Vibrato again
Mark Slater
>Christie and Les Arts Florissants' recording of Handel's Alcina. In my
>opinion,
>this recording makes a mockery of everything the early music movement stands
>for.
I recently bought the Christie recording of Acis and Galatea and have to say
that I find it quite beautiful. Of course, the cast is not packed with
internationally known opera stars of Miss Flemings stature.. Perhaps that's the
difference.
Mark Slater
Musica laetitiae comes medicina dolorum.
(Music is the companion of joy and the medicine of sorrow.)
Johan van Veen
Yngve Nordgård wrote:
> Earlier this summer I posted an article about the use of excessive voice
> vibrato in so-called authentic performances. I mentioned J E Gardiner and W
> Christie as examples of this. Someone found it ludicrous to label the voices in
> Gardiner's and Christie's recordings excessive.
>
> The reason why I'm returning to this topic now, is that I have recently
> listened to a new recording which proves my point -- I am talking about William
> Christie and Les Arts Florissants' recording of Handel's Alcina. In my opinion,
> this recording makes a mockery of everything the early music movement stands
> for. The only thing which distinguishes this recording from the "traditional",
> modern recordings of baroque music, is its use of historical instruments. There
> is nothing in the aesthetic approach or phrasing which differs from modern
> recordings. And if Renee Fleming's vibrato is not excessive, I don't know what
> is.
>
> It really makes me sad that Christie so forsakes all ideals, presumably from
> commercial reasons.
I have to agree with you. I would like to add, though, that it isn't always the
conductor's decision which singers are taking part in a recording. I have found out
that often the recording companies have a big influence on that.
But I quite agree that these decisions are mainly taken for commercial reasons
rather than artistic ones.
--
Johan van Veen
Utrecht (Netherlands)
jvv...@casema.net
ubi deus ibi pax
Peter J King
> Earlier this summer I posted an article about the use of excessive
> voice vibrato in so-called authentic performances. I mentioned J E
> Gardiner and W Christie as examples of this. Someone found it
> ludicrous to label the voices in Gardiner's and Christie's recordings
> excessive.
> The reason why I'm returning to this topic now, is that I have
> recently listened to a new recording which proves my point -- I am
> talking about William Christie and Les Arts Florissants' recording of
> Handel's Alcina. [...]
Back in 1996 the BBC Music Magazine CD was a sampler of Harmonia Mundi's
Handel Operas. The only track I found unlistenable was Dorothea
Roeschmann singing "Quel torrente che s'innalza" from "Giustino" (a
performance which the Penguin Guide found "moving"... ). If Christie's
"Alcina" is worse than McGegan's "Giustino", I'll eat my hat.
Peter J. King
--
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Matthew Westphal
>
>
> Yngve Nordgård wrote:
>
> > Earlier this summer I posted an article about the use of excessive
voice
> > vibrato in so-called authentic performances. I mentioned J E
Gardiner and W
> > Christie as examples of this. Someone found it ludicrous to label
the voices in
> > Gardiner's and Christie's recordings excessive.
> >
> > The reason why I'm returning to this topic now, is that I have
recently
> > listened to a new recording which proves my point -- I am talking
about William
my opinion,
> > this recording makes a mockery of everything the early music
movement stands
> > for. The only thing which distinguishes this recording from
the "traditional",
> > modern recordings of baroque music, is its use of historical
instruments. There
> > is nothing in the aesthetic approach or phrasing which differs from
modern
> > recordings. And if Renee Fleming's vibrato is not excessive, I
don't know what
> > is.
> >
> > It really makes me sad that Christie so forsakes all ideals,
presumably from
> > commercial reasons.
>
> I have to agree with you. I would like to add, though, that it isn't
always the
> conductor's decision which singers are taking part in a recording. I
have found out
> that often the recording companies have a big influence on that.
Add in, in this case, the Paris Opera. This ALCINA was a Paris Opera
production that Christie conducted (with his own instrumentalists) and
Erato recorded. I don't know (there's probably no way to know) how
much influence Christie and Erato had on the casting, but I'm sure the
management of the Paris Opera had quite a big hand in it.
Matthew Westphal
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
jw...@my-deja.com
Peter J King <shil...@ermine.ox.ac.uk> wrote:
> Back in 1996 the BBC Music Magazine CD was a sampler of Harmonia
Mundi's
> Handel Operas. The only track I found unlistenable was Dorothea
> Roeschmann singing "Quel torrente che s'innalza" from "Giustino" (a
> performance which the Penguin Guide found "moving"... ). If
Christie's
> "Alcina" is worse than McGegan's "Giustino", I'll eat my hat.
>
Unfortunately, Fleming in Christie's Alcina is even worse than
Roeschmann in Giustino. They both sound as if they were auditioning for
a Memorex commercial by ending cadenzas on their highest sustainable
notes, but while there are similarities in their modern techniques,
heavy vibrato, weird ornaments, and extended cadenzas, Roeschmann's
voice simply is not as mushy and unpleasant as Fleming's.
The recording of Giustino is worth owning because (1) it's the only
recording of Giustino, which is unlikely to be recorded by anyone else
in the near future; (2) it features a fine performance by Michael
Chance in the title role; and (3) it's a cheap cutout at Berkshire
Record Outlet, among other places.
If you have the space or budget for only one recording of Alcina, get
the more complete 1986 Hickox version on EMI. The 4-LP set must turn up
regularly at stores such as Academy. (Without having compared the two
versions directly, I think the orchestral performance is better on the
Christie set.)
I concur that Christie's Acis & Galatea is an outstanding recording,
despite some questionable reorchestration. But the soloists (Sophie
Daneman et al.) weren't chosen by the Paris Opera.
John Wall
New York
Michael Zarky
Peter J King wrote:
> Back in 1996 the BBC Music Magazine CD was a sampler of Harmonia Mundi's
> Handel Operas. The only track I found unlistenable was Dorothea
> Roeschmann singing "Quel torrente che s'innalza" from "Giustino" (a
> performance which the Penguin Guide found "moving"... ). If Christie's
> "Alcina" is worse than McGegan's "Giustino", I'll eat my hat.
>
> Peter J. King
Another McGegan 'wobbler' is Lisa Saffer on Handel "Arias for Cuzzoni". Why
she would be picked for Baroque singing is beyond me. Her vibrato extends
beyond +- semitone, like the worst operatic voices. This can't have been
dictated by the record company.
Michael
Michael Zarky
Alain Naigeon
> Another McGegan 'wobbler' is Lisa Saffer on Handel "Arias for Cuzzoni". Why
> she would be picked for Baroque singing is beyond me. Her vibrato extends
> beyond +- semitone, like the worst operatic voices. This can't have been
> dictated by the record company.
Since I haven't listened to the records you're talking about,
I'd like to ask : are you talking of a vibrato made on purpose
with (perhaps) bad taste, or is there a vibrato because the
singer is exceeding her technical background (or age, or style)
and is not able to sing without it ?
I guess the difference should be clearly heard. In the first case,
it's ok to talk about it and to be rather severe if the artistic
choice is bad ; in the second case, it's perhaps kinder not to
insist too much :-)
--
Alain NAIGEON - Strasbourg, France - anai...@free.fr
Musique renaissance : http://listen.to/renmusic
--> Most pages now available in English! <--
Beth Diane Garfinkel
recording of music by Caspar Kittel, and while the singers all seem able
to do throat articulations as needed, their basic tone production is more
wobbly than I like.
OTOH, I was reading record reviews in Opera News the other day, and there
was a review of a recent recording of Matthias Goerne singing Bach
cantatas with a period chamber group, and the review objected to his
"underenergized head voice" (!); it went on to say that when he let his
voice ring out up there, it was so wonderful that they wished he would do
it all the time. . .sigh. . . There were a few other gems in there as
well.
Beth
--
"Under the green wood tree/Who loves to lie with me/And tune his merry
note/Unto the sweet bird's throat/Come hither, come hither, come hither/
Here he shall see/No enemy/But winter and rough weather."
--William Shakespeare
ElissaAnn
>Earlier this summer I posted an article about the use of excessive voice
>vibrato in so-called authentic performances. I mentioned J E Gardiner and W
>Christie as examples of this. Someone found it ludicrous to label the voices
>in
>Gardiner's and Christie's recordings excessive.
>
>The reason why I'm returning to this topic now, is that I have recently
>listened to a new recording which proves my point -- I am talking about
>William
>Christie and Les Arts Florissants' recording of Handel's Alcina. In my
>opinion,
>this recording makes a mockery of everything the early music movement stands
>for. The only thing which distinguishes this recording from the
>"traditional",
>modern recordings of baroque music, is its use of historical instruments.
>There
>is nothing in the aesthetic approach or phrasing which differs from modern
>recordings. And if Renee Fleming's vibrato is not excessive, I don't know
>what
>is.
I haven't heard this recording, but I have heard Renee Fleming
sing (with modern instruments), and I thought she was absolutely lovely.
What makes her vibrato excessive to your ears? Does it clash with
the instruments? Is it a sound that you dislike personally? Is it
a belief that vibrato must never be used with baroque music?
In the recording as a whole, what would you have liked to hear in the aesthetic
approach and phrasing?
Elissa Weiss
NYC
Michael Zarky
Peter J King wrote:
> Back in 1996 the BBC Music Magazine CD was a sampler of Harmonia Mundi's
> Handel Operas. The only track I found unlistenable was Dorothea
> Roeschmann singing "Quel torrente che s'innalza" from "Giustino" (a
> performance which the Penguin Guide found "moving"... ). If Christie's
> "Alcina" is worse than McGegan's "Giustino", I'll eat my hat.
>
> Peter J. King
Another McGegan 'wobbler' is Lisa Saffer on Handel "Arias for Cuzzoni".
Why
she would be picked for Baroque singing is beyond me. Her vibrato
extends
beyond +- semitone, like the worst operatic voices. This can't have been
dictated by the record company.
Michael
Michael Zarky
Well, I'm not sure whether those choices cover the possibilities. I would say it
is definitely not a vibrato made consciously on purpose, for expressive reasons.
I imagine it is an integral part of the technique learned over many years, a
typically operatic approach. Early music singers try to explore different
mechanisms, leading to a more focused tone (though the idea that people can sing
without _any_ vibrato in any but the smallest volume is probably wishful
thinking). So I think the problem is that the singer wishes to sing this Baroque
music without unlearning some of the technique that goes more with singing in a
large opera house. And of course, that the conductor and others overlooked that
aspect of her singing. Not to say that she doesn't have many skills that are
positive; just that she also has this big vibrato, sort of built-in.
Apologies for the multiple postings - with a new installation, I was getting an
error message that made me think the previous message wasn't sent.
Michael
Alain Naigeon wrote:
> Michael Zarky a écrit :
>
> > Another McGegan 'wobbler' is Lisa Saffer on Handel "Arias for Cuzzoni". Why
> > she would be picked for Baroque singing is beyond me. Her vibrato extends
> > beyond +- semitone, like the worst operatic voices. This can't have been
> > dictated by the record company.
>
Beth Diane Garfinkel
> I haven't heard this recording, but I have heard Renee Fleming
> sing (with modern instruments), and I thought she was absolutely lovely.
> What makes her vibrato excessive to your ears? Does it clash with
> the instruments? Is it a sound that you dislike personally? Is it
> a belief that vibrato must never be used with baroque music?
It does clash with the instruments. Ironically enough, I think Richard
Miller said it best: in _The Structure of Singing_, at some point, he
complained about how ridiculous "early music" singers sounded when
accompanied by "vibrant" strings. Well, I think one has to allow that the
reverse is equally true.
> In the recording as a whole, what would you have liked to hear in the
aesthetic
> approach and phrasing?
My general complaint with opera singers singing baroque music is that they
tend to sing at full power ALL THE TIME, which doesn't allow for the sort
of inflections and shadings that baroque music absolutely requires.
Ludwig...@hotmail.com
> My general complaint with opera singers singing baroque music is that they
> tend to sing at full power ALL THE TIME, which doesn't allow for the sort
> of inflections and shadings that baroque music absolutely requires.
I agree with this assessment wholeheartedly. The same complaint can be
made for sacred music of the time or even later (the "Et incarnatus est"
from the Beethoven "Missa Solemnis" is so much for effective and
affective, IMHO, when sung with little or no vibrato).
N.B.: Pardon my reference to a 19th century work in the this
newsgroup.
--
Mark K. Ehlert
Johan van Veen
Yngve Nordgård wrote:
> In article <20000823090145...@ng-fh1.aol.com>, elis...@aol.com
> says...
>
> >I haven't heard this recording, but I have heard Renee Fleming
> >sing (with modern instruments), and I thought she was absolutely lovely.
> >
> >What makes her vibrato excessive to your ears? Does it clash with
> >the instruments? Is it a sound that you dislike personally? Is it
> >a belief that vibrato must never be used with baroque music?
> >
> >In the recording as a whole, what would you have liked to hear in the
> aesthetic
> >approach and phrasing?
> >
>
> I agree that Renee Fleming is a great singer. But her voice doesn't suit the
> baroque aesthetic, it is far to powerful and lacks the refinement for this kind
> of music. And yes, it does clash with the instruments, which are played in an
> authentic manner, although Christie uses far to slow speeds in my opinion.
>
> Baroque music is very rethorical - it does not strive after the beautiful sound
> and line of romantic music (correct me if I'm wrong!). A continuous vibrato
> conceals the rethorical aspect of the music, it makes it sound the same - all
> the time.
You are very right in referring to the rhetorical character of baroque music. It
means that words are much more important than the music. Baroque music isn't about
creating an atmosphere, but about bringing across an emotion through the text and
the interpretation of the text. This is one of the best arguments against the use
of extensive vibrato. The more vibrato is used, the less understandable are the
words.
Posnerh
<< Another McGegan 'wobbler' is Lisa Saffer on Handel "Arias for Cuzzoni".
Why she would be picked for Baroque singing is beyond me. Her vibrato
extends beyond +- semitone, like the worst operatic voices. This can't have
been dictated by the record company.>>
It may well have been. The folks at Harmonia Mundi USA were very high on Lisa
Saffer, and, for all I know, still are, and they were certainly giving her the
star treatment. Just before the CD of which Michael writes came out (i.e.
after it was recorded) someone I know at HM USA was talking about her as the
next Emma Kirkby, as a result of which I bought the CD. I listened to it a few
times and then gave it away to someone else who did the same. My sense of it
is that the hand of HM USA is on the Saffer CD, and the the whole Handel "Arias
for" series, much more than is McGegan's.
Howard Posner
Posnerh
In article <39A57F6A...@casema.net>, Johan wrote:
<< You are very right in referring to the rhetorical character of baroque
music. It means that words are much more important than the music. Baroque
music isn't about creating an atmosphere, but about bringing across an emotion
through the text and the interpretation of the text. This is one of the best
arguments against the use of extensive vibrato. The more vibrato is used, the
less understandable are the words. >>
I think that what actually obscures the words is not so much the vibrato as
such, but the way in which singers used to singing in large halls sing
continuous streams of equally strong syllables with big open-mouthed vowels.
If you talk that way it doesn't register as language even if the individual
sounds are clear.
Peter Pears sang with a pretty continuous vibrato (or bleat, as it was often
called) but he was easy to understand (Don't take this as a recommendation of
his early music recordings).
Or to look at it from another angle, David Thomas sings with a fairly wide
range of vibrato, including none at all, and the amount of vibrato doesn't
affect his clarity, which is always striking.
Michael
Nordgård) wrote:
[snip]
>Baroque music is very rethorical -
Absolutely.
>it does not strive after the beautiful sound
>and line of romantic music (correct me if I'm wrong!).
I think this is inaptly phrased. The bel canto school arose from
Baroque operatic techniques, and it is based on both clear
articulation and beautiful, expressive intervals in the Adagios (i.e.
I believe a clear connection exists between Baroque music, Gluck, and
Rossini/Mozart, and through them Donizetti/Weber, despite the many
important differences, in content ideology and, of course, language,
between various composers). It seems to me that what you are objecting
to has little indeed to do with the clear, unwobbly, low-vibrato bel
canto school which largely died out in the early part of the 20th
century, and a great deal to do with the post-verismo school.
> A continuous vibrato
>conceals the rethorical aspect of the music, it makes it sound the same - all
>the time.
This, I think, is aptly phrased. I'd add that vibrato in Baroque music
generally does not bother me if it is narrow and expressively varied,
and is never used to fudge the pitch.
I take no position on this recording, which I have not heard. In the
past, I have been capable of enjoying beautiful performances of
Baroque music by grand opera singers, even when I was aware that their
ornaments were wrong (or absent), their tempi were too slow, their
vibrato was too big or emphatic, and their dynamics were too loud. In
the end, I think it is more important to me that a performance please
and touch me and the rest of the audience than that the performer do
everything right according to scholarly standards. Which is not to say
that such standards are not of very great, though I would say
secondary importance.
Michael
To reply by email, please eliminate "NOSPAM" from my address. Personal messages only!
Michael
wrote:
>You are very right in referring to the rhetorical character of baroque music. It
>means that words are much more important than the music. Baroque music isn't about
>creating an atmosphere, but about bringing across an emotion through the text and
>the interpretation of the text. This is one of the best arguments against the use
>of extensive vibrato. The more vibrato is used, the less understandable are the
>words.
We all agree that Baroque music is rhetorical, but I have trouble
accepting your assertions here on face value. The syllables of the
words in Baroque arias are often deliberately obscured by extensive
ornamentation, otherwise Gluck's neo-Classic reform wouldn't have been
necessary. Perhaps a more important reason why Baroque music must be
sung without big vibrato is that this makes it impossible to sing the
melismatic passagework clearly. The exact same thing is true vis-a-vis
Rossini, which is why so few singers can sing Rossini operas (or sing
them worth a damn) nowadays.
Peter Wilton
<panN...@musician.org> writes
>I think this is inaptly phrased. The bel canto school arose from
>Baroque operatic techniques, and it is based on both clear
>articulation and beautiful, expressive intervals in the Adagios (i.e.
>I believe a clear connection exists between Baroque music, Gluck, and
>Rossini/Mozart, and through them Donizetti/Weber, despite the many
>important differences, in content ideology and, of course, language,
>between various composers). It seems to me that what you are objecting
>to has little indeed to do with the clear, unwobbly, low-vibrato bel
>canto school which largely died out in the early part of the 20th
>century, and a great deal to do with the post-verismo school.
I'd still like to know what people mean by "The Bel Canto School". I
posted not so long ago a piece from John Potter's _Vocal Authority_, in
which he opined that "Bel Canto" was a mythological golden age of
singing in the past, never precisely located. If people here disagree,
where would they locate it?
--
Peter Wilton
The Gregorian Association Web Page:
http://www.beaufort.demon.co.uk
Todd Michel McComb
Posnerh <pos...@aol.com> wrote:
>I think that what actually obscures the words is not so much the
>vibrato as such
Yes, it is clearly other aspects of the technique which does so,
rather than strictly the vibrato. One can find all manner of
singing technique and use of vibrato around the world, and in many
cases words can be quite clear with vibrato. The issue in this
case is, in my opinion, a constant throat position, something which
could be varied with or without vibrato.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Michael
<pj...@beaufort.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>I'd still like to know what people mean by "The Bel Canto School". I
>posted not so long ago a piece from John Potter's _Vocal Authority_, in
>which he opined that "Bel Canto" was a mythological golden age of
>singing in the past, never precisely located.
[snip]
The beginning of it probably cannot be precisely located (or given an
exact starting time, which is probably more to the point), though I'm
not expert enough to make such a statement with any kind of assurance.
But that does not make it "mythical." The characteristics of bel canto
singing, and the type of music written for such singing, seem clear to
me. It is music which requires beautiful, clear tone, unobscured by
overly-emphatic vibrato, and the flexibility and relaxation to be able
to execute fioritura flawlessly; it is also a style that emphasizes
clear diction above almost anything else. Just look at the
contemporary style which emphasizes power over everything else (the
ability to sing actual trills, clear intonation, comprehensible
diction, etc.), and you have your contrast right there.
Zachary Uram
thought opera as we understand it today didn't bloom till Baroque
Period. Monteverdi and Josquin did not write would we would
consider "operas" in the modern sense yes?
SDG,
Zach
ur...@cmu.edu
"Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have faith." - John 20:29
Todd Michel McComb
Michael <panN...@musician.org> wrote:
>On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 14:15:42 +0100, Peter Wilton
><pj...@beaufort.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>I'd still like to know what people mean by "The Bel Canto School". I
>>posted not so long ago a piece from John Potter's _Vocal Authority_, in
>>which he opined that "Bel Canto" was a mythological golden age of
>>singing in the past, never precisely located.
>The beginning of it probably cannot be precisely located (or given
>an exact starting time, which is probably more to the point),
>though I'm not expert enough to make such a statement with any
>kind of assurance. But that does not make it "mythical." The
>characteristics of bel canto singing, and the type of music written
>for such singing, seem clear to me.
In my opinion, the theses in Potter's book deserve more than casual
dismissal.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Beth Diane Garfinkel
> I see "opera" and "Early Music" being used in same context, but I
> thought opera as we understand it today didn't bloom till Baroque
> Period. Monteverdi and Josquin did not write would we would
> consider "operas" in the modern sense yes?
I would say that Monteverdi certainly did; he is often credited with
actually inventing opera, although I think it's actually been extablished
that the credit or that really belongs to Jacopo Peri.
VTSize67
like to hear none or only slight vibrato.
Margo, what do you say?
Valerie
Todd Michel McComb
VTSize67 <vtsi...@aol.com> wrote:
>I wish Margo Schulter would comment on vibrato in early music.
>I personally like to hear none or only slight vibrato.
I don't know what Margo thinks about vibrato, so maybe I shouldn't
butt in here, but "early music" is an extremely large arena. This
discussion started with Handel, who wrote totally different music
from e.g. Machaut. Most people do seem to prefer medieval music
sung in Baroque style, and you are really free to prefer what you
want, but what evidence exists suggests that medieval vocal technique
was not only highly varied, but probably totally different from
the standard "English Cathedral"-motivated sound employed by popular
groups today. Potter does his best to detail this.
As I've stated elsewhere, I do not feel that performances of
historical music should be contrained to adopt only historical
elements. If performers prefer to use unhistorical elements, that
should be largely their choice. This includes using a vocal
technique more appropriate for Handel when singing troubadour songs.
It is certainly popular to do so. My only real lament is that one
so frequently sees reviews which imply that this Handelesque
technique is the only proper way to sing earlier music, when in
fact the evidence is quite the reverse.
Developing vocal technique is, I think, one of the key unexplored
areas for medieval music performance. And it is mostly unexplored
because people seem to think that their favorite vocal technique,
whatever it is, should be used for all music. I have always disliked
the Wagnerian operatic technique, to the point that it held back
my enjoyment of classical vocal music as a child. However, this
is not an either/or proposition. There are many ways to sing.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Michael
McComb) wrote:
>In my opinion, the theses in Potter's book deserve more than casual
>dismissal.
Maybe I should have started with the disclaimer that I haven't read
that book?
John Howell
>thought opera as we understand it today didn't bloom till Baroque
>Period. Monteverdi and Josquin did not write would we would
>consider "operas" in the modern sense yes?
>
>Zach
Most of us consider music of the baroque period to be legitimate "early
music." You may have your historical periods confused.
The textbook I use for Music History defines the first operas as those
produced by members of the Florentine Camerata, using their newly developed
declamatory style in the 1590s, with "Daphne" in 1598 identified as the
First Opera. Monteverdi's were written in much the same style, but he was
a better musician and a much better dramatist than they were. These were
all private entertainments until the first public opera house opened in
Venice in 1637 or 1638. In the later 17th century important centers of
opera development included Paris, with Lully, and Naples, with A. Scarlatti.
So yes, the earliest operas both coincide with and in part define the
baroque era. Josquin lived much earlier and would have had no reason to
write in a form not yet invented.
But what is meant by opera "in the modern sense" is very much a matter of
individual belief and interpretation. They were big business in Handel's
lifetime, but his operas are rather different from Mozart's, Rossini's,
Wagner's, Verdi's, or Puccini's.
John
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:John....@vt.edu)
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
Peter Wilton
<panN...@musician.org> writes
>On 25 Aug 2000 10:19:52 -0700, mcc...@medieval.org (Todd Michel
>McComb) wrote:
>
>>In my opinion, the theses in Potter's book deserve more than casual
>>dismissal.
>
>Maybe I should have started with the disclaimer that I haven't read
>that book?
Here are the excerpts again:
P. 47. "It was during the nineteenth century that the social and
musical conditions for the development of the modern idea of 'classical'
singing came into being, with a well-documented change from the
speech-related singing that probably characterised the high status form
in earlier periods to a new dedicated form of singing that was radically
different from what had gone before. The new singing was underpinned
both technically and ideologically by a pedagogy increasingly based on
scientific principles. Parallel with this was the tendency to
mythologise singing of the past, and it is during this period that we
first encounter references to bel canto, as a mythical vocal technique
from a previous era. The science, the myth, and the ideologies that
framed them both, are still very much a part of many aspects of singing
in the present day."
PP. 62-3: "The dominance of the new technique resulted in huge voices
(particularly in Wagnerian opera) but still left an unfulfilled need,
not least among those teachers who could not cope with the new
science... One way of reinforcing the legitimacy of a pedagogy is to
appeal to a golden age in which its principles reigned supreme, with the
implication that given the appropriate application and discipline such
an age may be regained. This is more than the sentimental gloss which
Mount Edgcumbe meant when he talked of a 'golden age' of Italian singing
in his youth. Though reality may become myth the process in not
reversible, and seekers after the golden age are doomed to an endless
search. In accepting the legitimacy of the search, however, they become
beholden to the creators of the myth. Such is the case with bel canto.
It is first used with a particularised connotation in Italy in the 1860s
to refer to the Italian style of singing, and especially from the 1870s,
to the beauties of that style compared with the crudities of Wagnerian
dramatic declamation. The term became in effect a weapon in the
propaganda war between the new Verdian style taken up by Wagner and the
old virtuosic 'early' style, a war in which Wagner swept all before him,
bel canto becoming an ideal (or lost reality) to which the losers could
subscribe. The phrase did not enter the dictionaries or text books
until the twentieth century, by which time it had come to be associated
with a style of singing developed during the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, never precisely located and never surpassed. In appealing to
this myth those who could not accept the more scientific theories of
modern singing teaching would always have an important (and
legitimising) criterion. The list of authorities claiming to possess
the secret of bel canto grows yearly. Among the notable attempts
earlier in the twentieth century is Klein (1923), a sometime pupil of
Garcia, who associated it with Mozart. Lucie Manen (1987), the noted
teacher of Peter Pears and Thomas Hemsley among others, entered the fray
with a vehemently anti-Garcia polemic based on her own eccentric
observations of vocal mechanisms. Perhaps the most balanced account is
Celesti's _History of Bel Canto_ (1991).
"By the end of the nineteenth century classical singing had achieved a
state of legitimacy implied in Bourdieu's definition of competence as:
'right to speak... right to the legitimate language, the authorized
language, the language of authority. Competence implies the power to
impose reception.'"
Michael
<pj...@beaufort.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Here are the excerpts again:
>
>P. 47. "It was during the nineteenth century that the social and
>musical conditions for the development of the modern idea of 'classical'
>singing came into being, with a well-documented change from the
>speech-related singing that probably characterised the high status form
>in earlier periods to a new dedicated form of singing that was radically
>different from what had gone before. The new singing was underpinned
>both technically and ideologically by a pedagogy increasingly based on
>scientific principles.
[snip]
This is very interesting, but what evidence does he marshal to support
both these ideas - (1) That singing was more "speech-based" (whatever
he means by that) in earlier periods (including Rossini and Donizetti,
traditionally thought of as bel canto-style composers par
excellence?), (2) That the new teaching was really more based on
science.
And for you: What do you think of the idea of looking at the vocal
lines in the operatic music themselves for evidence of what kind of
singing was required to effectively execute them?
Ken Moore
<panN...@musician.org> writes
>On Fri, 25 Aug 2000 14:15:42 +0100, Peter Wilton
><pj...@beaufort.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>I'd still like to know what people mean by "The Bel Canto School". I
>>posted not so long ago a piece from John Potter's _Vocal Authority_, in
>>which he opined that "Bel Canto" was a mythological golden age of
>>singing in the past, never precisely located.
>
>The beginning of it probably cannot be precisely located (or given an
>exact starting time, which is probably more to the point), though I'm
>not expert enough to make such a statement with any kind of assurance.
>But that does not make it "mythical." The characteristics of bel canto
>singing, and the type of music written for such singing, seem clear to
>overly-emphatic vibrato, and the flexibility and relaxation to be able
>to execute fioritura flawlessly; it is also a style that emphasizes
>clear diction above almost anything else. Just look at the
>contemporary style which emphasizes power over everything else (the
>ability to sing actual trills, clear intonation, comprehensible
>diction, etc.), and you have your contrast right there.
Perhaps not the start of the concept, but IMO an important influence,
was the "seconda prattica" identified by one of Monteverdi's circle or
at Ferrara c. 1610. The emphasis on the words, which were to be clear,
and set to music appropriate to their sense, was one of its features. I
don't recall beauty of tone as being one of its explicit aims, but the
simplicity of the music, as compared with the contrapuntal "prima
prattica", inevitably increased its importance.
--
Ken Moore
k...@hpsl.demon.co.uk
Web site: http://www.hpsl.demon.co.uk/
M. Schulter
: I wish Margo Schulter would comment on vibrato in early music. I personally
: like to hear none or only slight vibrato.
: Valerie
Hello, there, and to this point I have abstained from comment for two
reasons. First, this discussion seems to mainly to concern later music
which is less familiar to me; secondly, I'm not sure how reliable my ear
is at picking up vibrato as opposed to other elements of vocal style.
If it helps, I can say that I much enjoy Andrea von Ramm's singing of the
medieval repertory, and also the recordings during the early to middle
1970's of Hesperion XX and especially Montserrat Figueras (mainly
15th-16th century repertory). I also much like the recordings of David
Munrow's group, and of _Musica Reservata_, mentioned by Mark Lindley as
having a distinctive kind of timbre.
If asked to guess, I might say that I prefer little or no vibrato, but it
would interesting to test this by some controlled experiment, or to have
someone comment who is familiar with some of the performances I've
mentioned and could assess the level of vibrato.
Most respectfully,
Margo Schulter
msch...@value.net
Beth Diane Garfinkel
> Most people do seem to prefer medieval music
> sung in Baroque style. . .
Where possible, I prefer medieval music sung a la Silly Sisters or The
Young Tradition--anyone heard their Agincourt Carol?
James H. Young
(Yngve Nordgård) wrote:
>
>
> I agree that Renee Fleming is a great singer. But her voice doesn't suit the
> baroque aesthetic, it is far to powerful and lacks the refinement for this
According to you, Baroque singing can't be powerful?
> Baroque music is very rethorical - it does not strive after the
beautiful >sound
> and line of romantic music (correct me if I'm wrong!).
This point is tremendously misguided. Why can't Baroque music "strive
after the beautiful sound and line". Find evidence to the contrary, aside
from the rantings of those in the "earlier than thou" camp whose mission
seems to be to exclude people from this repertoire.
>A continuous vibrato
> conceals the rethorical aspect of the music, it makes it sound the same - all
> the time.
>
This is simply untrue. A good vibrato is essential to good singing.
Period. I am tired of the dry, nasal, "straight-tone", an idea which
began in the 1960's and is as outdated as tie-dye and bell-bottoms.
> I would have loved to hear Fleming sing Alcina if she had been able (and
> willing?) to sing according to the aesthetic conventions of baroque music.
You mean, according to "your" aesthetic conventions of baroque music.
-James Y.
Michael
Young) wrote:
[snip]
> A good vibrato is essential to good singing.
If you're making a personal aesthetic remark, chacun a son gout. If
you're making a remark regarding vocal technique, I would ask you to
give us some clarification. Do all the non-vibrato folk singers have
destructive vocal techniques?
Beth Diane Garfinkel
Organization:
James H. Young <jhyo...@hotmail.SPAMOUT.com> wrote:
> For many people, the problem is vibrato itself. They object to hearing
> any at all. Granted this may not apply to you. I am not sure what you
> mean by a whole vocal technique package. Do you mean a steady vibrato
> that never goes away?
Well, they SAY that they object to hearing any vibrato at all, but if you
were to get them to list specific recordings of singers that they do like
singing this repertoire and listen really closely, you'd probably find
that they all use vibrato at one time or another. For example, Julianne
Baird, Emma Kirkby, Jennifer Lane, and Laurie Monahan all use it at one
time or another.
>> Marin Marais, in his _Harmonie Universelle_, says that ornamentations
>> should be made only with the hroat, and never sound as if they are drawn
>> "from the stomach". Diaphram articulations, anyone?
> This quote does not dispute the use of vibrato in 18th century opera.
No, but following it does limit the kinds of vibrato one can use, not to
mention place a limit on how much volume one can produce while singing.
>> "heavy " and "light"; and suggests means by which the "heavy" voices may
>> lighten themselves. (This contention is also born out by just about every
>> early Italian baroque composer who, when engaging in word-painting, sets
>> the word "cantare" or forms of it to rapid passagework.)
> This quote doesn't dispute anything at all. It just confirms that singers
> were expected to be virtuosic. They still had to sing long notes some
> times, you know.
Read some of the recording reviews in _Opera News_. The reviewers there
almost always prefer singers to be "heavy", and complain when they are
not. Once again, this does indeed prove that there is at least a
background of an entirely different vocal esthetic going on that Handel
would have been coming out of. If one reads treatises that
describe vocal technique, it is not until the 19th century with people
like Manuel Garcia, that the vocal esthetic even started to change, to
accommodate larger halls and louder orchestras. And if you're going to
quote Ganassi and Agricola at me, I don't see why I can't quote Maffei
back at you; he's later than both of them. Unless you mean Johann
Friedrich Agricola instead of Martin Agricola.
>>
>> Bellini, when writing "Norma", was in correspondence with the tenor who
>> was going to create the role of Pollione; his name was Donzelli.
>> One of the points that called for negotiations was where Donzelli's chest
>> voice left off and his head voice began; the high ornamental passages were
>> deliberately written where Donzelli would feel comfortable singing them in
>> head voice. Imagine a tenor daring to try that in public today!
> The purpose of this quote is lost on me.
Part of the change in vocal esthetic that happened in the 19th century to
what we have now is the idea that tenors should carry their chest voices
all the way up to well above where sopranos carry theirs, resulting in yet
more overblown sound.. Bellini was writing for someone who would sound
more like (insert the name of your favorite Irish tenor here; the only
one I can think of at the moment is Joe Feeney of Lawrence Welk Show fame)
than Luciano or Placido or Jose.
> I don't think Handel was too concerned about pythagorean tuning when he
> wrote his operas, do you?
Perhaps not, but Bach was obviously thinking hard about that sort of
thing, and he was active around the same time as Handel, kinda sorta. Not
to mention Rameau, who was another contemporary.
>>
>> Meanwhile, those of us who object to standard operatic voice production do
>> so because it ends up barreling through most of the phrasing, destroying
>> detail and nuance, and making the music much LESS interesting.
> That's a question of good taste. Of course one should not obliterate the
> music with a wide vibrato. One should't sing out of tune either. Or sing
> badly, or sing in the wrong key, or forget to count rests, etc. etc.
> These problems all have to do with good performance and proper musical
> execution as decided by standards of taste and good judgment. If what you
> call "standard operatic voice production" adheres to these standards why
> should it be condemned?
Ah, but it very rarely does. Let's take the case of two fairly well-known
sopranos. One one side we have Sylvia McNair, and on the other side we
have Veronique Gens. In Sylvia MacNair's corner we also have the Academy
of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields, and Alfred Brendel on the piano. In the
corner with Veronique Gens we have the Orchestra of the Age of
Enlightenment and Melvyn Tan with his trusty fortepiano. And both groups
are performing Mozart's concert aria (recitative and rondeau) for soprano,
piano, and orchestra, "Ch'io mi scordi di te. . .Non temer, amato bene,"
K. 505. There's a bit in the rondeau where the piano is playing up a
storm, and the singer sings the words "stelle barbare! stelle spietose!",
to some pretty angular melodies with rather spicy harmonic implications.
And what's happening on the McNair side at this moment? In order to
project over an orchestra of steel strings and a piano full of metal
bracing, she has to concentrate all her energy into producing loud vowels,
and in order to do this without blowing out her larynx, she's having to
use diaphragm vibrato, giving us the impression that we are hearing some
rather dramatic music to accompany some rather pretty singing that doesn't
convey all that much. Meanwhile, back at chez Gens, we're hearing a
flurry of notes from the piano, and a phrase with all possibile drama
wrung out of it, because Gens, with less of a volume problem to contend
with (and I don't think her voice is much louder than McNair's, if any),
is able to fire off a couple of nice loud plosives on the first "b" in
"barbare" and the "t" in "spietose", not to mention making more noticeable
alterations in her timbre to emphasize both the sense of the words and the
interesting harmonies going on. BTW, I have heard Sylvia McNair sing with
a gut-strings orchestra, and she can be equally dramatic given the proper
chance.
What I personally find annoying about the Fleming Alcina recording, and I
suspect that a lot of people who object to her "vibrato" would agree with
me in this, is that she was being offered the chance to do what Veronique
Gens succeded in doing with that Mozart recording, and she completely blew
it! And Veronique Gens has recorded main-stream vocal repertoire with
modern instruments accompanying it, and gotten fairly good reviews out of
the folks over at _Opera News_ with it.
>If some operatic singers sing badly, that doesn't
> mean that vibrato shoulnd't be allowed in baroque opera. That's the
>leap that I am hearing. And it doesn't make sense.
Things are never as cut-and-dried as we'd like to pretend.
Michael
<bgar...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
>Oh, yes. I studied voice for a semester with Paul Elliott (and yes, that
>is the same one from the old Hilliard Ensemble recordings, Consort of
>Musick recordings, and the original Acadamy of Ancient Instruments Messiah
>recording), and he was eternally frustrated at my inability to master
>diaphragm vibrato, not to mention diphragm articulation. Of course, since
>he's not Giorgio Tozzi, he didn't want me to learn to use it all the time,
>but just to have it as an option in my arsenal of effects. And this is
>someone who would generally be approved by the "anti-vibrato" contingent.
Interesting. Well, Charles Delusse in his 1760 flute treatise
describes the dots-under-a-slur articulation as calling for "coups de
ventre" (if I'm remembering the exact words correctly), but the
example he gives is of eighth-notes, and I interpret his call as
representing pulses of breath AKA breath attacks.
My opinion, for what it's worth, is that using the abdomen instead of
the throat to produce vibrato gives a gross effect that is not
suitable for general use in any type of music other than possibly the
unusual type which deliberately and pointedly calls for obtrusive
vibrato, using specific musical signs to indicate that. That's no
reason not to try to learn it for special effects, though, I suppose.
Perhaps using the muscles of the abdomen and lower sides simply to
support the air column and using the throat to vibrate that air column
is not the ONLY way to be able to execute ornaments, but I certainly
think it's the best way, regardless of whether one is playing Bach,
Brahms, or Varese. I'm giving a flutist's view, of course (and one of
a performer on the post-Boehm metal flute at that), but our technique
is more similar to vocal technique than any other instrument's
technique is.
[snip]
>He also said (I forget his actual
>source, but judging from what I've seen from other source material it does
>ring true), that throat articulations were the main way of articulating
>vocal music up to the time of Rossini and beyond.
[snip]
Of course, I agree entirely. Way beyond. And what's more, early
recordings seem to demonstrate that this was the case, if I'm hearing
them accurately.
Some of you might be interested in the research of Harold Bruder, who
has done a lot of research on early vocal recordings and the school of
De Reszke (spelling?). I've heard him give lecture-demonstrations and
have read one or two articles which I couldn't cite by memory, but a
lot of his articles have been published in Opera News and other
magazines devoted to recordings and such.
Peter Wilton
H. Young <jhyo...@hotmail.SPAMOUT.com> writes
>Dogma is bad. Taste is good.
And taste changes of course. And in a musically pluralist society,
there are bound to be different canons of taste for the same music.
Peter Wilton
H. Young <jhyo...@hotmail.SPAMOUT.com> writes
> >early music movement stands for. The only thing which distinguishes
> >this recording from the "traditional", modern recordings of baroque music,
> >is its use of historical instruments. There is nothing in the aesthetic
> >approach or phrasing which differs from modern recordings. And if
> >Renee Fleming's vibrato is not excessive, I don't know what is.
>
>What is excessive to me is not Fleming's vibrato, but this individual's
>close-minded and potentially destructive attitude.
I'm intrigued to hear "traditional" performances of early music
described as "modern" (as opposed to what?). It is the "early music
movement" which takes its aesthetic from "modernism", and the
"traditional" performances are tending to adhere to something
"pre-modern", I suppose.
Edward K. Dunham
wrote:
>[...]
>The overwhelming majority of flutists, whether they realize it or not,
>make their vibrato with their throat and not the muscles below their
>diaphragms (the diaphragm itself being an involuntary muscle except in
>the hands of great yogis who can also control their heart et al.).
This statement (that the diaphragm is an involuntary muscle)
contradicts not only what I learned in medical school but also my
experience of my own body. I'd like to know what evidence can be
adduced to support it.
Ed Dunham.
Michael
<pj...@beaufort.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>I'm intrigued to hear "traditional" performances of early music
>described as "modern" (as opposed to what?). It is the "early music
>movement" which takes its aesthetic from "modernism", and the
>"traditional" performances are tending to adhere to something
>"pre-modern", I suppose.
If Taruskin's association of the original instruments movement with
post-Stravinskyan positivism is correct, and that style is opposed to
a post-Romantic style of interpretation, then I think what we have are
two modern styles, one based on a late- or post-modernist taste, the
other based on a watered-down continuation of a post-romantic or early
modernist taste. Whether what I've just wrote makes any sense, I'm not
sure, and leave to your comments.
Michael
A metacrawler search on "involuntary muscles" turned up nothing better
than the following:
http://www.medic-planet.com/MP_article/internal_reference/muscles
Smooth muscles
These are found in the walls of the stomach and intestines, in the
walls of veins and arteries, and in various other internal organs.
They are for the most part not directed by the will, so they are also
known as the involuntary muscles. People do have partial control over
some of the involuntary muscles, however; for example, you can stop
the smooth muscle of the diaphragm from causing you to breathe for a
time.
------
My interpretation of the above: We control the diaphragm not directly,
but through voluntary muscles attached to it. At least, this is
consistent with what I have been taught, admittedly not in medical
school.
Without prejudice to what you were taught in medical school, how would
you know whether you are feeling your diaphragm or voluntary muscles
attached to it from below?
Laura Conrad
>>>>> "Peter" == Peter Wilton <pj...@beaufort.demon.co.uk> writes:
Peter> I'm intrigued to hear "traditional" performances of early
Peter> music described as "modern" (as opposed to what?). It is
Peter> the "early music movement" which takes its aesthetic from
Peter> "modernism", and the "traditional" performances are tending
Peter> to adhere to something "pre-modern", I suppose.
The "traditional" performers are following a received tradition and
singing or playing the way they learned from their teachers who
learned from their teachers who learned from Liszt (or Czerny or
Beethoven). The "early music movement" threw out at least some of the
esthetic of the 19th and 20th century conservatory to learn techniques
allegedly out of the original sources, but of course applied with a
great deal of 20th century background. Which includes "modernism".
--
Laura (mailto:lco...@world.std.com , http://www.world.std.com/~lconrad/ )
(617) 661-8097 fax: (801) 365-6574
233 Broadway, Cambridge, MA 02139
Posnerh
jhyo...@hotmail.SPAMOUT.com wrote:
<< Leopold Mozart at Augsburg in 1756 called vibrato 'an adornment which
arises from nature herself'. >>
I believe he also said it should be used on long notes, and objected to
violinists who used it constantly, shaking as if they had Parkinson's disease.
Howard Posner
M. Schulter
: Organization:
: Medieval and renaissance theorists such as Nicola Vicentino would actually
: debate the relative merits of singing in one temperament over another:
: should singers sing in quarter-comma mean-tone? pythagorean tuning? equal
: temperament?
Hello, there, and this is a very important point maybe worth a thread in
itself. Vicentino, for example, seems to recommend the extended meantone
tuning of his 31-note keyboard as a standard -- maybe a practical
necessity for finding the "enharmonic" fifthtone or diesis intervals of
his own experimental pieces. Interestingly, he suggests a way in which a
basic meantone gamut can be combined with just intonation of vertical
concords through his alternate keyboard tuning with two manuals in
meantone tuned apart by the amount which the fifth is tempered (likely
1/4-comma for his system, ~5.38 cents).
If this kind of "adaptive" tuning based on meantone, to use a modern term,
was the practice of singers, then indeed fine pitch discrimination would
be involved.
: between these different systems. And it can be done; Ensemble PAN, in
: their recording of Quant Thesee/Ne quier veoir (Ars Magis Subtiliter, New
: Albion Label), sin audibly in Pythagorean; the Consort of Musick, in their
: recording onf L'Oiseau-Lyre called "Madrigali Erotici", sing audibly in
: mean tone.
The PAN recording of that Machaut piece really sticks with me, and I'm
delighted to learn that it's indeed in Pythagorean -- really a fine
illustration, then, of the beauty of this tuning for much 14th-century
music.
Most appreciatively,
Margo Schulter
msch...@value.net
Dr. Gordon Callon
Yes, though L. Mozart calls the illness "immerwa:hrende Fieber" which I guess
translates as "everlasting fever". The OUP translation uses "palsy".
He states that the vibrato is used "not only by good instrumentalists but also
by clever singers" and further states that "it would be an error if every note
were played with the tremolo." [OUP translation, p. 203; 1787 edition, p. 243.]
It is relevant, I think, that L. Mozart discusses the vibrato in the Chapter
"Von dem Tremolo, Mordente und einigen andern willfu:hrlichen
Auszierungen"/"About the Tremolo, Mordent and some other improvised
Embellishments" - i.e., as an embellishment. (He calls "Tremolo", but his
description on how to do it makes it clear that he means what we call
"vibrato".)
See pp. 243-244 of the 1787 edition (an enlarged reprint of the 1756); pp.
203-204 of the OUP translation (1951).
Christopher Simpson also describes among the embellishments a "Close Shake"
[i.e. narrow trill], something that looks like what we would call a vibrato.
He writes it as a trill, but with the alternating notes within the same space on
the staff, one just a bit higher than the other - i.e., a trill smaller than a
semitone. Again, it is significant that it is included among the ornaments.
See: The Division-Violist, 1659, p. 10; The Division-Viol, 1665, p. 12.
Thomas Mace, Musik's Monument, 1676, p. 109, describes the "Sting", which is in
effect a vibrato. His comments are interesting, both because, again, he treats
it as an ornament, and especially as he states it is NOT in favour at his time:
Mace: "The Sting, is another very Neat, and Pritty Grace; (But not Modish in
These Days) yet, for some sorts of Humours, very Excellent; And is Thus done,
(upon a Long Note, and a Single String) first strike your Note, and so soon as
It is struck, hold your Finger (but not too Hard) stopt upon the Place, (letting
your Thumb loose) and wave your Hand (Exactly) downwards, and upwards, several
Times, from the Nut, to the Bridge; by which Motion, your Finger will draw, or
stretch the String a little upwards, and downwards, so, as to make the Sound
seem to Swell with pritty unexpected Humour... ." (Later, p. 249, Mace states
that the direction earlier in the book, for lute, also apply equally to the
viola da gamba.)
There is a marvelous recording of 17th-century French song with Marie Claude
Vallin, Max van Egmond, and Lutz Kirchhof, in which Vallin uses vibrato as an
embellishment, much in the manner described by Mace. The best example is in
Etienne Moulinie's "Enfin la beaute que j'adore". The vibrato is used on the
words "qui m'enflamme" ("that inflames me"), so serves the word painting. This
is in the repeated refrain; the second time through the vibrato is more
pronounced. Throughout, the recording is a marvelous example of embellishment in
17th-century French song (and, I think, a wonderful example of about the right
level of vibrato, and other elements of vocal timbre in French and English
17th-century repertoire).
GJC
bogus address
> Christopher Simpson also describes among the embellishments a "Close
> Shake" [i.e. narrow trill], something that looks like what we would
> call a vibrato. He writes it as a trill, but with the alternating
> notes within the same space on the staff, one just a bit higher than
> Division-Violist, 1659, p. 10; The Division-Viol, 1665, p. 12.
How do you do a less-than-a-semitone trill on a viol? Beat your finger
on the string below the stopped fret without pushing it down far enough
to hit the next fret? Wiggle your stopping finger from side to side like
a blues guitarist, only faster? Either sounds pretty difficult.
In Rutherford's recorder manual "Complete Tutor for ye Flute" (1750/60)
a "close shake" is a conventional trill, starting on the note above (in
an "open shake" or "sweetening" you trilled your finger over the hole
below, ending on the home note). There's no suggestion in his book that
the interval is any less than a semitone.
Was there a change of meaning in this term over the intervening decades?
========> Email to "jc" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce. <========
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
http://www.purr.demon.co.uk/purrhome.html food intolerance data and recipes,
freeware logic fonts for the Macintosh, and Scots traditional music resources
John Howell
>jhyo...@hotmail.SPAMOUT.com wrote:
>
><< Leopold Mozart at Augsburg in 1756 called vibrato 'an adornment which
>arises from nature herself'. >>
>
>I believe he also said it should be used on long notes, and objected to
>violinists who used it constantly, shaking as if they had Parkinson's
>disease.
>
>
>Howard Posner
No one disputes that vibrato was known and was used. The question is where
and how, and especially by whom. I believe that in many 17th century
tables of ornaments it was listed as an ornament, with various other kinds
of trills. Certainly the woodwind flattement or the different but
comparable string pincee were used discretely as momentary ornaments. I
was taught that Fritz Kreisler, in the early 20th century, was the first
concert violinist to use and advocate continuous vibrato, and he was
roundly criticized for it. My father was not taught to use continuous
vibrato. I was.
John Howell
>contradicts not only what I learned in medical school but also my
>experience of my own body. I'd like to know what evidence can be
>adduced to support it.
>
Non-medical answer: It keeps operating when you are asleep or otherwise
unconscious, and is therefore operated by the autonomic nervous system. It
is, however, what I have read or heard in many vocal pedagogy sources.
Craig Wallace
slight vibrato at the end of each line, or is it something more intended and
formally ornamental I wonder? The other female vocalist doesn't do likewise.
As I had understood that a lack of vibrato was characteristic of earlier
vocal practices this surprises me in that group especially.
Am I missing something somewhere?
Thanks,
Craig
Sydney
Beth Diane Garfinkel <bgar...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote in message
news:8p1vud$lcf$1...@flotsam.uits.indiana.edu...
> 474...@news.rcn.com>:
> Organization:
>
> Michael <panN...@musician.org> wrote:
>
> > The overwhelming majority of flutists, whether they realize it or not,
> > make their vibrato with their throat and not the muscles below their
> > diaphragms (the diaphragm itself being an involuntary muscle except in
> > many singers really use a "diaphragm" and not a throat vibrato? I
> > doubt it, but I'll be interested in your response. Then again, there
> > are many ornaments other than vibrato.
>
> Oh, yes. I studied voice for a semester with Paul Elliott (and yes, that
> is the same one from the old Hilliard Ensemble recordings, Consort of
> Musick recordings, and the original Acadamy of Ancient Instruments Messiah
> recording), and he was eternally frustrated at my inability to master
> diaphragm vibrato, not to mention diphragm articulation. Of course, since
> he's not Giorgio Tozzi, he didn't want me to learn to use it all the time,
> but just to have it as an option in my arsenal of effects. And this is
> someone who would generally be approved by the "anti-vibrato" contingent.
>
>
> p.s. I could give other examples; here's a quickie. Has everyone out
> there heard of Jeffrey Thomas, tenor and choral conductor? Yes? Good.
> He once gave a demonstration at a workshop at New England Conservatory,
> and one of the things that he demonstrated was his two different methods
> of singing and articulating the "Deposuit potentes de sede" movement from
> the Bach Magnificat. The Symphony Hall version, suitable for a large
> space and a steel-string orchestra, was rather slow, unwieldy, loud, and
> muddy. He explained that this was what happened when one did passagework
> with diaphragm articulations. And then the Jordan Hall version, for a
> smaller space and a period-instruments orchestra: fast, much more
> dramatic, and actually conveying the musical image of, for example,
> someone being knocked down off a pedestal. He explained that this was the
> version sung with throat articulations. He also said (I forget his actual
> source, but judging from what I've seen from other source material it does
> ring true), that throat articulations were the main way of articulating
> vibrato, but of different types; the Jordan Hall vibrato would probably
> not have registered as offensive by the anti-Fleming contingent,.
Edward K. Dunham
>>This statement (that the diaphragm is an involuntary muscle)
>>contradicts not only what I learned in medical school but also my
>>experience of my own body. I'd like to know what evidence can be
>>adduced to support it.
>>
>>Ed Dunham.
>
>Non-medical answer: It keeps operating when you are asleep or otherwise
>unconscious, and is therefore operated by the autonomic nervous system. It
>is, however, what I have read or heard in many vocal pedagogy sources.
I begin to understand the confusion. The diaphragm is, as I remember,
just ordinary striated muscle, like the muscles we use to move our
arms and legs. These muscles work while we're asleep, too. After
all, we don't always wake up in exactly the same position in which we
went to sleep. Some of us even sleepwalk. The diaphragm works while
we're asleep not because of any intrinsic automaticity of the muscle
but because the brain keeps sending impulses down the phrenic nerve,
which controls the diaphragm. If the diaphragm were not dependent on
its nerve, why did some patients with poliomyelitis (a disease of
nerve, not muscle) need iron lungs? The polio wards are now, thank
God, a thing of the past.
There is, of course, truly automatic muscle, such as the heart, which
continues to beat even if all nerves are interrupted, and the smooth
muscle of the gut. The phrenic nerve is not part of the autonomic
nervous system but is an ordinary somatic nerve. It takes off from
the spinal cord quite high up in the neck, so that in cases of injury
to the spinal cord it is possible for all four extremities to be
paralyzed without impairment of the function of the diaphragm.
It is true that many people are unaware of the voluntary control they
have over their diaphragms and indeed don't use it. When I would ask
patients lying on the examining table to take a deep breath, I would
see most of them suck in their bellies! Incredible! If I saw
someone's belly move out, I'd ask, "Do you sing?", and usually the
answer would be, "Yes--how did you know?".
It wasn't in medical school that I learned to use my diaphragm, but
I've been singing all my life, casually and in choruses, badly but
with enjoyment. I have never taken a singing lesson, but I have
glanced at a number of books purporting to teach singing, and I would
not recommend them for reliable information about human physiology.
I'm not sure I'd recommend most of them for reliable information about
singing, either.
Ed Dunham.
Kenneth Medin
>How do you do a less-than-a-semitone trill on a viol? Beat your finger
>on the string below the stopped fret without pushing it down far enough
>to hit the next fret? Wiggle your stopping finger from side to side like
>a blues guitarist, only faster? Either sounds pretty difficult.
This is actually how it's done! In viol music these two ways of
producing vibrato is often indicated by different "vibrato signs".
>In Rutherford's recorder manual "Complete Tutor for ye Flute" (1750/60)
>a "close shake" is a conventional trill, starting on the note above (in
>an "open shake" or "sweetening" you trilled your finger over the hole
>below, ending on the home note). There's no suggestion in his book that
>the interval is any less than a semitone.
>
>Was there a change of meaning in this term over the intervening decades?
To me a "close shake" equals the French "flattement": the vibrato is
produced by shadowing holes on a recorder. This "emphasizes" the note
in two ways: The vibrato itself, and because you have to blow harder
to keep the tone on pitch, it also sounds louder.
In "Principes de la flûte..." Hotteterre takes great care to explain
how to produce vibrato for each note by shadowing different holes.
His advice for playing vibrato on the bottom F is particularly
interesting: "This can be played only by shaking the recorder with
the lower hand". Obviously he did not use diaphragma vibrato att all.
--
Kenneth Medin <kenn...@tripnet.se>
http://www5.tripnet.se/~kennethm/
<<Produced with 100% pure Atari equipment>>
Beth Diane Garfinkel
Organization:
James H. Young <jhyo...@hotmail.SPAMOUT.com> wrote:
> For many people, the problem is vibrato itself. They object to hearing
> any at all. Granted this may not apply to you. I am not sure what you
> mean by a whole vocal technique package. Do you mean a steady vibrato
> that never goes away?
It's surprising how many singers wobble without cease; I get bombarded
with it, since I'm a student at a large music school with a large opera
program. Just wandering around the halls can be an adventure! And judging
by the opera cast lists over the last few years, the ability NOT to do
vibrato at all times seems to be what distinguishes the better singers--in
the regular voice program, or "the round building," as we call it around
here.
Beth
Beth Diane Garfinkel
> How do you do a less-than-a-semitone trill on a viol? Beat your finger
> on the string below the stopped fret without pushing it down far enough
> to hit the next fret? Wiggle your stopping finger from side to side like
> a blues guitarist, only faster? Either sounds pretty difficult.
Here's what I've seen people do: the player will wiggle his or her wrist
from side to side in such a way that, if the third finger is holding the
string down over the fret, the second finger comes into and out of contact
with the string at some interval not anywhere near the next higher fret.
Beth Diane Garfinkel
Organization:
Beth Diane Garfinkel <bgar...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
> 474...@news.rcn.com>:
> Organization:
> Michael <panN...@musician.org> wrote:
>> The overwhelming majority of flutists, whether they realize it or not,
>> make their vibrato with their throat and not the muscles below their
>> diaphragms (the diaphragm itself being an involuntary muscle except in
>> the hands of great yogis who can also control their heart et al.). Do
>> many singers really use a "diaphragm" and not a throat vibrato? I
>> doubt it, but I'll be interested in your response. Then again, there
>> are many ornaments other than vibrato.
The bit that I forgot to explain when I quoted Mersenne on throat vs.
diaphragm articulation, is that diaphragm vibrato often almost seems to
require diaphragm articulation as well, especially when one sings the type
of ornaments which are basically just riffs.
Posnerh
<< No one disputes that vibrato was known and was used. The question is where
and how, and especially by whom. I believe that in many 17th century tables of
ornaments it was listed as an ornament, with various other kinds of trills. >>
Geminiani in his 1751 treatise lists vibrato, which he calls the "small shake"
(to distinguish it from the trill) among the ornaments, says it should be used
as much as possible (as an ornament), and gives it its own notational sign,
which then does not appear in any of the musical examples in the treatise.
(The "as much as possible" line has been quoted out of context as an argument
for continuous vibrato in the 18th century. Indeed, David Boyden, who should
have known better, cites Geminiani as the beginning of continuous vibrato
because of this remark).
Howard Posner
Roland Hutchinson
> I
> was taught that Fritz Kreisler, in the early 20th century, was the first
> concert violinist to use and advocate continuous vibrato, and he was
> roundly criticized for it.
It is said about Kreisler is that he was the first to introduce vibrato
even into passage-work (rapid scales and arpeggios, etc.). I suppose this
might be taken as evidence that at least some other violinists at the time
were already using vibrato almost everywhere else!
Even today many (nearly all?) violinists play passage-work without a
Kreislerian vibrato on every sixteenth note.
> My father was not taught to use continuous
> vibrato. I was.
Interesting. Just as a point of curiosity (not meaning to pry into
personal details): about when did your father study violin? And where was
his teacher from? (And did he learn a German bow-grip, too?)
--
Roland Hutchinson (Will play viola da gamba for food.)
Replies to rolands....@usa.net are heavily filtered to remove spam.
If your reply looks like spam, I may not see it.
Roland Hutchinson
<kenn...@tripnet.se> wrote:
> On Thu 07-09-2000 14:58 (GMT) bogus address wrote:
>
> >How do you do a less-than-a-semitone trill on a viol? Beat your finger
> >on the string below the stopped fret without pushing it down far enough
> >to hit the next fret? Wiggle your stopping finger from side to side like
> >a blues guitarist, only faster? Either sounds pretty difficult.
>
> This is actually how it's done!
Well, almost.
The one-finger vibrato is not done by moving the string from side to side.
(Doing it this way would chew up the gut strings rather quickly, for one
thing.) It's done by rocking the finger slightly _along_ the length of
the string (more or less in the same general way a vibrato on a violin or
a cello is produced). In classical viol playing (e.g. the music of
Marais, where the two types of vibrato are carefully distinguished by
notation), the one-finger vibrato is usually restricted to the fourth
finger and to double stops where the two-finger vibrato cannot
conveniently be used. (Your mileage may vary, particularly outside of
England and France and/or in later and earlier repertoires.)
The two-finger vibrato, by the way, is described in the historical sources
only as a motion of the finger (and with the beating finger in contact
with the finger that is stopping the string, or at least beating near to
it--so in fact no matter how hard you push at that spot, it wouldn't push
the string down at the next fret. In fact you would have to get up right
close to that fret to press the string down properly, but that's a whole
different discussion...). I do not like to produce the two-finger vibrato
by rocking the whole hand from the wrist or rotating the whole forearm
from the elbow (as an earlier poster described and as indeed many players
do) -- I find that this generally produces the wrong effect, and I tend to
think of it as being as out of place in most viol music as the modern
string-player's "vibrato trill" would be (a rapid trill produced by
shaking the whole hand in order to move the trilling finger). Using just
a finger-motion (whether for vibrato or trill) makes it much easier to
control and vary the speed of the trill, especially at slow speeds.
As for the width of this "close shake", it is "less than a semitone" by
quite a large margin. Simpson says that it is done by "shak[ing] the
Finger as close and near the sounding Note as possible may be, touching
the String with the Shaking finger so softly and nicely, that there be no
variation in the tone" -- the last bit of which means in more modern
language (as I read it), that it is to be done with a certain amount of
subtlety, so that the pitch remains recognizably the same note.
In any event, the two-finger vibrato is not in the least bit hard to do
(at least as far as the mechanics are concerned; varying the speed and
intensity for the best musical effect requires considerable judgement, of
course!). The one-finger vibrato is perhaps a bit harder to get the
"swing" of, but certainly no more difficult than the similar techniques
used on other bowed stringed instruments.
John Howell
>
>Interesting. Just as a point of curiosity (not meaning to pry into
>personal details): about when did your father study violin? And where was
>his teacher from? (And did he learn a German bow-grip, too?)
He graduated from Washington State College in 1928, went to Germany for the
mandatory year of study before anyone would take you seriously as a concert
artist, and came back just in time for the Great Depression and the
beginning of a very successful career as a public school music teacher.
(Concert artists were selling pencils on street corners!) I don't know
much about the technique his teachers advocated, but I assume that it was
very traditional. I do know that he didn't use a wrist-high French bow
position. He later studied with George Bornoff--as did I--who had tried
every possible variation with different teachers and settled on the
Russian, low-wrist bow position advocated by Leopold Auer.
Marko Loparic
jhyo...@hotmail.SPAMOUT.com (James H. Young) writes:
> > I think the problem is not so much vibrato itself, but vibrato as part of
> > a whole vocal technique package that did not exist before 1830 at he
> > absolute earliest.
>
> For many people, the problem is vibrato itself. They object to hearing
> any at all.
IMO this is a wrong way of putting this question. The problem
is how much vibrato, what kind of vibrato, and not vibrato or
no vibrato. I believe all singers sing with vibrato, but some
with more vibrato than others. I think these differences are
hard to be put on words, the only way we have to discuss our
preferences is to say "I like the singing of this soprano and
not of that one". I find it rather useles to try to find out
whether baroque intrumentmists and singers advocated vibrato,
"trembling" or anything similar of not because we don't know
which vibrato it is, how strong. For baroque music I like for
instance the vibrato of Emma Kirkby (she surely has a clearly
audible vibrato) and not the one of Cecilia Bartoli (an
admirable singer otherwise).
Even when people say that the problem is vibrato, IMO they
just mean "too much vibrato" or "vibrato as strong as the one
of romantic opera singers we used to listen to".
Greetings,
Marko
Peter Wilton
<lop...@softhome.net> writes
>Even when people say that the problem is vibrato, IMO they
>just mean "too much vibrato" or "vibrato as strong as the one
>of romantic opera singers we used to listen to".
or, ideally, still listen to. Everything has its place.
Beth Diane Garfinkel
<7zya0jg...@ml.core.ucl.ac.be>:
Organization:
Marko Loparic <lop...@softhome.net> wrote:
> Hello,
> Even when people say that the problem is vibrato, IMO they
> just mean "too much vibrato" or "vibrato as strong as the one
> of romantic opera singers we used to listen to".
And also, can it be turned on or off as necessary? Of course, it's not
quite that simple.
For example, I recently purchased a recording, directed by someone
who ought to know better, that uses a bunch of singers who
sound like they ARE singing Romantic opera instead of the music of one of
the students of Heinrich Schuetz. And if you had asked me what I would
have found objectionable about this performance 20 years ago, I would have
said, "vibrato". The same things still bother me, but I know more
accurate terms for them: lack of pitch center, especially in the men,
which causes much of the coloratura to become pitchless mumbles or
rumbles; lack of awareness of harmonies and dissonances which renders the
singing flat; dynamic inflexibility, resulting in poor declamation (whic,
for baroque music, was supposedly the whole point), and lack of precision
of intonation. All this made worse in the case of this particular
recording because the instrumentalists are superb and have all the traits
the singers lack--although the harpsichordist does insist on doubling
whichever treble line is happening at any given moment, which is somewhat
unpleasant, not to mention a no-no.
Peter Wilton
<bgar...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> writes
>especially in the men,
>which causes much of the coloratura to become pitchless mumbles or
>rumbles;
What you say might not be the cause of lack of definition to
"coloratura" in men. The lower the voice, the more difficult it is.
alex reznick
Let me add my 2 cents.
What seems to me is that this long discussion of vibrato circulates
mainly around the issue that has not so much technical, but semiotic
nature.
As few previous responses stressed, vibrato was used in Baroque
styles, in Classicism, during Romantic era, and up to our days. The
point of differentiation is therefore not presence or absense of
vibrato [or certain kind of vibrato] as a technical device - but the
expressive function of vibrato within the content of the entire
composition as it is interpreted by the performer.
Vibrato in earlier styles was treated as a sign: that is, the
physical manifestation of pitch or volume modulation served the
purpose to represent some emotional/imagery information, specific to
the context of a given artwork. The separation of 2 entities - that
which signifies and that which is signified - is a key point
characterizing semiotic function. Both entities are clearly separated
in the practice of performance before the 20th century, especially in
Baroque tradition, with the strong emphasis on rhetoric organization
in both, in composition and performance.
When the use of vibrato is prescribed in number of course-books as a
specific kind of embellishment justified by the context of the piece,
this in itself is an indication that the pattern of vibrato is used
for purposes of expression of something other than mere shifting of
pitch or volume. Vibrato becomes a sign, just as much as other signs
of articulation, such as staccato or accent - called to carry
specific expressive information. The principles for its usage become
rationalized in the contemporary practice as some syntactic rules.
Such rules become widespread in oral tradition from musicians to
their pupils and obtain a status of the norm within a given cultural
formation. Some theoretic treatises on performance or composition
practices can reflect on such normative status - this is exactly what
we have in case with above-cited books, such as by Leopold Mozart or
Johann Quantz.
On the contrary, vibrato today is largerly not used as a sign any
more. By dominant schools of string, wind and vocal performance [of
non-period tradition] vibrato is treated as a constant - something
that belongs to a frame-work for a semiotic message rather than an
organic part of such message itself. Vibrato is continuous, goes
through the entirety of composition, with minimal gradations and
virtually no systematic dependance on the context of the makeup for a
particular composition. Therefore, in the practice of such
performances, it is impossible to define even the most general
syntactic "rules" or the even most vague semantic "meaning" for use
of vibrato within a piece. It just stays there, permanently and
throughout. Such singers as Domingo or Pavarotti do not use vibrato
"to express" any content. To them vibrato is a formal attribute of
singing technique rather than means of expression in their lexicon of
interpretative devices. It is the detachment from the expressive
content that makes vibrato "formal" in their practice, and makes
their style appear as "vibrato-abusing", as it was put in many
previous responses in this discussion.
Such formalistic shift in practice of interpretation since the
1920-30's is the part of more general process of moving from practice
of "musical communication", what music used to be before the 20th
century, to the practice of "musical invention", what it turned to be
after Stravinsky, who proudly declared himself "inventor of music"
and not "composer". Gradually such "inventing" penetrated in
performance traditions and to large degree substituted standards
which had been formed earlier in order to provide effective
communication of expressive content from performer to listener. The
earlier conventions formed on the ground of rhetoric tradition that
guided development of European music from somewhat 15th century to
about the mid 19th century were shaken and debased at first by top
Romantic virtuosi celebraties and then dismissed by followers of
Schnabel, Backhaus, Toscanini et.c. who started inferring their
interpretation plans for performed composition largerly from the
makeup of the music form, specifically in relation to how the
standard music form cliche (e.g. Adolf Marx' forms of rondo) was
applied in this or that composition - a clearly formal approach that
tends to neglect the aspect of content (as practiced in rhetoric
tradition). In few words, instead of inferring expressive content
from "rhetoric figures" and any other elements of musical lexicon as
they are configured in every particular composition, the 20th century
tradition focused on inferring the expressive content from the
standardized functions of parts of music form - which produced much
larger units of uniformed expression. In relation to interpretation
of new music the "invention" method was used. In relation to old
music this "formalistic method" was applied. The difference between
"rhetoric" and "formalistic" approaches can be easily felt upon
comparative listening to, say, Vivaldi's "The Seasons" in
interpretation of Berlin Philharmonic under Karayan [Deutche
Grammophon 2530 296] and Europa Galante under Fabio Biondi [Opus 111
OPS 56-9120]. Where the authentic interpreter sees a rhetoric
"thread" leading from specific expression of a motiv to specific
expression of harmonic cadence, the formalistic interpreter, like
Karayan, sees nothing but, say, the middle of exposition. As a
result, the density of imagery changes in a movement performed by
Karayan at best counts somewhat close to 3-4 times poorer than that
by Biondi.
In a word, vibrato falls victim to the same formalistic trend, where
attention is paid to things that relate to music form cliches known
to the performer (I am afraid, for musicians like Pavarotti, this
would be just "da Capo" section) and other details are often
disregarded. Such interpretations usually make impression as rather
boring, because contrasts in them occur mainly on the level of major
sections of form.
Alex
>
>IMO this is a wrong way of putting this question. The problem
>is how much vibrato, what kind of vibrato, and not vibrato or
>no vibrato. I believe all singers sing with vibrato, but some
>with more vibrato than others. I think these differences are
>hard to be put on words, the only way we have to discuss our
>preferences is to say "I like the singing of this soprano and
>not of that one". I find it rather useles to try to find out
>whether baroque intrumentmists and singers advocated vibrato,
>"trembling" or anything similar of not because we don't know
>which vibrato it is, how strong.
>Marko
Beth Diane Garfinkel
Organization:
Peter Wilton <pj...@beaufort.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> In article <8qm109$gmq$1...@flotsam.uits.indiana.edu>, Beth Diane Garfinkel
> <bgar...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> writes
>>especially in the men,
>>which causes much of the coloratura to become pitchless mumbles or
>>rumbles;
> What you say might not be the cause of lack of definition to
> "coloratura" in men. The lower the voice, the more difficult it is.
I've heard that coloratura can be difficult for basses. But I was
actually talking about the tenors.
Oh, and I also forgot to mention that on this recording, they tend to back
away from suspensions instead of singing into them.
Matthew Westphal
> who ought to know better, that uses a bunch of singers who
> sound like they ARE singing Romantic opera instead of the music of
one of
> the students of Heinrich Schuetz. And if you had asked me what I
would
> have found objectionable about this performance 20 years ago, I would
have
> said, "vibrato". The same things still bother me, but I know more
> which causes much of the coloratura to become pitchless mumbles or
the
> singing flat; dynamic inflexibility, resulting in poor declamation
(whic,
> for baroque music, was supposedly the whole point), and lack of
precision
> of intonation. All this made worse in the case of this particular
> recording because the instrumentalists are superb and have all the
traits
> the singers lack--although the harpsichordist does insist on doubling
> whichever treble line is happening at any given moment, which is
somewhat
> unpleasant, not to mention a no-no.
>
Come on, Beth, name names, don't be shy!
;-]
Thanks for a precise, eloquent review -- if only we knew which
recording you're reviewing!
Matthew Westphal
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Todd Michel McComb
alex reznick <syn...@lainet.com> wrote:
>In a word, vibrato falls victim to the same formalistic trend,
>where attention is paid to things that relate to music form cliches
>known to the performer (I am afraid, for musicians like Pavarotti,
>this would be just "da Capo" section) and other details are often
>disregarded. Such interpretations usually make impression as rather
>boring, because contrasts in them occur mainly on the level of
>major sections of form.
This discussion seems rather fixated on Baroque and other modern
music, but what I find amusing is that this description (and much
of Beth's) would fit many of the popular medieval renditions too.
The difference is that it's lack of vibrato... but it's the same
undifferentiated vocal tone, no attempt to articulate, no declamation
or attention to detail. Exactly as you say, but no vibrato. In
that sense, it isn't even vibrato "falling victim" but rather the
trend of whitewashed non-interpretations overshadowing everything
else, with vibratro merely one "light switch" to flip or not.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Beth Diane Garfinkel
Organization:
Matthew Westphal <matthew...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> Come on, Beth, name names, don't be shy!
> ;-]
> Thanks for a precise, eloquent review -- if only we knew which
> recording you're reviewing!
Thanks. I don't have the disc with me, and I don't remember all the names
of the performers, but it's a recording of music by Caspar Kittel, on
Harmonia Mundi, performed by the latest incarnation of concerto
Vocale, directed by Rene Jacobs. Some of the singers are Johanna
Stoikovic, Bernarda Fink, and Gerd Turk.
Beth Diane Garfinkel
> This discussion seems rather fixated on Baroque and other modern
> music, but what I find amusing is that this description (and much
> of Beth's) would fit many of the popular medieval renditions too.
> The difference is that it's lack of vibrato... but it's the same
> undifferentiated vocal tone, no attempt to articulate, no declamation
> or attention to detail. Exactly as you say, but no vibrato. In
> that sense, it isn't even vibrato "falling victim" but rather the
> trend of whitewashed non-interpretations overshadowing everything
> else, with vibratro merely one "light switch" to flip or not.
I'm trying to think of a context where I would expect to hear vibrato in
medieval music, and there aren't too many. Perhaps in organum and
non-mensural monophonic song and some solo parts of chants, but in
most of the polyphonic music, when one voice is holding out a long note
enough to vibrate on it, the melodic interest is with one of the other
voices, and in measured monophony, the melody never really sits still long
enough and the lines tend to lilt rather than peak. And the theorists of
the time were debating the earth-shaking question of how many dieses in a
whole step.
On the whole, I would have to agree with you about the vocal esthetic
issues, though, and not just for medieval music. A lot of medieval and
renaissance music actually suffers from being performed by trained singers
(and why does it always have to be the tokn soprano?), and some baroque
music sufers from singers clinging too rigidly to their training as well.
This is because their training leads them to always sing in the
registrations acceptable to Garcia ad friends (i.e. most sopranos I know
tend to carry their head voices down as low aspossible), concentrate
energy on always producing beautiful tone (rather than having a palette of
different timbres, so that they can produce the day-glo bright timbres
where needed, instead of just the tastefully muted ones), always produce
good legato (it's just as necessary to vary articulation when the music is
syllabic; for a non-medieval example of this, try Michel L'Affilard's
dance songs), and fail to understand the need for rhythmic energy in
singing (I think some of Machaut's songs, for example, draw from the
tradition of sung dances such as "A l'entrada del tens clar", which is the
ancestor of present-day dance folk songs such as "La Bestraing" and "Old
Joe Clark".
Todd Michel McComb
>vibrato in medieval music, and there aren't too many.
The issue of singing technique in medieval music is very, very
open. John Potter has done his best to detail why the "early music
voice" in this music has no basis in historical reality, and Marcel
Peres has tried to glean some (controversial) information on ornament
from the sources, but it's tough to do. Of course, the "fleuretis"
vibrato/ornament used (rather stiffly) by the Huelgas Ensemble in
Ars Subtilior music is one example straight from the written
descriptions.
There's a long way to go to put all this together, but many people
don't even want to try. Much of the issue isn't so much vibrato
in the same sense as a Baroque ornament, but the basic timbre of
the voices and the sort of "buzz" that aligns tuning.
>A lot of medieval and renaissance music actually suffers from
>being performed by trained singers
This is a big part of Potter's thesis.
>concentrate energy on always producing beautiful tone (rather than
>having a palette of different timbres
Yes, they call it beautiful, whereas I call it ugly. Funny, huh?
A palette of timbres and an attempt to articulate is very much
needed in order to bring out the wonderful details of this music.
The actual *disdain* for articulation among many medieval singers
(and listeners) is simply amazing.
I've laughed at the various dogma employed, especially with so many
singing styles around the world, but I'll dip into some somewhat
tongue-in-cheek dogma momentarily: If you won't vary your throat
position, you can't sing.
Anyway, it isn't training per se, it's also the type of training.
Having a palette of timbres is very important in China or India,
for instance, in highly trained traditional singers.
>I think some of Machaut's songs, for example, draw from the
>tradition of sung dances
Of course they do. The rondeau started life as a dance, and the
virelai is a dance-lai. These are elementary facts which can go
in one ear and out the other. Thankfully, a sense of rhythm in
Machaut is not nearly as hard to find as an attempt to articulate
in sacred polyphony.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Beth Diane Garfinkel
>>I think some of Machaut's songs, for example, draw from the
>>tradition of sung dances
> Of course they do. The rondeau started life as a dance, and the
> virelai is a dance-lai. These are elementary facts which can go
> in one ear and out the other. Thankfully, a sense of rhythm in
> Machaut is not nearly as hard to find as an attempt to articulate
> in sacred polyphony.
You'd be surprised! Right now, I'm in a group trying to put together
"Dame, a vous sans retollir" from Machaut's _Remede de Fortune_, so we've
all been listening to different recordings of it. Most of them either
ignore the rhythm altogether (and we're told in the narration itself that
this song is a dance and that people danced to it), or take it much too
fast and make the rhythms seem as spiky as possible while doing violence
to the scansion. Well, imagine my surprise when I discovered that if one
treats it as a simple melody in 6/8 (modern edition; I forget what the
units in the facsimile are), the rhythms and the scansion suddenly make
sense and work together!
Beth
p.s. Does John Potter discuss just what it is about vocal training that
scuttles singers' overall musical abilities? I taught ear-training for
two years, and it was always the singers who had the worst ears.
Beth Diane Garfinkel
> In article <8qo37m$qpe$1...@flotsam.uits.indiana.edu>,
> Beth Diane Garfinkel <bgar...@steel.ucs.indiana.edu> wrote:
>>I think some of Machaut's songs, for example, draw from the
>>tradition of sung dances
> Of course they do. The rondeau started life as a dance, and the
> virelai is a dance-lai. These are elementary facts which can go
> in one ear and out the other. Thankfully, a sense of rhythm in
> Machaut is not nearly as hard to find as an attempt to articulate
> in sacred polyphony.
Just this past weekend was the 7th annual Lotus Festival of World Music
here in Bloomington. It's great or hearing different perspectives on a
lot of things. I was lucky enough to hear a French Canadian group called
Matapat, which features a dancer, and their natural energy when they sang
was wonderful to hear. Another year we had Barachois, from Prince Edward
Island, who not only sing dance songs, they all dance while singing
and playing their various instruments, up to and including a Sousaphone.
And there was a Kurdish singer who used vibrato in a very interesting way:
he created the effect of crescendos and decrescendos by widening and
narrowing his vibrato. He used vibrato a lot, but it was never offensive
because he always seemed in control of it and it never got in his way.
Beth
Todd Michel McComb
>scuttles singers' overall musical abilities?
Ha, well, I think you have to read between the lines in the book
for anything like that. In private, I know he has choice remarks.
It's easy enough to hear that "always open throat" is taught in
e.g. the English cathedral tradition. It seems to me if you aren't
allowed to express details, it's going to be downhill from there.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Matthew Westphal
Beth Diane Garfinkel wrote:
>
> Thanks. I don't have the disc with me, and I don't remember all the
names
> of the performers, but it's a recording of music by Caspar Kittel, on
> Harmonia Mundi, performed by the latest incarnation of concerto
> Vocale, directed by Rene Jacobs. Some of the singers are Johanna
> Stoikovic, Bernarda Fink, and Gerd Turk.
>
Oh, that one. I suspected as much. It's on my pile, but I haven't
gotten to it yet.
You'd think Rene Jacobs would know better than to allow such wide
vibrato in that repertory, but almost his entire recorded work as a
conductor (that is, since his welcome retirement from singing)
demonstrates that he does not know better -- or doesn't care to know
better. Just look at, for example, his "Cosi fan tutte," which could
have been wonderful were it not for the wobbles. (The fact that he got
the often lovely Veronique Gens to wobble as she did is particularly
upsetting.) Another example is his continuing employment of Dorothea
Roeschmann, whom I find almost unbearable in Baroque repertory. (Maybe
RJ doesn't like to use anyone -- except Scholl and Kiehr -- who can
sing better than he could.) It seems Rene Jacobs, like Nikolaus
Harnoncourt before him, has been seduced by the attention of the
mainstream opera world and now, as a matter of course, uses singers
whose techniques and training ride roughshod over the music he hires
them to sing.
Todd Michel McComb
>way: he created the effect of crescendos and decrescendos by
>widening and narrowing his vibrato. He used vibrato a lot, but
>it was never offensive because he always seemed in control of it
>and it never got in his way.
I take a good deal of inspiration from world styles. I mean, one
can't make naive statements such as "medieval singings must have
been like that of today's country X" but then one can't really
think that singers in Machaut's day sounded much like those of
Handel's either. What one can do -- in spades -- is realize there
are a *lot* of ways to sing.
Here are citations for a few recordings of Asian singers which
might be worth hearing for some readers who haven't had your
opportunities:
http://www.medieval.org/music/world/cds/eth6747.html
http://www.medieval.org/music/world/cds/ocr60060.html
http://www.medieval.org/music/world/cds/ksh107.html
The first is one of the few international releases of South Indian
(Carnatic) singing, a style with which I am fairly closely involved.
The singer here has a great voice, although she is not yet in the
highest tier of Carnatic artistes, and has recently collaborated
in a partly medieval program with Dominique Vellard.
The second is another woman, this time from Uzbekistan. I am much
less closely involved there, but she has an incredible voice,
described as the best of her generation.
The last is a redub of a famous live concert from Iran, by the most
famous classical singer in Iran. This would be the most like your
Kurdish singer, as the styles are closely related, but here it is
the classical poets and a concert voice.
Well, just some thoughts... I don't know if many readers are
interested in this kind of thing.
Todd McComb
mcc...@medieval.org
Michael
wrote:
[snip]
>Vibrato in earlier styles was treated as a sign: that is, the
>physical manifestation of pitch or volume modulation served the
>purpose to represent some emotional/imagery information, specific to
>the context of a given artwork.
[snip]
Interesting post.
But I think it's possible that you're drawing too bright a line
between structure and content. For example, one place where
vibrato/vibrati is frequently used in the performance of Baroque music
is in long suspended notes. Is there an emotional context to
suspensions? Sure. But there is also an analyzable harmonic context.
It pays to hear and understand both aspects, doesn't it?
Also, there have been many "non-HIP" performers who, while using
vibrato as part of their normal sound, vary the speed and amplitude of
the vibrato for expressive purposes.
Michael
To reply by email, please eliminate "NOSPAM" from my address. Personal messages only!
Beth Diane Garfinkel
> For example, one place where
> vibrato/vibrati is frequently used in the performance of Baroque music
> is in long suspended notes. Is there an emotional context to
> suspensions? Sure. But there is also an analyzable harmonic context.
> It pays to hear and understand both aspects, doesn't it?
That's odd. A suspended note is the last place I personally would put
vibrato. After all, the emotional content is that we the listeners are
being kept in suspense. The musical means by which this happens is that
the sustained note, if held out at a constant dynamic level, always seems
to crescendo whether it actually does or not (I call this the "fire alarm
effect"). If one uses vibrato on a suspended note, one breaks up the fire
alarm effect and therefore takes a good bit of the suspense out of the
suspension. But hey, that's just me.
Paul Kemner
>who ought to know better, that uses a bunch of singers who
>sound like they ARE singing Romantic opera instead of the music of one of
>the students of Heinrich Schuetz.
I sometimes wonder if they get singers for performances and
recordings the same way they do for casual construction labor.
They just drive a flatbed truck to the corner where singers hang
out, and yell "Hey- we need 5 Sopranos, 5 Altos, 5 Tenors, and 5
Basses for an early Baroque motet- - you lot over there- jump on
the truck!"
John Howell
>
>This is because their training leads them to always sing in the
>registrations acceptable to Garcia ad friends (i.e. most sopranos I know
>energy on always producing beautiful tone (rather than having a palette of
>where needed, instead of just the tastefully muted ones), always produce
>good legato (it's just as necessary to vary articulation when the music is
>syllabic; for a non-medieval example of this, try Michel L'Affilard's
>dance songs), and fail to understand the need for rhythmic energy in
>singing
The late, great Andrea von Ramm (sp?) is one of the only singers I have
heard--perhaps the only singer--who was capable of making you understand
what a song was about no matter what the language. She was telling a
story, she knew the story, she knew how to tell it, and she conveyed it.
I have always maintained that actors should spend more time studying
singing, and singers should spend MUCH more time studying acting!
Peter Wilton
<pxke...@bright.net> writes
>I sometimes wonder if they get singers for performances and
>recordings the same way they do for casual construction labor.
In a way, yes. You make lots of phone calls, only a few are available,
so you book them.
Posnerh
In article <8pa63k$1oh$1...@bugstomper.ihug.com.au>, "Craig wrote:
<< On Cohen's Dowland collection I notice that Anne Azema
frequently produces a slight vibrato at the end of each line,
or is it something more intended and
formally ornamental I wonder? The other female
vocalist doesn't do likewise. As I had understood that
a lack of vibrato was characteristic of earlier vocal
practices this surprises me in that group especially.
Am I missing something somewhere? >>
You're missing all the previous posts in which it was pointed
out that "lack of vibrato" is a misconception. The question is not
whether, but how: how intense, how wide, how insistent,
how annoying, whatever. You may also be missing the element
personal style, or perhaps personal affectation (I haven't
heard the recording and I haven't heard Azema doing Dowland).
Howard Posner