IV

Up to the latter part of the sixteenth century there was nothing to give promise of a sudden development of solo singing. Popular music had as a matter of fact consisted from time immemorial largely of singing by a single voice. The musical instincts of the great mass of the people had found expression in the folk-song, while the semi-cultured classes had long cultivated the arts of the various orders of Troubadours and Minnesingers. But these popular forms of music were looked upon by the trained musicians with a certain contempt. Music had to be sung in parts by several voices in order to be worthy of recognition as serious art. Polyphonic music utterly ignores the capabilities of beauty and expressiveness inherent in the single voice. When several melodies are sung at once, each one of equal importance with all the others, it is impossible for one voice to receive more attention than another. Yet a time came when music was forced to break the bonds of polyphony and free itself from the restraints imposed upon it by multiple part-writing. Greater command of beauty and expressiveness was precisely the end sought by those composers, notably Palestrina, whose work marks the culmination of the polyphonic school. The spirit of the time was seeking for greater freedom in the expression of the musical instinct and singers and musicians alike were moved by this spirit. Solo singing was the inevitable result of a pressing demand.

Two entirely distinct sets of influences were instrumental in leading musicians to experiment with the solo voice. The first of these can be traced back to the practising of individual parts in choral works as a medium of vocal cultivation. A singer practising a part of this kind by himself could not fail to notice that he used his voice with greater freedom and satisfaction than when obliged to consider only the effect of his voice in conjunction with other singers. So also would the master who was instructing him in his part. Highly significant is the fact that this discovery was made in the singing of florid music. Rather elaborate passages of the florid type were selected for vocal practice and these would naturally be adapted for bringing out the purely sensuous beauty of the voice. Florid counterpoint thus contained within itself the germs of coloratura singing. As singers began to recognize the beauties of their own individual voices, the desire naturally arose to display these beauties to others. Opportunity for vocal display was, however, lacking, as no music had ever been written for the solo voice. This difficulty was finally overcome by a singer performing only one part of a contrapuntal work and having the other parts played as an accompaniment by instrumental performers. The first solos sung in the history of European musical art were of this type. As early as 1539 a four-part madrigal was produced in this manner, the highest soprano part being sung as a solo. The fashion spread rapidly and solo singing soon began to attract the serious attention of musicians.[5]

Singers were of course anxious to exhibit their voices. Polyphonic music offered them little scope in this regard, for florid writing was distributed among the various parts and it was impossible for the artists to find works which contained more than an occasional ornamental passage for any one voice. They hit naturally upon the device of adding ornaments according to their own taste and fancy to the part selected for solo performance. Kiesewetter reproduces a madrigal sung in this manner by a noted soprano singer, Vittoria Archilei, in 1589. Both the original soprano part and the same part as embellished by Archilei are reproduced here.

a. Simple melody of treble part

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Dalle più alte sfere
dalle più alte sfere
di celesti Sirene
di celesti Sirene

b. Melody as sung by Vittoria Archilei