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Then, as regards the pupil, particularly one studying with a view to a professional career, a defective preparatory training may eventually mean serious material loss. The money and time spent on his vocal education is, in his case, an investment, not an outlay; the investment will be a poor one, should it be necessary later to devote further time and expend more money to correct natural defects that ought to have been corrected at the beginning of his studies, or to eradicate faults acquired during their progress.

Furthermore, the purpose of some part of a singer's preliminary education is to strengthen and fit the voice for the exacting demands of a professional career. As the training of an athlete--rower, runner, boxer, wrestler--not only perfects his technical skill, but also, by a process of gradual development, enables him to endure the exceptional strain he will eventually have to bear in a contest, so some of a singer's early studies prepare his voice for the tax to which hereafter it will be subjected. If those studies have been insufficient, or ill-directed, failure awaits the debutant when he presents himself before the public in a s.p.a.cious theatre or concert-hall and strives, ineffectually, to dominate the powerful sonorities of the large orchestras which are a necessity for modern scores. A sound and judiciously graduated preparatory training, in fact, is essential if the singer would avoid disappointment or a fiasco.

The vocal education of many students, however, is nowadays hurried through with a haste that is equalled only by the celerity with which such aspirants for lyric honours return to obscurity.

CHAPTER II

THE VALUE OF TECHNIQUE

Briefly defined, the singer's Technique may be said to consist princ.i.p.ally of the ability to govern the voice in its three phases of Pitch, Colour, and Intensity. That is, he must be able to sing every note throughout the compa.s.s of the voice (Pitch) in different qualities or timbres (Colour), and with various degrees of power (Intensity). And although the modern schools of composition for the voice do not encourage the display of florid execution, a singer would be ill-advised indeed to neglect this factor, on the plea that it has no longer any practical application. No greater error is conceivable.

Should an instrumental virtuoso fail to acquire mastery of transcendental difficulties, his performance of any piece would not be perfect: the greater includes the less. A singer would be very short-sighted who did not adopt an a.n.a.logous line of reasoning.

Without an appreciable amount of _agilita_, the performance of modern music is laboured and heavy; that of the cla.s.sics, impossible. In fact, virtuosity, if properly understood, is as indispensable to-day as ever it was. As much vocal virtuosity is required to interpret successfully the music of Falstaff, in Verdi's opera, as is necessary for _Maometto Secondo_ or _Semiramide_ by Rossini. It is simply another form of virtuosity; that is all. The lyric grace or dramatic intensity of many pages of Wagner's music-dramas can be fully revealed only through a voice that has been rendered supple by training, and responsive to the slightest suggestion of an artistic temperament.

In short, virtuosity may have changed in form, but it is still one of the cornerstones of the singer's art. An executive artist will spare no pains to acquire perfect technical skill; for the _metier_, or mechanical elements of any art, can be acquired, spontaneous though the results may sometimes appear. Its primary use is, and should be, to serve as a medium of interpretation. True, virtuosity is frequently a vehicle for personal display, as, notably, in the operas of Cimarosa, Bellini, Donizetti, and the earlier works of Rossini and Verdi. At its worst, however, it is a practical demonstration of the fact that the executant, vocal or instrumental, has completely mastered the mechanical elements of his profession; that, to use the _argot_ of the studios, ”_il connait son metier_” (he knows his trade).

Imperfect technique, indeed, is to be deprecated, if merely for the reason that it may debar a singer from interpreting accurately the composer's ideas. How seldom, if ever, even in the best lyric theatres, is the following pa.s.sage heard as the composer himself indicated:

[Music: ”Plus blanche”

Les Huguenots: Act I

Meyerbeer

Plus pure, plus pure qu'un jour de printemps]

or the concluding phrase of ”Celeste Aida” (in _Aida_, Act I), as Verdi wrote it and wished it to be sung:

[Music: un trono vicino al sol, un trono vicino al sol.]

At present the majority of operatic tenors, to whom are a.s.signed the strong tenor (_fort tenor_) roles, can sing the higher tones of their compa.s.s only in _forte_, and with full voice. Thus an additional and very charming effect is lost to them. Yet Adolphe Nourrit, who created the role of Raol in _Les Huguenots_, sang, it is said, the phrase as written. The late Italo Campanini, Sims Reeves, and the famous Spanish tenor Gayarre, were all able to sing the

[Music]

_mezza voce_, by a skilled use of the covered tones.

I do not ignore the fact that cases occur where artists, owing to some physiological peculiarity or personal idiosyncrasy, are unable to overcome certain special difficulties; where, indeed, the effort would produce but meagre results. But such instances are the exception, not the rule. The lyric artist who is gifted merely with a beautiful voice, over which he has acquired but imperfect control, is at the mercy of every slight indisposition that may temporarily affect the quality and sonority of his instrument. But he who is a ”singer” in the real and artistic sense of the word, he who has acquired skill in the use of the voice, is armed at all points against such accidents.

By his art, by clever devices of varied tone-colour and degrees of intensity, he can so screen the momentary loss of brilliance, etc., as to conceal that fact from his auditors, who imagine him to be in the possession of his normal physical powers. The technical or mechanical part of any art can be taught and learned, as I have said. It is only a case of well-guided effort. Patience and unceasing perseverance will in this, as in all other matters, achieve the desired result. Nature gives only the ability and apt.i.tude to acquire; it is persistent study which enables their possessor to arrive at perfection. Serious and lasting results are obtained only by constant practice. It is a curious fact that many people more than usually gifted arrive only at mediocrity. Certain things, such as the trill or scales, come naturally easy to them. This being the case, they neglect to perfect their _agilita_, which remains defective. Others, although but moderately endowed, have arrived at eminence by sheer persistence and rightly directed study. It is simply a musical version of the Hare and the Tortoise.

But we must make a great distinction between the preliminary exercises which put the singer in full possession of the purely mechanical branch of his art (Technique), and the aesthetic studies in Taste and the research for what dramatic authors call ”the Science of Effect,”

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