Historical Vocabulary (compiled by Elizabeth Gerbi):
Appoggio: Appogitare in Italian= “to lean,” Stark defines as 1) balanced antagonism of the muscles of inspiration and
expiration, 2) role of the larynx in creating glottal resistance to the breath, or breath damming. Not covered (by name) in the earlier vocal treatises!
Do di petto/Ut de poitrine: High “C” in chest voice (first sung by Gilbert-Louis DePrez, Italian premiere of "William Tell," 1831), the new gold standard for operatic tenors (553Hz), which replaced the castrati’s vocal pyrotechnics in terms of public preference; accomplished by “covering” the voice instead of switching to falsetto (Rossini intensely disliked the sound, but became new popular sensation and requirement for exceptional ever since)
Squagiato: “Coarse tone,” used by Francesco Lamperti to describe a sound similar to contemporary belting
Stauprinzip/Stütze: “Breath damming,” associated with pressed phonation; some authors (Luschsinger. Armin, and Arnold) argued was identical to appoggio, although Stark believed stauprinzip involved a lowered larynx, high subglottal pressure, and stronger glottal resistance than the classical definition; Winckel said that darkened the tone by limiting the upper partials, enhancing the beauty of the sound, however, Bruns was ardently opposed to the idea that stütze and appoggio
were equivalent, claiming that it was created with “pumped full lungs to achieve a full powerful tine, and could not be associated with bel canto”
Strohbass: GE, refers to lowest tones in voice, which often “crackle”/”rattle”
expiration, 2) role of the larynx in creating glottal resistance to the breath, or breath damming. Not covered (by name) in the earlier vocal treatises!
Do di petto/Ut de poitrine: High “C” in chest voice (first sung by Gilbert-Louis DePrez, Italian premiere of "William Tell," 1831), the new gold standard for operatic tenors (553Hz), which replaced the castrati’s vocal pyrotechnics in terms of public preference; accomplished by “covering” the voice instead of switching to falsetto (Rossini intensely disliked the sound, but became new popular sensation and requirement for exceptional ever since)
Squagiato: “Coarse tone,” used by Francesco Lamperti to describe a sound similar to contemporary belting
Stauprinzip/Stütze: “Breath damming,” associated with pressed phonation; some authors (Luschsinger. Armin, and Arnold) argued was identical to appoggio, although Stark believed stauprinzip involved a lowered larynx, high subglottal pressure, and stronger glottal resistance than the classical definition; Winckel said that darkened the tone by limiting the upper partials, enhancing the beauty of the sound, however, Bruns was ardently opposed to the idea that stütze and appoggio
were equivalent, claiming that it was created with “pumped full lungs to achieve a full powerful tine, and could not be associated with bel canto”
Strohbass: GE, refers to lowest tones in voice, which often “crackle”/”rattle”
Various Topics:
Bel Canto
Castrati:
Covering:
“Decline” of Bel Canto:
Florentine Camerata:
National Schools of Singing:
"Old Italian School:"
Vocal Tremulousness:·
Voce Finta/Feigned Voice/Messa Voce:
Types of Vocal Ornamentation:
- Idiomatic singing style, comprehensive/controversial definition which crosses several stylistic schools; however, presents some similarities in vocal color (chiaroscuro) and methods (appoggio)
- Traditionally refers to the classically trained voice of opera and concert singers, extending from Caccini at the dawn of the Baroque era to the best concert and operatic singers of today
- Associated with the emergence of a virtuoso class of singers and monodic style of singing in the 16th/17th centuries
Castrati:
- Superstars included: Crescentini, Ferri, Farinelli, Senesino and Pacchierotti
- Rise of trend began after the opening of the first public opera house (San Cassiano) in Venice, 1637
- Castrati Voices had 2 primary registers, and were generally trained like other singers; what is unclear is where the breaks in the voice were (from Tosi, possible was around A4/B4, about a 6th higher than the same for female sopranos)
- Began to decrease in popularity by mid 18th-century, with the rise of the opera buffa and comic intermezzo, which called for the inclusion of specific commedia del’arte characters (women, etc); fell out of favor with the rise of the romantic tenor and the arrival of the do di petto, which replaced vocal pyrotechnics in popularity
- Last composer to write specifically for the castrato, Giacomo Meyerbeer, “Il Crociato in Eggito” (1824)
Covering:
- Also known as voix sombrée ou couverte, voce piena in testa (full head voice), vollton der kopfstimme (full tone of the head voice), “legitimate head voice” (R.Miller), or “male operatic head register”
- covering in male voices is employed for notes above the passaggio, and involves lowering the larynx and expanding the pharynx, resulting in a darkening of the vowel
- According to Stark, not dissimilar from belting, with the exception that the larynx does not rise; both require high subglottic pressure
“Decline” of Bel Canto:
- Pietro Metastasio, Charles Burney, and Johann Adolf Hasse all wrote of the decline of “good singing” caused by the increased importance of the instrumental music in the 18th century
- 19th century saw transition from lighter, “Rossini” voices (Rossini himself abhorred covering/do di petto), the canto d’agilità, to canto spianato; this corresponded to heavier, “Wagnerian” orchestration and simultaneous decline of the castrati and of the rise of the romantic tenor
- Garcia, Francesco Lamperti, Marchesi all lamented the disappearance of the castrati and the decline of the florid style; in “On the Decadence of the Art of Singing,” Lamperti also criticized impresarios for raising concert pitch, the overly-syllabic style of Bellini and others (Wagner was the “unnamed German” who became the subject of much scorn!)
- Verdi, Wagner’s “Big Tone” writing style very controversial amongst pedagogues! Interesting, Giovanni Lamperti came to their defense, maintaining that good technique allowed singers to perform in any style; “perfected voices” were not subject to ruin from these styles!
- Thus… by the mid-late 19th century, singers were now required to achieve a technique which allowed them to serve the various historical styles, languages, and genres they might sing (Lili Lehmann, going from Mozart to Wagner, was a case in point)
Florentine Camerata:
- Group of humanists, musicians, poets, intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama; Caccini member, who wanted to establish the new school of operatic singing
National Schools of Singing:
- Italian ideal: 6-7 vibratory oscillations/second; chiaro and scuro qualities balanced, use of appoggio
- French ideal: Faster vibrato, simulating voce di capra “goat voice,” stresses accuracy of language above all else (4 nasal vowels), excessive brilliance, “voix blanche,” perhaps shallower production and overall support than Italian School
- German: More modified vowels, generally wider pharynx and lower larynx creating a darker, rounder quality, slower vibrato, depressed tongue (to Italians, was “tono sporco”- dirty tone!)
- English: choral tradition, preferred light, “boy soprano” types of sounds (close to Italian aesthetic), conversational, “cathedral tone” (straight
- tone)
"Old Italian School:"
- Maintained singers used only 2 registers, chest/head (in 18th century expanded to include more, in 19th several 3-register theories competed); advocated unification of registers so there would be no noticeable shift in quality, but offered little practical advice on how to achieve this
- Old Italian School of Singing, exclusive text on subject
- Most common school of vocal instruction in 18th-19th centuries, dates from beginning of virtuoso era in late 16th century
Vocal Tremulousness:·
- Most familiar form, “vibrato,” (medium rate of oscillation) defined by Carl Seashore as: “a pulsation of pitch, usually accompanied with synchronous pulsations of loudness and timbre, of such an extent and rate as to give a pleasing flexibility, tenderness, and richness to the tone.” He adds a "bad" vibrato is “any periodic pulsation of pitch, loudness, or timbre which singly or in combination fails to produce a pleasing flexibility, tenderness, and richness of tone;” Seashore was also a professional psychologist, who believed that the musical beauty in vibrato consisted of 1) enrichment of tone, 2) flexibility of tone, 3) the expression of tender feeling through instability; opposed to “thinness, rigidity, coldness” of straight tone
- Carl Seashore’s vibrato studies in the 1920s and 1930s hugely comprehensive, examined aspects of vibrato such as rate, compass/extent, timbre,
degree, and artistic implications for listeners; determined that “good” vibrato has a oscillation of approximately a semitone, and a rate of
6-7cycles/second (Iowa Studies found acceptable vibratos generally at 5-8/second) - Maintained by Stark to likely reflect the natural periodic tremor of muscles under stress, and, therefore, are a component of natural vocal production
- A “trill” is another such ornament, presented in a rapid alternation between two adjacent notes, perhaps using the same pulse that drives vibrato
- A “laryngeal trill,” or “glottal articulation,” (fastest) is characterized by the reiteration of a single pitch, in which a steady stream of tone is partially interrupted by the rapid opening and closing of the arytenoid cartilages, resulting in a quasi-staccato effect (used by children to imitate machine guns or horses’ whinney, or a giggle); this may also be used to help facilitate rapid passages
- Finally, “respiratory impulse,” in which respiratory muscles are consciously used to rapidly raise and lower subglottal pressure on either a
single pitch or in florid passages (slowest rate) - Possible that a single singer, Giovanni-Battista Rubini, was responsible for introducing the vibrato to the operatic stage at the Paris Opera in the 1830
Voce Finta/Feigned Voice/Messa Voce:
- Isaac Nathan (1790-1864)’s description of a light vocal emission especially useful for passing between head and chest; Reid called a combination of the
lyric of falsetto with the “bite” of chest; Miller said was only allowed in “Old Italian School” for occasional coloration - Messa voce is a technique for the male voice to ascend through the passaggi with loose phonation and a relaxed pharynx, resulting in a sound weak in high-frequency partials, and sounding like a quiet “half-voice” (one of the means Garcia defined as a possible way for male singers to cover break, compared to heightened pharyngeal contraction/more “muscular” approach; he considered the former less potentially damaging than the latter)
Types of Vocal Ornamentation:
- Groppetto/gruppo: Early names for the vocal trill (some pedagogues argue employed glottal articulation)
- Trillo: Rapid reiteration of single note, not universally admired by vocalists or audiences, faded from use by 1640s
History/Vocabulary Study Aids:
voice.pedagogy.vocabulary.sheet.mcpherrin.com.techvocab.pdf | |
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