What, then, is the explanation? Different authorities would doubtless suggest different answers, but most, I fancy, would agree that lack of adequate study has had not a little to do with the matter.
Porpora, we all know, kept Caffarelli for five years to one page of exercises, and at the end of that time told him that he was the greatest singer in Europe. It would be amusing to learn the experience of a modern teacher who proposed to one of his pupils the adoption of the same course. The great Patti, who told me I was her successor, also said to me that we artists will still be learning when we are too old to sing.
The average vocal student of to-day considers himself a finished artist at a time when he would be reckoned just qualified to begin serious study by the teachers of an earlier period.
While no amount of training will make fine voices out of poor material, the history of singing furnishes numerous instances—that of Pasta is one of the best known—in which limited natural powers have been developed to an astonishing degree by study and training. Nowadays I am afraid it is the converse of this which is more frequently illustrated, and one hears only too often of fine natural voices which have been steadily ruined by the manner in which they are used.
Modern music has also, no doubt, had its influence—not so much because it is harmful to the voice in itself, but simply because it is possible to sing it (after a fashion) without such prolonged study and exercise as that of the older school absolutely necessitated.
Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and the rest of the old masters have indeed been avenged in a wholly unanticipated manner. Precisely as the music of their school has fallen in favour has the power been lost of singing that of the so-called higher kind which has taken its place.
Chapter IV
PERIOD OF TRAINING
FOR this melancholy state of affairs the only remedy is a return to sounder views. The fact must be recognised that there are no short cuts to perfection in singing any more than in any other art, and that those who wish to sing like the great ones of the past must be prepared to work and study as they did, in order to attain this end.
What period of training should be considered sufficient to equip a vocal student? In former days eight, nine, or even ten years were not considered too much for this purpose. I need hardly say how very different are the views prevailing nowadays, when students consider themselves qualified to appear in public at the end of a year or two of hasty and necessarily superficial training. Needless to say, no satisfactory results can possibly be achieved in this length of time. I consider a minimum of four years necessary to become a professional singer.
Lilli Lehmann has put the matter happily. At least six years, she says, should be considered the minimum period allowable—to which, she says further, there should then be added an entire lifetime for further study and improvement!