gracia Ricardo. She has translated her English name into musical Italian, but does her country the honor to announce her beautiful voice as an American soprano.
Every tone of Gracia Ricardo's singing voice is as absolutely free from effort as the repeated note of the hermit thrush's song, and her tone as pure tone has the effect of that liquid call. But could you freight the thrush note with knowledge of human passion,—with throb of joy or pulse of pain, you would get from it the effect of Gracia Ricardo's singing of a Heine-Schubert song, a Schumann, Brahms, or Franz lied, or one of our English ballads. It must always be a song, for Gracia Ricardo does not exploit her voice in astonishing vocal feats. She simply sings her song. It was her wish to interpret the lieder of all countries that sent her in search of a method which would free her voice to that high use. She found that method, not in her own country, alas, but in Germany, where for twelve years she has used it in the guidance of her own voice and that of many others. She finds the American pupil "difficult," because "You are so impatient of a long, quiet preparation. You wish to try your skill at every step of the way—and not in the privacy of your study, but in a public's hearing." Poor American public! How it has suffered from this impatience. It is true, is it not, we are not willing to take time to establish a right condition for tone before using the tone in what should be final efforts of the perfected instrument. Blessed be drudgery has not become a beatitude in the gospel of the American artist. When it is so recognized by the student of vocal expression perhaps we can reclaim this great singer and teacher, Madame Ricardo. This book would further that end.
It has been my good fortune while making this book for you to do some brief but intensive studying under Madame Ricardo. It is by her gracious consent that I shall leave with you as an incentive toward the ideal for which we are striving the two watchwords of her teaching which were most potently suggestive to me. The exercises which constitute her method require personal supervision, but the active principle of those exercises for both tone production and breath control is clearly indicated by the two phrases "the uninterrupted tone" and "the constant mouth-breath." These two ideas fully sensed by a voice will work swift wonders in its use.