Great Singers on the Art of Singing Part 11

In closing I should like to quote again from Mme. Lehmann's book an exercise that would seem to fulfill a long-felt want:

"The great scale is the most necessary exercise for all kinds of voices.

It was taught me by my mother. She taught it to all her pupils and to us."

Here is the scale as Lehmann taught it to me.

[Ill.u.s.tration: musical notation: Breath Breath Breath Breath]

It was sung upon all the princ.i.p.al vowels. It was extended stepwise through different keys over the entire range of the two octaves of the voice. It was not her advice to practice it too softly, but it was done with all the resonating organs well supported by the diaphragm, the tone in a very supple and elastic "watery" state. She would think nothing of devoting from forty minutes to sixty minutes a day to the slow practice of this exercise. Of course, she would treat what one might call a heavy brunette voice quite differently from a bright blonde voice. These terms of blonde and brunette, of course, have nothing to do with the complexion of the individual, but to the color of the voice.

THE ONLY CURE

Lehmann said of this scale: "It is the only cure for all injuries, and at the same time the most excellent means of fortification against all over-exertion. I sing it every day, often twice, even if I have to sing one of the heaviest roles in the evening. I can rely absolutely upon its a.s.sistance. I often take fifty minutes to go through it once, for I let no tone pa.s.s that is lacking in any degree in pitch, power, duration or in single vibration of the propagation form."

Personally I supplement this great scale often with various florid legato phrases of arias selected from the older Italians or Mozart, whereby I can more easily achieve the vocal facility demanded by the tessitura of _Manon_ or _Faust_ and change to the darker-hued phrases demanded in _Carmen_ or _b.u.t.terfly_.

But the open secret of all success is patient, never-ending, conscientious _work_, with a forceful emphasis on the _WORK_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHANNA GADSKI.]

MME. JOHANNA GADSKI

BIOGRAPHICAL

Mme. Gadski was born at Anclam, Prussia, June 15, 1872. Her studies in singing were princ.i.p.ally with Mme. Schroeder-Chaloupha. When she was ten years old she sang successfully in concert at Stettin. Her operatic debut was made in Berlin, in 1889, in Weber's _Der Freischutz_. She then appeared in the opera houses of Bremen and Mayence. In 1894 Dr. Walter Damrosch organized his opera company in New York and engaged Mme. Gadski for leading roles. In 1898 she became high dramatic soprano with the Metropolitan Opera Company in New York, and the following year appeared at Covent Garden. She was constantly developing as a singer of Wagner roles, notably _Brunhilde_ and _Isolde_. Her repertoire included forty roles in all, and the demand for her appearance at festivals here and abroad became more and more insistent. She sang at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York until 1917, when the notoriety caused by the activities of her husband, Captain Hans Tauscher, American agent for large German weapon manufacturers, forced her to resign. Mme. Gadski made a close study of the Schumann Songs for years; and the following can not fail to be of artistic a.s.sistance to the singer.

THE MASTER SONGS OF ROBERT SCHUMANN

MME. JOHANNA GADSKI

ROBERT SCHUMANN'S LYRIC GIFT

One cannot delve very far into the works of Schumann without discovering that his gifts are peculiarly lyric. His melodic fecundity is all the more remarkable because of his strong originality. Even in many of his piano pieces, such as _Warum?_, _Traumerei_ or the famous _Slumber Song_, the lyric character is evident. Beautiful melodies which seem to lend themselves to the peculiar requirements of vocal music crop up every now and then in all his works. This is by no means the case with many of the other great masters. In some of Beethoven's songs, for instance, one can never lose sight of the fact that they are instrumental pieces. It was Schumann's particular privilege to be gifted with the acute sense of proportion which enabled him to estimate just what kind of an accompaniment a melody should have. Naturally some of his songs stand out far above others; and in these the music lover and vocal student will notice that there is usually a beautiful artistic balance between the accompaniment and the melody.

Another characteristic is the sense of propriety with which Schumann connected his melodies with the thought of the poems he employed. This is doubtless due to the extensive literary training he himself enjoyed.

It was impossible for a man of Schumann's life experience to apply an inappropriate melody to any given poem. With some song writers, this is by no means the case. The music of one song would fit almost any other set of words having the same poetic metre. Schumann was continually seeking after a distinctive atmosphere, and this it is which gives many of his works their lasting charm.

THE INTIMATE AND DELICATE CHARACTER OF SCHUMANN SONGS

Most of the greater Schumann songs are of a deliciously ultimate and delicate character. By this no one should infer that they are weak or spineless. Schumann was a deep student of psychology and of human life.

In the majority of cases he eschewed the melodramatic. It is true that we have at least one song, _The Two Grenadiers_, which is melodramatic in the extreme; but this, according to the greatest judges, is not Schumann at his best. It was the particular delight of Schumann to take some intense little poem and apply to it a musical setting crowded full of deep poetical meaning. Again, he liked to paint musical pastels such as _Im wunderschonen Monat Mai_, _Fruhlingsnacht_ and _Der Nussbaum_.

These songs are redolent with the fragrance of out-of-doors. There is not one jarring note. The indefinable beauty and inspiration of the fields and forests have been caught by the master and imprisoned forever in this wonderful music.

_Im wunderschonen Monat Mai_, which comes from the _Dichterliebe_ cycle, is indescribably delicate. It should be sung with great lightness and simplicity. Any effort toward a striving for effect would ruin this exquisite gem. _Fruhlingsnacht_ with its wonderful accompaniment, which Franz Liszt thought so remarkable that he combined the melody and the accompaniment, with but slight alterations, and made a piano piece of the whole--is a difficult song to sing properly. If the singer does not catch the effervescent character of the song as a whole, the effect is lost. Any "dragging" of the tones destroys the wonderful exuberance which Schumann strove to connote. The balance between the singer and the accompanist must be perfect, and woe be to the singer who tries to sing _Fruhlingsnacht_ with a lumbering accompanist.

_Der Nussbaum_ is one of the most effective and "thankful" of all the Schumann songs. Experienced public singers almost invariably win popular appreciation with this song. It is probably my favorite of all the Schumann songs. Here again delicacy and simplicity reign supreme. In fact simplicity in interpretation is the great requirement of all the art songs. The amateur singer seems to be continually trying to secure "effect" with these songs and the only result of this is affectation. If amateurs could only realize how hard the really great masters tried to avoid results that were to be secured by the cheap methods of "affectation" and "show," they would make their singing more simple.

Success in singing art songs comes through the ability of the artist to bring out the psychic, poetical and musical meaning of the song. There is no room for cheap vocal virtuosity. The great songs bear the sacred message of the best and finest in art. They represent the conscientious devotion of their composers to their loftiest ideals.

I have mentioned three songs which are representative, but there are numberless other songs which reveal the intimate and personal character of Schumann's works. One popular mistake regarding these songs which is quite prevalent is that of thinking that they can only be sung in tiny rooms and never in large auditoriums. Time and again I have achieved some of the best results I have ever secured on the concert stage with delicate intimate works sung before audiences of thousands of people.

The size of the auditorium has practically nothing to do with the song.

The method of delivery is everything. If the song is properly and thoughtfully delivered, the audience, though it be one of thousands, will sit "quiet as mice" and listen reverently to the end. However, if one of these songs were to be sung in a flamboyant, bombastic manner, by some singer infected with the idea that in order to impress a mult.i.tude of people an exaggerated style is necessary, the results would be ruinous. If overdone, they are never appreciated. Art is art. Rembrandt in one of his master paintings exhibits just the right artistic balance.

A copy of the same painting might become a mere daub, with a few twists of some bungling amateur's brush. Let the young singer remember that the results that are the most difficult to get in singing the art song are not those by which she may hope to make a sensational impression by means of show, but those which depend first and always upon sincerity, simplicity and a deep study of the real meaning of the masterpiece.

THE LOVE INTEREST IN THE SCHUMANN SONGS

Up to the time Schumann was thirty years of age (1840), his compositions were confined to works for the piano. These piano works include some of the very greatest and most inspired of his compositions for the instrument. In 1840 Schumann married Clara Wieck, daughter of his former pianoforte teacher. This marriage was accomplished only after the most severe opposition imaginable upon the part of the irate father-in-law, who was loath to see his daughter, whom he had trained to be one of the foremost pianists of her s.e.x, marry an obscure composer. The effect of this opposition was to raise Schumann's affection to the condition of a kind of fanaticism. All this made a p.r.o.nounced impression upon his art and seemed to make him long for expression through the medium of his love songs. He wrote to a friend at this time, "I am now writing nothing but songs great and small. I can hardly tell you how delightful it is to write for the voice, as compared with instrumental composition; and what a tumult and strife I feel within me as I sit down to it. I have brought forth quite new things in this line." In letters to his wife he is quite as impa.s.sioned over his song writing as the following quotations indicate: "Since yesterday morning, I have written twenty-seven pages of music (something new of which I can tell you nothing more than that I have laughed and wept for joy in composing them). When I composed them my soul was within yours. Without such a bride, indeed no one could write such music; once more I have composed so much that it seems almost uncanny. Alas! I cannot help it: I could sing myself to death like a nightingale."

During the first year of his marriage Schumann wrote one hundred of the two hundred and forty-five songs that are attributed to him. In the published collections of his works, there are three songs attributed to Schumann which are known to be from the pen of his talented wife. As in his piano compositions Schumann avoided long pieces and preferred collections of comparatively short pieces, such as those in the _Carnaval_, _Kreisleriana_, _Papillons_, so in his early works for the voice Schumann chose to write short songs which were grouped in the form of cycles. Seven of these cycles are particularly well known. They are here given together with the best known songs from each group.

Cycle Songs

_Liederkreis_ {_Ich wandelte unter den Baumen._ {_Mit Myrthen und Rosen._

{_Die Lotusblume._ _Myrthen_ {_La.s.s mich ihm am Busen hangen._ {_Du bist wie eine Blume._ {_Der Nussbaum._

_Eichendorff Liederkreis_ {_Waldesgesprach._ {_Fruhlingsnacht._

{_Wanderl.u.s.t._ _Kerner Cycle_ {_Frage._ {_Stille Thranen._

{_O, Ring an meinem Finger._ _Frauenliebe und Leben_ {_Er, der Herrlichste von Allen._

{_Ich grolle nicht._ _Dichterliebe_ {_Im wunderschonen Mai._ {_Ich hab' im Traum geweinet._

{_Three of the songs in this_ _Liebesfruhling_ {_Cycle are attributed to_ {_Clara Schumann._

Critics seem to be agreed that Schumann's talent gradually deteriorated as his mental disease increased. Consequently, with but few exceptions his best song works are to be found among his early vocal compositions.

I have tried repeatedly to bring forth some of the lesser known songs of Schumann and have time and again devoted long periods to their study, but apparently the public, by an unmistakable indication of lack of approval, will have none of them.

Evidently, the songs by which Schumann is now best known are his best works from the standpoint of popular appreciation. Popular approval taken in the aggregate is a mighty determining factor. The survival of the fittest applies to songs as well as to other things in life. This is particularly so in the case of the four famous songs, _Die beiden Grenadiere_, _Widmung_, _Der Nussbaum_ and _Ich grolle nicht_, which never seem to diminish in popularity.

SCHUMANN'S LOVE FOR THE ROMANTIC

Schumann's fervid imagination readily led to a love for the romantic.

His early fondness for the works of Jean Paul developed into a kind of life tendency, which resulted in winning him the t.i.tle of the "Tone-Poet of Romanticism." Few of his songs, however, are really dramatic.

_Waldesgesprach_, which Robert Franz called a pianoforte piece with a voice part added, is probably the best of Schumann's dramatic-romantic songs. I have always found that audiences are very partial to this song; and it may be sung by a female voice as well as the male voice. The _Two Grenadiers_ is strictly a man's song. _Ich grolle nicht_, while sung mostly by men, may, like the _Erl-King_ of Schubert, be sung quite as successfully by women singers possessing the qualities of depth and dramatic intensity.