The Difference Between Musicality and Musicianship

[Armando]

I often wonder how many people understand the difference between musicality and musicianship. When I say people, I mean those who are music lovers but not necessarily conversant in musical matters.

The reason I bring this up now is because I’ve just read the comments made by choral master Ifor Jones, and included in a book titled ‘The President’s Pianist’ by one George Manos. Manos talks about Jones’ time at Tanglewood in the early 40s, about Lanza’s incredible voice, and then goes on to say that since Lanza was musically unschooled, Jones was  assigned to teach the tenor basic music theory.  As usual, much is made about the fact that Lanza couldn’t read music.

Nothing new in this, really, but like Boris Goldovsky before him, Jones overlooks the man’s musicality.

As George London correctly stated, “He [Lanza] was unschooled musically, could not read music and was thus always insecure in this area. He had a wonderful natural sense of phrasing though with occasional lapses in taste. But if he was well and carefully coached, as for the preparation of ‘The Great Caruso’ film, his work was very respectable”.

London hit the nail squarely on the head, because all musically unschooled singers rely almost entirely on both coaches and conductors in order to produce first class results. Provided, that is, that both coaches and conductors are also first class.

A conductor like Peter Herman Adler, who worked with Lanza on more than one occasion, recognised his great natural gifts and I’m pretty sure was not overly concerned about Lanza being unable to read music when he stated, “I think he has the greatest inherent, instinctive musicality I have ever seen.”

But how many people really understand this? Very few I would say.

As I’ve said on at least one previous occasion, if all singers had to be able to sight read in order to have a successful career we would never have heard of the likes of Caruso, Pinza, Warren, Freni, Di Stefano, Pavarotti and many more.

A great deal is made of the ability to sight- read, mainly by instrumentalists who are inclined to think that this is the most important function of musicianship. In fact the main advantage in being able to sight- read is that it usually enables the singer to learn a part faster.  

The disadvantage of learning a role by sight-reading is that it can result in the singer giving a perfunctory performance. It may be musically correct, but rather mechanical and less spontaneous than the more heartfelt rendition of a singer who has spent many hours training his ear by working on each phrase with a coach.

History is full of note perfect singers who have put an audience to sleep. You can be note perfect and deadly boring, or as the great conductor Sergiu Celibidache once remarked in referring to orchestral playing, “some play notes while others make music.”

[Steff]

So do I understand right then, Armando, that musicality is something that comes natural, (“from the heart,” maybe even genetic) and cannot be trained? You have it or have it not. It’s simply something intuitive.

Musicianship is something you can train, something you can be practiced in. Like musicality, it is an individual’s talent, but, unlike musicality, it rather is an abstract and technical ability.  You can learn it, and some do it to perfection, others only to a certain degree (I once heard that there’s a correlation between mathematic understanding and musicianship).

I suppose that every musician combines both talents, either balanced or with one talent dominating the other. 

    I think a singer has to "fashion" his musicianship with musicality and I suppose that a singer  like

    Mario, whose musicality was so predominant to his musicianship, more easily transports his musical

    message to the audience than a singer who is too much focused on technical perfection.

 

Steff

[Steff]

When googling for "musicality and musicianship" you will find a few forum and blog discussion.

 

 

One poster, I think, hit the nail on the head, though I would not agree that musicality can be learned by study. I think it is something you have or you have not.

 

http://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread.php?166076-Musicality-vs-Musicianship

 

 

 

The poster writes:

"Musicality is not musicianship.

Musicality demands an intimacy with the tonal, the rhythmic, the expressive. It is devalued in favor of musicianship, which demands abstraction, execution, and precision.

Musicality is a journey - you do what you must. Musicianship is a discipline - you do what it demands.

A musical person becomes a part of the music. A musicianly person becomes a servant to it.

Certain people are naturally musical. Nobody is naturally musicianly.

Both take long hours, years, of study and dedication. The difference is that there is no credit or recognition for the study or acquisition of musicality. You can devote your entire life to pursuing it, possibly even with breathtaking results. But, objectively speaking, you will have learned nothing. Knowledge is not learning. Knowledge comes when you follow passions - learning comes when you follow instructions.

Here's the thing, though. You can fake musicianship. You can't fake musicality.

For that reason, people who are merely musicianly will always resent those who are merely musical, and even devalue them - sometimes without even knowing it."

 

 

Beautifully expressed, don't you think?

 

Steff

 

[Steff]

I hope the following book excerpt fits in here:

From: “The Natural Musician on ability, giftedness and talent” by Dina Kirnarskaya

 

The ability to ‚attune to the sound’ and attain its muscular equivalent is particularly important in the vocalist’s art. Nothing testifies more directly to the vocalist’s talent than his inclination towards the imitation of sound, even toward parody. This speaks to the sharpness of his audio-motor connections, wherein aural sensation and aural command beget an exact response from the glottal muscles and the vocal chords. The legendary tenor Mario Lanza was a fine parodist. One of his friends recalled [note from Steff: this is from “The Mario Lanza Story” by Callinicos]:

He was a sincere enthusiast of all things vocal. We used to have passionate discussions until all hours of the night about the relative merits of the masters. He had an uncanny knack for recognizing voices and imitating them.  If he could only have crawled out of his own skin and listened to his own voice he might have lived his whole life differently.”

Lanza learned to sing by listening for days on end to recordings of Enrico Caruso (who died on the day Mario was born). The virtuoso’s instinct suggested to the young Mario the correct vocal movements which engendered the subtle sensation of timbre and articulation. The unity of emotive, motor, and spatial sense of sound in the context of the expressive ear psychologically eased the interactions between and among these components: the perceived sound, with its timbre-dynamic characteristics, flowed into the movement of the muscles and vocal chords, giving birth to exactly that sound. Such is the musical perception of the virtuoso singer who can learn the vocalist’s art.”

 

           Steff 

 

 

[Armando]

What it all boils down to, Steff, is that you either have it or you don’t. Some people are born musical and some are tone deaf. No amount of theoretical studying will turn an unmusical person into a musical one. As Di Stefano once said in addressing a master class, “Either you can sing or you can’t!”

By the way, dear old Dina got it wrong- Caruso died the year Mario was born, not the day.

Ciao

Armando

[Derek McGovern]

Ciao Armando: I'm very glad you created this thread, as I know it's a topic that confuses an awful lot of people. 

So often we're told that Lanza was "a lousy musician" by those who seek to denigrate his achievements (or his potential), while the man's musicality is either ignored or not appreciated. Goldovsky and Ifor Jones were clearly two who had little time or appreciation for what Henry Foley has accurately described as Lanza's "innate feel for leaning into a phrase that brings music to life," and I've encountered plenty of their musicological soulmates among snobs, the occasional instrumentalist, and so forth. I remember once quoting Claudia Cassidy's memorable observation that, "Although a multitude of fine points evade him, [Lanza] possesses the things almost impossible to learn" to the Opera-L forum, and immediately some of its posters seized on those "fine points" as a reason to dismiss him. They simply don't get it.

I think there's no doubt that Lanza's musicianship did improve somewhat as he got older---even one of the Coke musicians commented that there was a gradual improvement over the course of those weekly shows. (That's rather surprising in a way, since the shows were so rushed.) And, of course, as George London pointed out to you, Lanza's musicianship was capable of being quite "respectable" given the right support. Clearly, that didn't happen with Goldovsky. But to dismiss a young man's entire potential as an opera singer on the basis of a brief collaboration that took place when he was barely out of his teens and at that time completely inexperienced? Unbelievable...and actually rather cruel.

Steff: That poster you quoted was right on the money when s/he wrote: "[P]eople who are merely musicianly will always resent those who are merely musical, and even devalue them - sometimes without even knowing it." 

Cheers

Derek

  

[Derek McGovern]

Whoops: make that Henry FoGEL, not Foley!!

[leeann]

Thank you for starting this thread, Armando. Criticisms and acknowledgements of Lanza's musicality and musicianship raise a lot of maybe, related issues in my head.

One is whether the criticisms of Lanza's musicianship arose from the standards of the time in which he sang. Would issues of his ability to read music be quite so critical today? It seems to me that the 1940s and 1950s were eras in which more rigid definitions of classicism ruled--partly because  snobbery and status, if you will, attached to opera, symphony, great art, etcetera--often differentiated and divided as "high-brow" and "low-brow."

Another series of random thoughts wandered into other humanities fields such as writing, painting, sculpting. I'm not sure whether correlations are valid, but in Lanza's day, as today,  it seems to me that the tension between formal training and innate creativity was perhaps less emphasized in these disciplines than in music. I'm sure there are a many counter-arguments and facets to that, but for example, among American authors, Faulkner, Hemingway, Saroyan, pop up and I think it's fair to say that technical training wasn't as important to their work as was their innate perspective and abilities.  It would just seem to follow that technical training ought be more a means to an end, a support for talent and ability, rather than a standard to devalue or limit fantastic genius.

Acknowledging that makes Goldovsky and Jones seem a little non-inspired themselves.

I wonder what the Albert Hall rendition of Lamento di Federico demonstrates about Lanza's musicality and musicianship. (Discussed in these threads here and here.) He departed from renditions adhering to the composer's intent, but maybe the result represents a masterful combination of technique and genius, and to a "music lover not terribly conversant on musical matters," it works. Best, Lee Ann

[Armando]

Hi Derek and Lee Ann: Things haven’t changed; they are more or less the same today as they were back then. A conductor expects singers, and rightly so, to know their part thoroughly. They couldn’t care less whether they have learned the role by sight-reading it or going over it phrase by phrase, by ear with a coach. Nor do they care how long it has taken them to learn it.

The next step will be to discuss tempi, interpretation regarding particular passages, any variations to the score and, in some cases, whether it’s necessary to lower a specific aria.

One has to bear in mind that regardless of the countless times one has sung an entire role or even a single aria, these have to be re-examined and gone over again with a coach.

A case in point is Lanza’s first recording session. He obviously both knew and had sung Celeste Aida, Che Gelida Manina and Core ‘N Grato a number of times, yet there was an immediate clash between him and the chosen conductor, Jean Paul Morel, on what I can only assume were both musical and interpretation points.

Lanza was well aware of his musical shortcomings and could be very touchy on this subject. Extreme diplomacy would be required if one had to correct him or make suggestions. I suspect that what occurred instead is that Morel got stuck into him and corrected him abruptly. As a consequence Lanza walked out and the result is that there are passages in the three above mentioned recordings that could and should have been done better had Morel conducted them.

The inferior Callinicos, on the other hand, couldn’t believe his good luck in being asked to replace Morel. He certainly wasn’t going to jeopardise his great opportunity by correcting Lanza, even had he known how, which judging by his pathetic conducting of most of the operatic material was certainly not the case. Instead Callinicos took the money and ran all the way to the bank.

The main source for the criticism directed toward Lanza has always been his operatic recordings. And let’s face it, there is plenty of ammunition available in some of the recordings for those seeking to attack the tenor. When he walked out on Morel and chose Callinicos instead, Lanza made a fatal mistake with some disastrous results when it comes to his operatic output. 

An example of under rehearsing or not re-examining the music is the Albert Hall Lamento di Federico that you mentioned, Lee Ann, as well as some of the music from Serenade for that matter. Although Ray Heindorf was a better conductor than Callinicos he was not an opera conductor, therefore, there are things in both the Albert Hall and Serenade Lamento that could have been done better, not to mention arias like Di Quella Pira and Nessun Dorma, which I suspect Lanza would have worked far less on than he did on the Otello music with Spadoni (well conducted by Heindorf) with the resultant brilliant outcome or on Di Rigori Armato which, to the best of my knowledge, he had never sung before.  

So, ultimately, unless you are truly well rehearsed, guided and conducted your performances will suffer, regardless of your musicality. Alternatively, you can have impeccable musicianship and be deadly boring- something Lanza could never be accused of.  Therefore, regardless of my less than enthusiastic comments on some of his operatic output, what Lanza was able to accomplish, given the conditions he was working in, is next to phenomenal! 

Moral of the story: It was essential even for a monumental talent like Lanza to work in the proper musical environment. As for those fixated on musicianship all I have to say to them is- who cares! 

Armando

[leeann]

Dear Armando, just a very quick, but very big thank you for your post. It is fascinating. These are things it's difficult for a non-musician to know--about working with conductors in general, about the specifics of various Lanza selections, and how all works together. Best, Lee Ann

[Tony Partington]

Armando, it is sad yet fascinating that you never tire of bashing Constantine Callinicos whenever the opportunity arises. In reading your recent post, one might be led to believe that, had Morel stayed on as conductor of Lanza's first recording session, we might well have the voice of God himself on those recordings or, perhaps Christ at least. I need not remind you that it was Lanza's recording of "Che gelida manina" that won an award. I'm sure though if Morel had been on the podium, it would have been a grammy. Alas though, as you say, the mercenary Callinicos conducted - albeit quite poorly and with great inferiority - and once the takes were in the can then "ran all the way to the bank." Yes, it seems rather sad to me that a person of your calibre, with your knowledge on the topic of Mario Lanza the artist remains steadfastly fixated on abusing, minimizing and tearing down a man who, I think it is generally believed, admired, respected and genuinely cared about Mario Lanza. Your opinion of Callinicos as a conductor and person is subjective. And while all here in this forum respect you and your knowledge of both Lanza and things musical, it should be remembered always that your opinion is just that. Ciao - Tony

[Armando]

Tony: I’m afraid mine is not an opinion but a fact, and it has nothing to do with Callinicos bashing.  My estimate of Callinicos as a conductor is shared by anyone who understands anything about conducting. A case in point is when I recently played a CD of  Lanza’s operatic recordings for the ex- singer, now opera agent, Maurizio Scardovi, who upon hearing ‘Che Gelida Manina’ said, “Great singing but lousy conducting -who’s the conductor? “Regardless of whatever award the recording of ‘Che Gelida Manina’ might  have won, if you and others can’t hear what’s wrong with it in terms of the completely wrong rubato, etc, I’m not about to give you a long and detailed lesson on its shortcomings.

As for my opinion about Callinicos as a person being subjective, I could say the same about you. The fact that you studied with him doesn’t necessarily make him either a great singing teacher or conductor- that is simply your opinion.  I can only judge him on my unfortunate experience with him, who initially asked to be paid in order to grant me an interview, and when I expressed surprise at the request virtually begged me to find him work as a conductor in Australia!

I have always maintained that particularly on 'The Student Prince' recordings and some of the Neapolitan songs Callinicos did a pretty good job as he did on the Chenier arias. Unfortunately, in the Verdi and Puccini music his conducting is less than poor.

So, you see, it’s not a case of Callinicos bashing based on my encounter with him, it is simply a matter of distinguishing between good and bad conducting.

Armando

 

[Derek McGovern]

Tony, old friend: I think you're allowing your fond personal memories of Callinicos to cloud your judgement of his operatic conducting. Play, for example, the 1950 E Lucevan le Stelle to anyone who performs professionally with an orchestra (or even a talented amateur musician), and almost invariably they'll remark that the conducting is uninspired, that the orchestra is half asleep, that the clarinettist is appalling, and that poor old Lanza is the only one providing the required drama. Or play the 1950 take of Vesti la Giubba featured on The Mario Lanza Collection, on which Callinicos has so little control of his orchestra that on the climactic "infranto," the players move on to the next bar while Mario is still singing the high A. (In fact, he's barely begun to hold the note.)

This is simply not good conducting. Listen as objectively as possible to any other great singer's recordings of the same arias, and then tell me you can't hear the significant difference in the quality of the orchestral playing.

I have no problem with Callinicos' conducting of The Student Prince, or of songs in general, but I strongly feel that he shortchanges Lanza on most of the operatic material they recorded together.

If the 1949 Che Gelida Manina really did win an award, as Callinicos claims---and I'm now skeptical in the absence of any proof that it did---then I'm willing to bet that it was the singing and not the conducting to which the judges responded.

Cheers
Derek

[Tony Partington]

Armando, Derek: Thank you for your posts in response to mine.  Armando, thank you, no, I do not need you to waste your oh so precious time in teaching me what Rubato is or the very rudiments of vocal music for that matter.  I know them. 

 

You are ever so right.  My opinion and feelings aboout Constantine Callinicos are subjective.  I admit it.  Guilty!  However, we have only your word that he reacted as you say regarding your interviewing him.  There are other noteable interviews with Callinicos where I see no evidence of any of your described prententiousness (i.e.: the 1977 NPR interview broadcast as part 2 of a 2 part documentary on Lanza, Lindsay Perrigo's interview's with him which are available on YouTube).  That apart, we must assume that the conductor you met was, as they say, a bit off.  As for the opinions of his conducting Lanza, I wonder too if Lanza might not have been part of the problem given his inability to read music and, although he "knew" the piece, in the throes of passion while recording might he (Lanza) gone a bit off?  I recall Callinicos saying in the 1977 documentary the it was very important how Mario was handled when recording.  He said you couldn't correct him in front of a studio full of musicians, his ego was too fragile for that.  Better then, Callinicos said, if I went over to his podium and spoke to him privately and said, "Mario, that was great.  But if you did it this way I think it would be even better."  It struck me at the time, all those years ago and especially now as I think of this again so many years later - and after knowing Maestro Callinicos and discussing with him Mario's gifts and shortcomings - that his approach was the perfect one.  At least for Mario Lanza.  Was Constantine Callinicos the best conductor that Mario could have possibly worked with?  Probably not.  But, and this is a big but, he was the right conductor for Mario at the time.  The failure with Morel is an indication of this.  Is it safe to say that both Mario and Constantine grew as artists over their brief career together?  I think the answer is yes. 

 

Derek, you mentioned the recording of "Vesti la giubba" which Lanza and Callinicos did early on.  Now I commend to you the recording of the same aria they recorded with the Rome Opera House forces in 1958.  A totally different piece of music making on both their parts - I think.  Yes, I think the person and artist (that inseparable combination) needed the person and artist Constantine Callinicos, just as the non-musical part of him needed Terry Robinson.  It was a formula that worked and worked well.  Was it perfect?  Most certainly not?  Formulas seldom are.  But I feel certain in saying that we would not have the recorded output that we do had it not been for the working relationship of tenor Mario Lanza and conductor Constantine Callinicos.

 

Ciao ~ Tony

[Armando]

Tony: Since you know what rubato is, you are no doubt able to distinguish between correct and incorrect rubato and, therefore, realise exactly what is wrong with the conducting on ‘Che Gelida Manina.’

Yes, you only have my word regarding Callinicos’ initial behaviour when I met him. I, on the other hand, have the word of his European agent Sam Steinman (on tape) and that of Peter Prichard who accompanied Lanza during the first stage of his 1958 European tour -both described Callinicos as an unpleasant, mercenary man.  While Columbia Artists representative in Europe, John Coast in a letter addressed to the head of Columbia Artists in New York , William Judd, stated “ Callinicos is actually trying to stick Mario for a salary of $250 per week plus $ 750 a performance. We are all determined Mario shall not pay this.”  

As for Lanza being so dependent on Callinicos, I’m afraid I don’t buy this at all. If Lanza was as reliant on Callinicos as you make him out to be he wouldn’t have been able to work with any other conductor and, as we well know, this was not the case.  

What we are actually discussing, though, is Callinicos ability as a conductor or pianist/accompanist for that matter. The evidence on which to judge him is there for all to hear and draw their own conclusion.  

Armando

   

[Derek McGovern]

Just a few thoughts on Tony's last post:

There's no doubt in my mind that it was Lanza's musical insecurity (coupled with his often-misguided loyalty and sentimentality) that led him to rely on Callinicos at certain periods in his career. I also feel quite strongly that Callinicos took advantage of that insecurity. According to his niece Carol, a member of this forum, even his own brother remarked that, in addition to having a huge ego (which may not have been readily apparent to Tony, since he was both very young when he knew Callinicos and paying him for lessons), Callinicos "[used] Lanza's name for his own benefit." Now I wouldn't have minded that so much if he'd had the talent to do justice to Lanza, but Callinicos was at best a mediocre operatic conductor, and, as the Albert Hall recording often painfully reveals---and at least one prominent critic has mercilessly pointed out---far from being an outstanding or even consistently accurate pianist. 

Callinicos is also far from being the pivotal musical personality in Lanza's life and career. Much has been written by his admirers, such as Derek Mannering, about how inseparable Lanza and Callinicos supposedly were, and how the latter's contribution to the former's legacy was "well-nigh inestimable." Mr Mannering has also written that Callinicos was simply "always there." Well, he wasn't. Apart from the (apparently) disastrous attempt to re-record The Student Prince for RCA in December 1953, Callinicos didn't work again with Lanza after the "Song of India" session in June 1953 for almost four and a half years. Callinicos certainly wasn't around in 1954 when it was coach Giacomo Spadoni on whom Lanza was again depending for musical guidance. Indeed, it was Spadoni who accompanied him at the crucial mini-concert for the Press after the lip-synching scandal. Spadoni also conducted Lanza's triumphant second Shower of Stars TV appearance, and then went on to work with him very successfully on most of the material featured in Serenade. And it was Henri Rene, and not Callinicos, with whom Lanza enjoyed a most fruitful working relationship in the studios from August 1956 to April 1957.

In fact, far from depending on Callinicos, Lanza actually took RCA's advice in 1958 and replaced him with the distinguished Franco Ferrara on the Mario! album, causing a furious Callinicos to walk out on him. (This is mentioned in Terry Robinson's book, and was confirmed to me by Paul Baron.) It was only after Lanza had fired the competent but unpleasant Baron in June or July of 1959 that the ailing tenor asked Callinicos to return.

But Lanza proved on numerous occasions that he didn't need Callinicos at the helm to sing magnificently. Look at the conductors he successfully collaborated with in opera, concert and/or recordings---Herbert, Ormandy, Scherman, Adler, Green, Heindorf, Rene, Ferrara, Baron, and many others---together with accompanists such as Josef Blatt (on the Bel Canto tour) and Jakob Gimpel (in 1955). In November 1946---before Lanza had even heard of Callinicos---he performed to great acclaim in concert in Ottawa with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra's Albert De Ridder, earning praise from the conductor for being "the most wonderful artist" with whom he had ever worked.

Callinicos happened to be in the right place at the right time when Lanza clashed with Jean Paul Morel ahead of his first commercial recording session. But I'm grateful for their first session together (even if I feel a better conductor would have resulted in superior renditions of at least two of the four selections), just as I'm pleased that the two men worked so harmoniously on The Student Prince. For these achievements, together with a handful of operatic recordings from 1950 and 1958, and the occasional English song recording (The Song Angels Sing, Because You're Mine, Song of India, etc), I'm grateful to Callinicos. But let's not make him out to be something that he wasn't. Callinicos recorded with Lanza on fewer than a third of the RCA recordings (!), and, apart from a few duds conducted by Ray Sinatra, was also at the helm when Mario did his worst-ever operatic singing on the Coke Shows. Even on the RCA recordings, Lanza's sharpest and roughest operatic singing was also conducted by Callinicos. Lanza was actually far more consistent in his operatic singing with Peter Herman Adler (for The Great Caruso) and Ray Heindorf (for Serenade).  

Cheers

Derek

[Joseph Fagan]

who conducted for the LOB album?  NOW, there is a man who should be shot!.....Joe

On Tue, Oct 16, 2012 at 3:04 AM, Derek McGovern <derek.m...@gmail.com> wrote:

A clarification to the above:

I meant to write:

"It was only after Lanza had fired the competent but unpleasant Baron in June or July of 1959."  

[Derek McGovern]

Hi Joe: The conductor was Irving Aaronson, but I think it's more accurate to state that the album conducted itself :) 

[Michael McAdam]

Now that was a good quip, young Kiwi! ;-) I'm still smiling

 

Mike