Style in Singing Part 6

[Music: "J'ai perdu mon Eurydice"

Sort cruel, quelle rigueur! Je succombe a ma douleur, a ma douleur, a ma douleur!

(As sung by Mme. Viardot-Garcia, Theatre-Lyrique, Paris; the part being restored to the original voice and key, but the change at the end, made for Legros, retained.)]

The finale to the first act was also changed; a tumultuous "hurry" for strings, evidently designed to accompany the change of scene to Hades, being now replaced by a florid air, probably introduced at the desire of the princ.i.p.al singer as a medium for the display of his vocal virtuosity; a concession often exacted from composers of opera. This interpolated air was for a long time attributed to a composer--Bertoni--who had himself composed an opera on the subject of _Orphee_. Later researches have, however, proved that this air is by Gluck himself, taken from _Aristeo_, one of his earlier works. When the famous revival of _Orphee_ took place at the old Theatre-Lyrique in Paris, the role of Orphee was restored to the type of voice--contralto--for which it was originally composed, and confided to Mme. Pauline Viardot-Garcia. She retained the air introduced for the tenor Legros, but of course transposed, and with a reorchestration by Camille Saint-Saens; the now famous composer having at that time, by the request of Berlioz, undertaken to continue and complete the revision of Gluck's complete works, known as the Pelletan Edition.[3]

[Footnote 3: See very interesting article signed C. Saint-Saens in the _echo de Paris_ for July 23, 1911.]

Other changes from the first Italian score were also made by Gluck in the later French version. Here is an example; being the recitative immediately preceding the great air of Orpheus in the last act:

[Music: (Original Italian version, as written for Vienna.)

Misero me! la perdo, e di nuovo, e per sempre! O legge! O morte! O ricordo crudel! Non ho soccorso, non m'avanza consiglio! Io veggo solo (Oh fiera vista!) il luttuoso aspetto dell'orrido mio stato! Saziati, sorte rea! son disperato!]

[Music:

C'est moi, c'est moi, qui lui ravis le jour.

Loi fatale! Cruel remords!

Ma peine est sans egale, Dans ce moment funeste, Le desespoir, la mort, C'est tout ce qui me reste!

(As written for the Paris version, the role of Orphee being then sung by a tenor.)]

[Music:

C'est moi, c'est moi, qui lui ravis le jour.

Loi fatale! Cruel remords!

Ma peine est sans egale, Dans ce moment funeste, Le desespoir, la mort, C'est tout ce qui me reste!

(As sung by Mme. Viardot-Garcia, the role being then restored to the contralto voice as in the Italian version, while the changes made by Gluck for the Paris version were retained. This is now definitively adopted at the Opera-Comique.)]

Again, discrepancies exist between various published copies of the same work, arising from the fact that sometimes the editors of these revisions may have mistaken the intentions of the composer. Or, influenced by pardonable human vanity, they may have felt impelled to collaborate more directly with the composer, by adding something of their own.

There is valid reason for the additional accompaniments, with which Mozart has enriched the original scores of Handel's _Messiah_ and _Alexander's Feast_; and we have evidence of the skill, and can divine the reverence, with which these additions were accomplished. But how fatal would have been the results, had the delicate task been attempted by one in whom these qualities were lacking! Also, there is every excuse for the additions made to Gluck's _Armide_ by Meyerbeer for the Opera of Berlin; and we have the direct testimony of Saint-Saens, who has examined this rescoring, as to the rare ability and artistic discretion with which the work has been done.[4]

[Footnote 4: See _echo de Paris_, _op. cit._]

From this evidence it appears that in the score as left by Gluck, the trombones do not appear at all in _Armide_. The drums, and stranger still, the flutes, are heard only at rare intervals; while the whole orchestration--sometimes a pale sketch of the composer's intentions--shows a haste and lack of care in marked contrast with the pains bestowed on the scoring of _Alceste_, _Iphigenie_, and _Orphee_.

The revisions and additions spoken of were undertaken by highly competent authorities, actuated only by the wish to restore in its purity the idea of the composer; and who to zeal, added the more valuable quality of discretion.

Ancient music, owing to the development of and changes in the instruments for which it was composed, can rarely be given as written by the author. Even if the instruments of modern invention be eliminated, the orchestra of to-day is not the orchestra of Handel.

The oboe, for example, has so gained in penetrating power that one instrument to each part now suffices; in Handel's time the feeble tone of the oboe rendered a considerable number necessary. The perfection of certain instruments, too, is the cause of modifications in the music written for them. The limited compa.s.s of the pianoforte, for example, was certainly the sole reason why Beethoven failed to continue in octaves the entire ascending scale in one of his sonatas.

Had the piano in his day possessed its present compa.s.s, he would undoubtedly have written the pa.s.sage throughout in octaves, _i.e._, as modern pianists play it. If a rigid adherence to the printed letter of ancient music is to be strictly observed, without consideration of the many causes that render this procedure undesirable, let consistency be observed by pus.h.i.+ng the argument to its logical conclusion, _viz._, returning to the instruments used, and the composition of the orchestra that obtained, when these works were written. Those who accuse artists of introducing changes, of not performing the music as the composer wrote it, should be quite sure as to what the composer really did write, since many changes are made both before and after the work is printed. They should also be certain that these changes are not such as the composer may have, or would have, sanctioned, seeing that by their use his meaning is more clearly expressed.

At the _Concerts Spirituels_, given at the Church of the Sorbonne, Paris, may be heard very excellent performances of Oratorio by ancient and modern composers, from Handel and Bach to Claude Debussy; though I do not know whether or no _l'Enfant prodigue_ (The Prodigal Son), by Debussy, is properly styled an oratorio, seeing that it was recently given in London on the stage as an opera. These performances at the Sorbonne are marked by a reverential attention to detail; the soloists, chorus and orchestra being very competent, and the conductor--M. Paul de Saunieres--a musician of ability and experience.

In spite of these great advantages, however, the works of several of the old cla.s.sic composers suffer somewhat, by certain authentic traditions and conventions being either unknown or ignored. To cite only one instance out of many: At the Sorbonne, the opening bars of the second movement of the Recit. in _The Messiah_, "Comfort ye my people," etc., are performed as printed:

[Music: The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness]

This music is written in the Italian "manner," consequently its performance should be in conformity with the usages and conventions which obtained when the work was composed. One of these, as I have pointed out, was the subst.i.tution of one note for another in certain places; another, that in declamatory recitative, or _recitativo parlante_, the chord in the orchestra should come _after_ the voice ("_dopo la parola_"). These words appear in many scores of the Italian operas, even of the present day. But when they do not, the musical director is supposed to be familiar with the custom. The following, therefore, is the authentic mode of performing the pa.s.sage in question:

[Music: The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness]

Apart from these defects in the rendering of the ancient cla.s.sics, it would be unjust not to acknowledge the great artistic merit and value of the performances, given--as Oratorio should be--in the church. To hear _l'Enfance du Christ_ (Berlioz) as performed at the Sorbonne, with its particular facilities for obtaining the _ppp_ effects of the distant or receding angelic chorus, is to be impressed to a degree impossible of attainment in the concert-room.

Let those purists who resent any "tampering"--as they term it--with the composers' music listen to the following phrase, sung as it is printed in the ordinary editions:

[Music: the first-fruits _of_ them that sleep.]

Then let them hear it given according to the authentic and accepted tradition, and say which of the two versions most faithfully interprets the composer's meaning.

[Music: the first-fruits of _them_ that sleep.]

Let us now consider alterations which do not appear in the printed editions, and yet may have been made or sanctioned by the composer.

In comparison with painting and sculpture, music and the literature of the theatre are not self-sufficing arts. They require an interpreter.

Before a dramatic work can exist completely, scenery, and actors to give it voice and gesture, are necessary; before music can be anything more than hieroglyphics, the signs must be trans.m.u.ted into sound by singers or instrumentalists. Wagner embodied this truth in his pathetic reference to _Lohengrin_: "When ill, miserable and despairing, I sat brooding over my fate, my eye fell on the score of my _Lohengrin_, which I had totally forgotten. Suddenly I felt something like compa.s.sion lest the music might never sound from off the death-pale paper." In other words, _Lohengrin_, though finished in every detail, was merely potential music. To make it anything more, the aid of singers and orchestra are essential.

Composers and dramatic authors, in fact, _create_ their art-works; but it is their interpreters--actors, singers, instrumentalists--who _animate_ them, who breathe life into them. One of the inevitable consequences is, that the composer's ideal can never be fully attained.

But changes in performance from the printed text of a composition are frequently the work of the composer himself. If really an artist, he is rarely perfectly satisfied with his completed work. The difference between his ideal and his materialization of it, is a source of anguish for him. The journey made by a vision of art from the brain that conceives it to the hand that imprisons it in marble, or depicts it in colour, or pens it in words or music, is a long one. And much grace or power, beauty or grandeur, is inevitably lost on the way.

This is the explanation of the disappointment of all true artists with their creations. This is the origin of their endless strivings to perfect their works; the first embodiment is not a perfect interpretation of the artist's inspiration, and further reflection has revealed to him an improvement. The process is endless.

_A man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what is Heaven for?_

If one wishes to surprise genius labouring to give birth to perfection, one should consult the later editions of Victor Hugo's works and note the countless emendations he made after their first publication--here a more fitting word subst.i.tuted, there a line recast, elsewhere an entire verse added, or excised, or remodelled.

This work of incessant revision is not restricted to poets. Composers of genius are also inveterate strivers after perfection, are continually occupied in polis.h.i.+ng and revising their music. And not all the modifications they make, or sanction, are recorded in the printed versions. For many are the outcome of after-thoughts, of ideas suggested during the process of what I have called trans.m.u.ting musical hieroglyphics into sound. Such modifications, usually decided upon in the course of a rehearsal--I am now considering particularly operatic works--are frequently jotted down, a mere scanty memorandum, on the singer's part or the conductor's score. But they are the work of the composer, or have received his approval, and, although not noted in the printed editions of his compositions, are transmitted orally from conductor to conductor, singer to singer, master to pupil. And thus a tradition is perpetuated.

But the question of changes goes even further.

Prior to the advent of Wagner, the singer was allowed great license in operatic works. This license was princ.i.p.ally manifested in a two-fold form. The first is called _pointage_ (French), _puntatura_ (Italian), and means the changing of the notes or contour of a musical phrase; the second is termed _changements_ or _variantes_ (Fr.), _abbellimenti_ or _fioriture_ (It.), and refers to the interpolation and addition of ornaments, _i.e._, embellishments and cadenzas.

POINTAGE

This, as I have said, is the technical term given to the modification or rearrangement of the notes of a phrase, so as to bring it within the natural capabilities of the artist singing the role. A few ill.u.s.trations will make the nature of _pointage_ clear.

In Rossini's _Guillaume Tell_, although it is written in a different style from his former works, whence less necessity for interpolations and modifications, occurs the following terrible pa.s.sage for the princ.i.p.al baritone:

[Music: Mais je connais le poids des fers, mais je connais le poids des fers.]

Every vocalist knows the difficulty experienced in singing very high tones to different syllables, each requiring a different conformation of the buccal cavity. The pa.s.sage quoted--expressing Tell's bitterness at the recollection of his past sufferings in prison, "Well I know the weight of galling chain"--has to be declaimed with great energy. So far as the relative value of the notes is concerned, it is entirely _ad libitum_, the rhythmical figure in the orchestra having ceased one half-bar before. It is said that Dabadie, a _ba.s.so cantante_ rather than baritone, to whom was entrusted the role of Tell on the first production of the work at the Opera, Paris, on August 3, 1829, finding it impossible to sing the phrase as written, had recourse to a professor. He advised the _pointage_ given later. This change became traditional, and has since been followed, except, it is said, in the case of Ma.s.sol, who succeeded Dabadie. He, being possessed of a very sonorous voice of exceptional compa.s.s, was able to give the phrase as written. This change, or _pointage_, must have been heard by Rossini, and so must have been tacitly approved by him. This is the change made by Dabadie:

[Music: Mais je connais le poids des fers, mais je connais le poids des fers.]