Lloyd Hanson wrote:
>I am most interested in what particular form of Bel Canto you are
>studying. Is your concern primarily with performance practices
>during the Bel Canto period or is it with Bel Canto vocal production
>methods, or both, etc. etc.? Where is the course being given and who
>is teaching it? What 19th century manuals are you referring to.
>
>After reading the many opinions on this list and in many books, it is
>very clear that there is no consensus about the tone quality of a
>singer from this period. Many techniques are purported to be "true"
>Bel Canto techniques yet many of these so called "true" techniques
>are at odds with each other and some are even diametrically opposed
>to each other.
>
The only consistent thing I have noticed about discussions of tone in
17th and 18th century writings are the insistence on pure vowels. Now,
the term "pure vowels" may be open to discussion,
but certainly some vowels are acoustically more naturally resonant
than others. And they happen to correspond to the usual five Italian
vowels, which represent extremes and means of resonator positions....
>It is also possible to interpret the manuals written at this time in
>completely opposite ways. It must be kept in mind that each of these
>writers was addressing a profession that knew how these singers were
>trained and shared a similar artistic value system. None of that
>value system exists today even in opera. There may be "true" Bel
>Canto singers today but we have almost no way of knowing if a
>particular artist meets this criteria or not. We can only say that
>some singers are able to perform the music of this period quite well
>and artistically but we do not know if they are doing it as it was
>expected to be done during that time period.
>
I'm not disagreeing with this.
On the other hand, many singers were also composers and they left in their
compositions some idea of what the expectations must have been for
singers.
Look for example at the passage-work in some of the compositions of
Caccini,
Cesti, or Severi, and imagine that this was further embellished. There
is, e.g.,
one phrase in Caccini's Nuove Musiche that begins on a tenor high A and
proceeds
in long runs of 32nd notes with trills down to a bass low C 5 measures
later and
continues on for another couple of measures. Then imagine the technique
to
do this physically and artistically.
>A 21st century reader must a knowledge similar to that of the readers
>during the Bel Canto Period and I do not believe this is very likely,
>perhaps impossible. And, most important, a modern reader cannot have
>in the mind/ear the sound of the singers of that day which is most
>necessary to any valid understanding of the 19th century manuals on
>singing.
>
>This does not, in any way, preclude the value of studying this period
>in all its glory, nor does it even suggest that we should not attempt
>to perform this music. But it is a real mistake if we assume that
>our study is a "true" or most correct assessment of that style of
>singing or of that technique of learning to sing.
It is also useful to look at writings on muscial aesthetics from these
periods,
including for example Quantz's treatise on flute-playing, Leopold Mozart's
on violins, and CPE Bach's on keyboard. I'm certain that the artistic
things
mentioned in these items were also applied to singing.
Bless Your Heart(s),
Jeffrey Joel
JSJoel@c...
Circulation
Crone Chronicles: A Journal of Conscious Aging
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