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Today while teaching a voice lesson I found it necessary to deliver a short homily on the differences in the way one sings various types of songs.
My student, a young woman with a very pretty voice, brought to me some works she was singing in her chorus. We went over several solo parts that she was interested in performing.
She sings in a very good chorus of young people with a fine conductor. However, I have a few bones to pick with him on some of his ideas.
For one thing, the idea that he has, as do many choral conductors of the present era, that women, especially sopranos, must sing without a trace of vibrato. This idea is apparently based on the singing of men and boys choirs, which is fine when one is dealing with men and boys choirs. But not when one is dealing with mature female voices. Even with young female voices!
Vibrato is a naturally occurring phenomenon in ALL voices, male and female. Even very young voices, when left to sing naturally, have a slight vibrato. This is caused by the air passing through the vocal chords as the involuntary muscles of the larynx produce the pitch. Trying to eliminate this action means one is holding one's larynx.
This is not a very good idea.
Any holding of the larynx, or any other part of the singing body, means one is creating tension. Tension is the enemy of good singing.
We discussed this idea today.
We also discussed some of the differences in solo singing and choral singing. When one is singing in a chorus, one must do what the conductor asks, however good or bad.
When singing a solo, one must follow the best possible use of the voice to produce beautiful sound, clear diction, and effortless singing.
ça va sans dire,
As the French would say.
We also talked about the differences one must be aware of when singing classical music or pop music. Differences in rhythm: in a Schubert song, sing it like he wrote it; in Rodgers and Hammerstein, you can play around with the rhythms and even the tune.
Diction is another changeable part of the equation. In a classical song or aria, one should use more formal, accurate diction than is needed in a pop or show tune.
In every case one must sing freely and clearly to communicate the emotion to one's audience.
But don't trill or flip 'r's' in a pop song. Don't put a schwa after an 'n', 'm' or, 'ng' in any song. This seems to be a favorite of some conductors, even at the Met.
When I attended a dress rehearsal of John Harbison's
Gatsby at the Met, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, singing the role of Myrtle, had been instructed to sing her opening line as 'It's hell, but it's Home-muh'. I was sitting in the audience during a dress rehearsal, taking notes for her. Next to me was her husband, Peter Lieberson. We went backstage during the break and I asked her about this. She said that the Met diction coach want everyone to add the vowel sound after an 'n' or 'm'.
I told her the line came across as 'It's hell, but it's Homer'!
I suggested that when they repeated the scene she sing it once with an 'm-uh' and the next time with a correctly pronounced m- which is a sustained hum.
When Peter and I went back the next time, we both told her to just sing a beautiful 'm' on the word and it would sing to the back of the hall.
And that's how she did it!
I realize that I am very picky about things like diction. I was a student and later a colleague of Madeleine Marshall, and have used her wise advice during my entire teaching career. Madeleine used to say 'I don't care how you speak, but when you sing, it must be clear and natural sounding.
That has been one of my mottos for all my teaching years.
I have covered all of these idea in my various books, I think there are six of them now, but it never hurts to rip off a special blog about wonderful singing!
Yesterday afternoon David and I attended a recital given by Rachel Barton Pine, violinist, presented by Chamber Music Albuquerque at the Simms Center for the Performing Arts.
Ms. Pine is a genuine virtuosa on her instrument, which is a 1740 Guarnieri del Jesu. Her flawless technique and musicianship brought forth a vibrant recital which included no end of musical fireworks.
Her program included Partita No.2 in D Minor, BWV 2004 Of Bach, Sonata Op. 27, No.4 (Fritz Kreisler) by Eugene Ysaye, Recitative and Scherzo, Op 6 of Fritz Kreisler, Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, BWV 1001 of Bach, Asturias (Leyenda) by Issac Albéniz, arr. Pine, Tango Etude No. 3 of Astor Piazzola, arr. Pine, Deep River, Op.59, No 10 by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, and Caprice No 24 by Niccolo Paganini.
This was an enormous undertaking and she brought it off sensationally.
In 1995 Ms. Pine was tragically injured when departing a Metra train in Winnetka, Illinois, near Chicago. Her violin case was caught in the train door as she was leaving the train, which closed on the instrument case which was on her back, dragging her a number of feet and finally pulling her under the train until someone pulled the emergency cord, stopping the train. As a result she lost both of her legs. After this accident the Rail company had to install automatic devices to stop trains in such emergencies.
Ms. Pine chatted with the audience between pieces giving interesting and amusing information about the composers and the compositions.For instance her violin (which she saved in the accident) was chosen by Johannes Brahms for a young violinist whom he was mentoring.
The Coleridge-Taylor work was premiered by Albert Spaulding, famed violinst, whose pianist was André Benoist. He also performed with Heifitz, Tetrazzini, and Casals. Eleanor Benoist, André's daughter in law, and I performed together as Burtis and Benoist in the duo piano repertoire for many years.
The final work on the program, Paganini's Caprice, was the basis for Lutoslawski's Variations on a Theme of Paganini which Eleanor and I performed on our Carnegie Recital Hall debut in 1970.
There are always these interesting connections between music and musicians. All of this made for a memorable afternoon of music brilliantly performed.
I recently heard an organist play the Bach Prelude and Fugue in E Flat on a recital. It made me think about the many ways I have been taught to play Bach on the organ over the years. The rest of the program was forgetable.
My first organ teacher, Helen Roberts Scholl, taught an ultra-legato style of playing Bach. In the 1950's this was they way you did it. So that's what I did.
In 1950 I went to New York City to attend Columbia University and studied at first with the flamboyant Claire Coci. She was the female Virgil Fox of that era and played sensational recitals, in every respect.
Once when in mid recital she reached over to pull out a stop on the organ; it came off in her hand and she threw it over her shoulder without missing a beat and kept playing. She gave me my pedal technique. She also had me start Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue on the Voix Céleste. I thought it was swell.
I then studied with Vernon de Tar who never forgave me for studying with Claire and got rid of the Voix Céleste on the Passacaglia. Everything was still a dead legato.
Vernon became a life-long friend. I interviewed him for my book How to Make your Arm into a Wet Noodle, a study of the techniques of Théodor Leschetizky. (Available at my website. www.hburtis.com) He had studied with a student of the master, as had I.
About this time I did master classes with André Marchal and Finn Videro and began to learn there were other ways of playing Baroque music. I played a Suite of Clérambault for Videro, he praised my playing and then said, 'of course, the French play it differently', never explaining how differently.
Then I met Melville Smith and went to Europe on an organ tour with him and began to learn about notes inégals in French Baroque music. Melville won the Grand Prix du Disc for his recording that year of the organ music of de Grigny.
Then I studied harpsichord with the fabulous Gustav Leonhardt who really taught me what to do with French, Italian, Spanish, and German baroque music. It was a revelation. One of his reviewers called him the greatest keyboard artist of the time!
I also did a master class with André Isoir, the great French Baroque expert. He taught me how to use the 'Baroque' legato, which is much different from the ultra legato I had used.
For years I played German, Spanish, Italian, and French Baroque music on my recitals which took me throughout the USA, the West Indies, and Europe. I played Clérambault in Haderslev and Copenhagen, Denmark, Hamburg and Berlin, Germany, and Vienna Austria. I played Vierne at the Basilique du Sacré Coeur in Paris. Dear Daniel Roth pulled stops for me and at one point lifted my hands from one manuel to another in mid piece.We had very little time to practice on the organ and he said 'I'll take care of everthing'. He did- but it was quite a surprise to me!
In short my evolution as a performer of Baroque music evolved over a number a years.
In 1965 and 1966 I twice performed the complete organ works of Bach, first in my church in Red Bank, NJ and then 14 concerts in 15 weeks at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University, where I had been Associate University Organist and Choirmaster.
The recital I heard recently did none of the above things. Messy playing, too legato, odd hitches in rhythm- well- I remember why I have stopped going to organ recitals.
www.hburtis.com
I have reached the time of life when one finds oneself saying goodbye to lifelong friends much too often. I have just learned that Eleanor Benoist Linley, my duo piano partner and dear friend since the 1960's has died after a long illness.
Last week it was Phyllis Curtin. At age 86 I guess this is to be expected.
Eleanor and I first met in 1960-something when the Monmouth County American Guild of Organists, of which we were both members, asked us to do a joint report on Felix Mendelssohn. We found that we enjoyed working together and Eleanor began organ lessons with me.
At about that time I was gifted two Steinway pianos and we decided just for fun to read the two-piano literature together. After a bit we would invite friends to my home in Middletown, NJ, for informal recitals which were basically sight-reading. After a couple of years of this we decided we should stop sight-reading in public and actually practice. This led to our New York debut as 'Burtis and Benoist' in Steinway Hall. This was followed by a two piano concert in what was then Carnegie Recital Hall and later a piano four-hands concert in the same venue. We toured throughout the United States.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
"A program chosen with unusual taste and played with much skill was
presented by Herbert Burtis and Eleanor Benoist, duo-pianists, in
Carnegie Recital Hall Monday night. Except for the Bach C major
Concerto, the music came from the 20th century: Poulenc's Sonata and
Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations, played with some regularity, and
Riegger's Three Dances and Rorem's Four Dialogues presented with such
rarity as to seem like novelties. What was most satisfactory about the
performance was the kind of sonorities developed by the two artists. The
Poulenc had a full, shining texture, whereas the Bach was appropriately
dry and clear. Riegger's dances had strength and richness, the
Lutoslawski a virtuosic brilliance".....Raymond Ericson.
We continued to perform together until 2006 when the poor health of John Ferris made it impossible for me to commute back and forth to New Jersey to teach or to work with Elli.
Over the years she sent me many young singers from her High School music program for study. When Ellie and Herbie Linley, her second husband, were at the House of the Redeemer on East 95th Street just off Fifth Avenue, we often performed in the amazing library of what had been the Fabri mansion.
We were a great match musically and emotionally, finishing each others thoughts.
A part of me seems to have gone missing with her death.
My dear friend Phyllis Curtin died yesterday after a long illness. Her career as an opera and oratorio singer, recitalist, promoter of modern music, and teacher is legend.
I have known Phyllis since the 1950's. She was one of the stars at New York City Opera, performing in The New York City Center on 55th Street in those days. I still have a vivid picture of her sitting on the roof of the cabin in the set of Carlisle Floyd's opera Susannah, singing 'Ain't it a pretty night?', her long dark hair flowing in the stage moon light and her silver voice reaching out to her rapt audience. Magic!
I saw her perform many times during our lives. When she sang the part of Kate in Vittorio Gianinni's opera The Taming of the Shrew, I saw every performance of it that season. I knew Vittorio and my very good friend, Dorothy Fee, was the librettist for the work. I was her escort to all the performances. A rare experience.
Dorothy told me that when she and Vittorio were putting the words to the music, he would phone her and say, 'Dottie! I need more words. I'm in the middle of the aria and have run out of text!' Dorothy told me that she did not want to try to compete with the Bard of Avon poetically, so she would borrow his own words from Romeo and Juliet or the Sonnets. It was all Shakespeare!
I remember hearing Phyllis sing Pierrot Lunaire in Memorial Hall at Harvard when I was teaching there. My seat was in the front row, directly in front of her. She sang this difficult work effortlessly, looking serene and lovely. She was wearing a gorgeous gown and open-toed shoes and I could see her toe keeping very accurate time throughout. I thought that was wonderful and fun and told her about it later in our friendship.
I heard her at the Met, in recital; she even occasionally sang in oratorio at the Church of The Ascension on Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street where my organ teacher, the great Vernon de Tar, was the chorus master.
As we both grew older I would sometimes go visit her at her home in Great Barrington and we would have a great afternoon talking about singers, technique, music, life. These times were very enjoyable for me and I think she liked them as well.
Phyllis and I both studied with the great Olga Averino, whom I still quote in nearly every voice lesson I teach. Phyllis worked with her at Wellesley in her student days and I worked with her later when I went to Harvard to teach. We both adored her!
Once, when one of my students was planning to sing an audition with 'Ain't it a Pretty Night?', I asked Phyllis if she would hear her and make suggestions as to presentation.
Kate sang for Phyllis and Phyllis told her, 'When you sing this aria you must look far into space and sing into infinity.'
I am positive that is what Phyllis is doing right now!
