Great Singers on the Art of Singing Part 18

I found the piano training of my youth of greatest value, and through the study of the violin I learned certain secrets that I later applied to respiration and phrasing. Although my voice was naturally flexible, I have no doubt that the study of these instruments a.s.sisted in intonation and execution in a manner that I cannot over-estimate.

A beautiful voice is not so great a gift, unless its possessor knows how to employ it to advantage. The musical training that one receives from the study of an instrument is of greatest value. Consequently, I advise parents who hope to make their children singers to give them the advantage of a thorough musical training in either violin study or the piano. Much wasted money and many blasted ambitions can be spared by such a course.

A GOOD GENERAL EDUCATION OF VAST IMPORTANCE

The singer whose general education has been neglected is in a most unfortunate plight. And by general education I do not mean only those academic studies that people learn in schools. The imagination must be stimulated, the heartfelt love for the poetical must be cultivated, and above all things the love for nature and mankind must be developed.

I can take the greatest joy in a walk through a great forest. It is an education to me to be with nature. Unfortunately, only too many Americans go rus.h.i.+ng through life neglecting those things which make life worth living.

MUSICAL ADVANCE IN AMERICA

There has been a most marvelous advance in this respect, however, in America. Not only in nature love but in art it has been my pleasure to watch a wonderful growth. When I first came here in 1883 things were entirely different in many respects. Now the great operatic novelties of Europe are presented here in magnificent style, and often before they are heard in many European capitals.

In this respect America to-day ranks with the best in the world. Will you not kindly permit me to digress for a moment and say to the music lovers of America that I appreciate in the deepest manner the great kindnesses that have been shown to me everywhere? For this reason, I know that my criticisms, if they may be called such, will be received as they are intended.

The singer should make a serious study of languages. French, German, English and Italian are the most necessary ones. I include English as I am convinced that it is only a matter of a short time when a school of opera written by English-speaking composers will arise. The great educational and musical advance in America is an indication of this.

As for voice exercises, I have always been of the opinion that it is better to leave that matter entirely to the discretion of the teacher.

There can be no universal voice exercise that will apply to all cases.

Again, it is more a matter of how the exercise is sung than the exercise itself.

The simplest exercise can become valuable in the hands of the great teacher. I have no faith in the teachers who make each and every pupil go through one and the same set of exercises in the same way. The voice teacher is like the physician. He must originate and prescribe certain remedies to suit certain cases. Much money is wasted by trying to do without a good teacher. If the pupil really has a great voice and the requisite talent, it is economical to take her to the best teacher obtainable.

American women have wonderful voices. Moreover, they have great energy, talent and temperament. Their accomplishments in the operatic world are matters of present musical history. With such splendid effort and such generosity, it is easy to prophesy a great future for musical America.

This is the land of great accomplishments.

With time Americans will give more attention to the cultivation of details in art, they will acquire more repose perhaps, and then the tremendous energy which has done so much to make the country what it is will be a great factor in establis.h.i.+ng a school of music in the new world which will rank with the greatest of all times.

MME. ERNESTINE SCHUMANN-HEINK

BIOGRAPHICAL

Mme. Ernestine Schumann-Heink (nee Roessler) was born near the city of Prague, July 15, 1861. She relates that her father was a Czech and her mother was of Italian extraction. She was educated in Ursuline Convent and studied singing with Mme. Marietta von Leclair in Graz. Her first appearance was at the age of 15, when she is reported to have taken a solo part in a performance of the Beethoven Ninth Symphony, at an important concert in Graz. Her operatic debut was made at the Royal Opera, Dresden, in _Trovatore_. There she studied under Krebs and Franz Wullner. It is impossible to detail Mme. Schumann-Heink's operatic successes here, since her numerous appearances at the leading operatic houses of the world have been followed by such triumphs that she is admittedly the greatest contralto soloist of her time. At Bayreuth, Covent Garden, and at the Metropolitan her appearances have drawn mult.i.tudes. In concert she proved one of the greatest of all singers of art songs. In 1905 she became an American citizen, her enthusiasm for this country leading her to name one of her sons George Was.h.i.+ngton.

During the great war (in which four of her sons served with the American colors) she toured incessantly from camp to camp, giving her services for the entertainment of the soldiers and winning countless admirers in this way. Her glorious voice extends from D on the third line of the ba.s.s clef to C on the second leger line above the treble clef.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MME. ERNESTINE SCHUMANN-HEINK.]

KEEPING THE VOICE IN PRIME CONDITION

MME. ERNESTINE SCHUMANN-HEINK

THE ARTIST'S RESPONSIBILITY

Would you have me give the secret of my success at the very outstart? It is very simple and centers around this subject of the artist's responsibility to the audience. My secret is absolute devotion to the audience. I love my audiences. They are all my friends. I feel a bond with them the moment I step before them. Whether I am singing in blase New York or before an audience of farmer folk in some Western Chautauqua, my att.i.tude toward my audience is quite the same. I take the same care and thought with every audience. This even extends to my dress. The singer, who wears an elaborate gown before a Metropolitan audience and wears some worn-out old rag of a thing when singing at some rural festival, shows that she has not the proper respect in her mind.

Respect is everything.

Therefore it is necessary for me to have my voice in the best of condition every day of the year. It is my duty to my audience. The woman who comes to a country Chautauqua and brings her baby with her and perchance nurses the little one during the concert gets a great deal closer to my heart than the stiff-backed aristocrat who has just left a Pekingese spaniel outside of the opera house door in a $6000.00 limousine. That little country woman expects to hear the singer at her best. Therefore, I practice just as carefully on the day of the Chautauqua concert as I would if I were to sing _Ortrud_ the same night at the Metropolitan in New York.

American audiences are becoming more and more discriminating. Likewise they are more and more responsive. As an American citizen, I am devoted to all the ideals of the new world. They have accepted me in the most whole-souled manner and I am grateful to the land of my adoption.

THE ADVANTAGE OF AN EARLY TRAINING

Whether or not the voice keeps in prime condition to-day depends largely upon the early training of the singer. If that training is a good one, a sound one, a sensible one, the voice will, with regular practice, keep in good condition for a remarkably long time. The trouble is that the average student is too impatient in these days to take time for a sufficient training. The voice at the outstart must be trained lightly and carefully. There must not be the least strain. I believe that at the beginning two lessons a week should be sufficient. The lessons should not be longer than one-half an hour and the home practice should not exceed at the start fifty minutes a day. Even then the practice should be divided into two periods. The young singer should practice _mezza voce_, which simply means nothing more or less than "half voice." Never practice with full voice unless singing under the direction of a well-schooled teacher with years of practical singing experience.

It is easy enough to shout. Some of the singers in modern opera seem to employ a kind of megaphone method. They stand stock still on the stage and bawl out the phrases as though they were announcing trains in a railroad terminal. Such singers disappear in a few years. Their voices seem torn to shreds. The reason is that they have not given sufficient attention to _bel canto_ in their early training. They seem to forget that voice must first of all be beautiful. _Bel canto_,--beautiful singing,--not the singing of meaningless Italian phrases, as so many insist, but the glorious _bel canto_ which Bach, Haydn and Mozart demand,--a _bel canto_ that cultivates the musical taste, disciplines the voice and trains the singer technically to do great things. Please understand that I am not disparaging the good and beautiful in Italian masterpieces. The musician will know what I mean. The singer can gain little, however, from music that intellectually and vocally is better suited to a parrot than a human being.

Some of the older singers made _bel canto_ such an art that people came to hear them for their voices alone, and not for their intellectual or emotional interpretations of a role. Perhaps you never heard Patti in her prime. Ah! Patti--the wonderful Adelina with the glorious golden voice. It was she who made me ambitious to study breathing until it became an art. To hear her as she trippingly left the stage in Verdi's _Traviata_ singing runs with ease and finish that other singers slur or stumble over,--ah! that was an art!

[Ill.u.s.tration: musical notation: Ex. 1

il mio pen sier, il mio pen-sier___

il mio pen-sier.

Volumes have been written on breathing and volumes more could be written. This is not the place to discuss the singer's great fundamental need. Need I say more than that I practice deep breathing every day of my life?

THE AGE FOR STARTING

It is my opinion that no girl who wishes to keep her voice in the prime of condition all the time in after years should start to study much earlier than seventeen or eighteen years of age. In the case of a man I do not believe that he should start until he is past twenty or even twenty-two. I know that this is contrary to what many singers think, but the period of mutation in both s.e.xes is a much slower process than most teachers realize, and I have given this matter a great deal of serious thought.

LET EVERYBODY SING!

Can I digress long enough to say that I think that everybody should sing? That is, they should learn to sing under a good singing instructor. This does not mean that they should look forward toward a professional career. G.o.d forbid! There are enough half-baked singers in the world now who are striving to become professionals. But the public should know that singing is the healthiest kind of exercise imaginable.

When one sings properly one exercises nearly all of the important muscles of the torso. The circulation of the blood is improved, the digestion bettered, the heart promoted to healthy action--in fact, everything is bettered. Singers as a rule are notoriously healthy and often very long lived. The new movement for community singing in the open air is a magnificent one. Let everybody sing!

A great singing teacher with a reputation as big as Napoleon's or George Was.h.i.+ngton's is not needed. There are thousands and thousands of unknown teachers who are most excellent. Often the advice or the instruction is very much the same. What difference does it make whether I buy Castile soap in a huge Broadway store or a little country store, if the soap is the same? Many people hesitate to study because they can not study with a great teacher. Nonsense! Pick out some sensible, well-drilled teacher and then use your own good judgment to guide yourself. Remember that Schumann-Heink did not study with a world-famed teacher. Whoever hears of Marietta von Leclair in these days? Yet I do not think that I could have done any more with my voice if I had had every famous teacher from Niccolo Antonio Porpora down to the present day. The individual singer must have ideals, and then leave nothing undone to attain those ideals.

One of my ideals was to be able to sing pianissimo with the kind of resonance that makes it carry up to the farthest gallery. That is one of the most difficult things I had to learn, and I attained it only after years of faithful practice.

THE SINGER'S DAILY ROUTINE

To keep the voice in prime condition the singer's first consideration is physical and mental health. If the body or the mind is over-taxed singing becomes an impossibility. It is amazing what the healthy body and the busy mind can really stand. I take but three weeks' vacation during the year and find that I am a great deal better for it. Long terms of enforced indolence do not mean rest. The real artist is happiest when at work, and I want to work. Fortunately I am never at loss for opportunity. The ambitious vocal student can benefit as much by studying a good book on hygiene or the conservation of the health as from a book on the art of singing.

First of all comes diet. Americans as a rule eat far too much. Why do some of the good churchgoing people raise such an incessant row about over-drinking when they constantly injure themselves quite as much by over-eating? What difference does it make whether you ruin your stomach, liver or kidneys by too much alcohol or too much roast beef? One vice is as bad as another. The singer must live upon a light diet. A heavy diet is by no means necessary to keep up a robust physique. I am rarely ill, am exceedingly strong in every way, and yet eat very little indeed. I find that my voice is in the best of condition when I eat very moderately. My digestion is a serious matter with me, and I take every precaution to see that it is not congested in any way. This is most important to the singer. Here is an average menu for my days when I am on tour: