For those who intend to follow a concert-singer’s career, there is a vast literature of vocal music specially written for this purpose, from which to select. There are few modern operatic excerpts which do not suffer somewhat by being transplanted from the stage to the concert-platform. In no case is this more clearly proved than in the selections so frequently given from Wagner’s music-dramas. Of course, I am speaking more particularly of those extracts which require the services of a vocalist. Such selections given in the concert-room are in distinct violation of the composer’s own wishes, frequently expressed. Besides lacking the necessary adjuncts of gesture, costume and scenery, the musical conditions of the concert-room are very unfavourable to the unfortunate singer. He has to struggle to make himself heard above the sonorities of a powerful orchestra generally numbering over a hundred musicians, and placed directly around and behind him, instead of on a lower level, as in the case of a lyric theatre. Besides which, Wagner’s works can now be heard in all large cities under the conditions necessary for their proper presentment, and as intended by their author-composer. Therefore, there is no longer the same reason as may have existed years ago, for the performance of extracts at purely symphonic concerts.
In cases where the singer has to select numbers for a symphonic concert and to be accompanied by an orchestra, there is a mine of wealth, not yet exhausted, in the operas of the older classic composers. These, being less heavily orchestrated than the ultra modern works written for the theatre, do not suffer in the same degree from the different disposition of the orchestral instruments.
There are also a few vocal numbers with orchestral accompaniments written in the form of a “scena,” such as the “Ah, perfido” of Beethoven, and the “Infelice” of Mendelssohn, which might possibly form an agreeable change to the frequenters of symphonic concerts, jaded a little, perhaps, with the oft-repeated “Dich theure Halle” and “Prayer” from Tannhäuser.
In order to render them more in keeping with the conditions of symphonic concerts, orchestral accompaniments, to many songs by the classic composers, have been made by excellent musicians from the original piano-part. The ethical question involved in the presentation of such works in a form other than that written by the composer, need not be considered here. Each artist must decide the matter for himself.
So far as songs with accompaniments for the piano are concerned, there is a mine practically inexhaustible and from which new treasures are constantly brought to light. For Recital purposes, the choice and sequence of a programme is second in importance only to its execution. And although suppleness and adaptability are valuable, even necessary, qualities, in a concert-singer, he will sometimes find that certain songs—admirable in themselves—are unsuited to him, for reasons which it is not always possible to define. In such cases it is not a matter of compass, or tessitura, of voice, or even temperament; there is some hidden lack of sympathy between the composer and his interpreter. A song should seem like a well-fitting garment; not only admirably made, but specially designed for the person who wears it.
CHAPTER VI
Conclusion
THE art of Singing is at present in a period of transition; and all unsettled conditions are unsatisfactory. Former standards are being thrown down; and the new ones are not yet elected, or, if chosen, not yet firmly fixed in the places of the old.
All Arts have a period in their history when they seem to reach their culminating point of technical perfection. Perhaps this point is reached when the art is practised for its own sake, without giving much consideration or attributing special importance to what it expresses. Sculpture reached its apogee under the Greeks, who, more than any other race, prized Form—particularly as manifested in its highest expression, the human figure. Painting also was at its climax of technical development during the Renaissance, when life was full of movement, and costume picturesque. But at this period in each of the two arts, skill was regarded as of more importance than the subject. In other words, the perfection of the sculptor’s statue or the scene depicted by the painter was of more interest and importance than the object or scene itself. If the work were admirably executed, the story it told had relatively little importance.