It is a matter of complaint among all persons of good taste, who take an intelligent interest in art, and especially in music, that fine singers are becoming more and more rare, while formerly there appears never to have been any lack of men and women eminent in this art. The complaint seems not altogether without reason, when we revert to that rich summer-time of song, not yet lying very far behind us, in the last half of the last century, and compare it with the present. The retrospect shows us plainly that the art of singing has descended from its former high estate, and is now in a condition of decline. When we consider what is told us in the historical works of Forkel, Burney, Kiesewetter, Brendel and others, and compare it with our present poverty in good voices and skilful artists, we are struck with the multitude of fine voices then heard, with their remarkable fulness of tone, as well as with the considerable number of singers—male and female—appearing at the same time.

We first recall to mind the last great artists of that time, whose names are familiar to us because they appeared in public after the beginning of the present century:—Catalani, who preserved to extreme old age the melody and enormous power of her voice; Malibran, Sontag, Vespermann, &c.; the men singers, Rubini, Tamburini, Lablache, and others; and, still farther back, Mara, whose voice had a compass, with equal fulness of tone, of three octaves, and who possessed such a power of musical utterance that she imitated within the compass of her voice the most difficult passages of the violin and flute with perfect facility. Then comes the artiste Ajugara Bastardella, in Parma, who executed with purity and distinctness the most difficult passages from si (b) to si (b³), and roulades with successive trills, with enchanting harmony; and the old Italian singing-masters, who sang and taught with an art which we should scarcely hold possible, were it not for the unanimous testimony of their contemporaries. There were Porpora and his pupil Perugia, who sang two full octaves, with successive trills up and down in one breath, and executed with perfect exactness all the tones of the chromatic scale without an accompaniment; and Farinelli, who to his latest age preserved his wonderfully beautiful voice. Of him it is related, among other things, that on one occasion he competed with a trumpeter, who accompanied him in an aria. After both had several times dwelt on notes in which each sought to excel the other in power and duration, they prolonged a note with a double trill in thirds, which they continued until both seemed to be exhausted. At last the trumpeter gave up, entirely out of breath, while Farinelli, without taking breath, prolonged the note with renewed volume of sound, trilling and ending, finally, with the most difficult of roulades. Pistochi and Bernucchi rivalled Farinelli. The latter, although he had received from nature a refractory voice of little excellence, nevertheless succeeded in cultivating it so highly that he became one of the most distinguished artists of his day, called by HÄndel and Graun, “The King of Singers.”

It is impossible to mention by name all the many singers, male and female, who won applause and renown in the beginning and in the middle of the last century. Almost every European state was furnished with most excellent operas, and troops of artists, men and women, with voices of the highest cultivation, flocked thither. Even in the streets and inns and other places in Italy, where elsewhere we are accustomed to seek only music of the lowest kind, one could then hear the most artistic vocal music, such as was found in the churches, concert-saloons and theatres of Germany and France.

It appears that far greater demands were made upon singers then than now-a-days. At least, history celebrates, together with the great vocal flexibility of the earlier singers, the measured beauty of their singing, the noble tone, the thoroughly cultivated delivery, by which they showed themselves true artists, and produced upon their hearers effects almost miraculous.

On the other hand, how sad is the condition of vocal music in our time! How few artistically cultivated voices are there! And the few that there are, how soon are they used up and lost! Artists like Lind, and more recently Trebelli, are exceptions to be made.

Mediocre talent is now often sought, and rewarded far beyond its desert. One is often tempted to think that the public at large has wellnigh lost all capacity of judgment, when he witnesses the representation of one of our operas. Let a singer, male or female, only drawl the notes sentimentally one into another, execute a tremulo upon prolonged notes, introduce very often the softest piano and just where it is entirely out of place, growl out the lowest notes in the roughest timbre, and scream out the high notes lustily, and he or she may reckon with certainty upon the greatest applause. In fact, we have become so easily pleased that even an impure execution is suffered to pass without comment. Let the personal appearance of the singer only be handsome and prepossessing, he need trouble himself little about his art in order to win the favor of the public. This decline of the art of singing is usually ascribed to the want of good voices, and this poverty of voices to our altered modes of living. To me it appears as the natural consequence of the whole manner and way in which the art of singing has been historically developed since its earlier high state of perfection.

The human voice is, of all instruments, the most natural, the most perfect, the most intimate in its relation to us, as, for the use of it, we have a talent or faculty innate, which, in the case of other instruments, can only be laboriously acquired, to say nothing of the fact that these instruments are first to be invented and put together. Hence vocal music appears to have been almost the only music among the Greeks, and the rude instruments then in use served merely for an accompaniment. The history of our so-called Western music, which dates no farther back than the fourth century after Christ, tells us hardly anything else than of vocal musicians and of their compositions for concerted and chorus singing.

Our art, only slowly developing itself from those earliest times, was cherished, mainly in Italy, for the sole purpose of exalting divine worship. We have, at least, no account of any secular art of music in those days. As yet unacquainted with harmony, the only singing was in unison, as was the custom, at an earlier period, among the Greeks; for not until the tenth century of the Christian era was it attempted, and then by a Flemish monk (Hukbaldus), to harmonize several and different notes; thus was invented and founded our harmony, whose exponent was the organ.1

From that time forward, history makes mention of many persons who labored worthily, now more and now less, to create a theory of music, seeking to found a system of harmony upon that rude beginning, and by degrees to improve it. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries music burst forth into blossom in the Netherlands, and thenceforth rose steadily in excellence, when also it began to branch out into the excesses of counterpoint. The fame of the Netherlands soon spread over all the civilized countries of Europe. The artists of the Netherlands were invited upon the most favorable terms to Italy, France, Spain, and Germany, and thus the progress of music spread over all these countries almost pari passu. For two hundred years the Netherlands maintained the reputation of the best and highest culture in vocal music, and not until the middle of the sixteenth century did there appear in Italy and Germany artists who attained to a like renown. Up to that time prejudice denied to the Italians all talent for music, as it has ever since exaggerated their claims in this respect. Kiesewetter remarks, in his History of Music, that, although the Netherlands in Italy no longer had the monopoly, they nevertheless always maintained the supremacy in music. Climate and language were, however, so favorable to vocal music in Italy that it soon found there its peculiar home, and though theoretical knowledge of music was advanced by the earlier singers, now richness and power of voice were also attained. As it had previously been with the Netherlanders, so it now became with the Italians. They were drawn to all countries in which there was any love of art; and they soon won that supremacy in music which they maintained until the last century. Until the latter part of the sixteenth century, good musicians were devoted almost exclusively to church music, and held it beneath their dignity to take part in music of any other kind. All but church music they left to the minstrels and strolling singers, who traveled over the country from place to place, and in different lands were styled minstrels, minnesÄnger and trovatori. They mostly sung love-songs, which they often extemporized in word and tune, finding place and popularity on all festive occasions. But under the impulse which music began to feel, the desire among the educated class to revive the old Greek drama, which just at that period had come to be well known, became more and more urgent. Imbued with the spirit of that age, the whole tendency of which was to exalt the ancient classic poets, a circle of men of science and culture from the higher classes gave themselves to the task of producing a style of music such as the Greeks must have had in the representation of their dramas. In the mansion of Count Bardi, in Florence, then the centre of union for all who had any claims to cultivation, music was first arranged for a single voice by a dilettante, the father of the renowned Galileo.

This attempt met with applause and imitation among the most distinguished singers of the time, who thenceforth turned their attention also to secular music. It thus came about that, towards the end of the sixteenth century, on festal occasions in Italy, and even earlier in France, theatrical representations were given with vocal music. This music was, however, always composed in the form of the chorus, and the leading voice alone was represented by a singer; the other voices were represented by instruments.

Such was the beginning of solo singing, which, growing ever more in public favor, soon came to be introduced into the most solemn church music; dramatic representations, religious and secular, grew very popular, and were the forerunners of the opera and oratorio, the richest inventions of the sixteenth century.

Up to this time, a singer of sound musical culture sufficed for chorus singing, but by the introduction of solo singing a more complete education of the organ of singing became a necessity. Indeed, as early as the middle of the fifteenth century there existed in Rome and Milan schools of music and professorships for the education of singers; but with the introduction and diffusion of solo singing similar conservatories were established in nearly all the more considerable cities of Italy, and all the energies of the musician were devoted to the highest possible culture of the voice.

But, with solo singing, greater attention was paid to instruments, which were already in those days constructed with the greatest care and skill. With the higher cultivation of single voices, chorus singing also became richer in harmony and embellishment, but as, in vocal music, words accompany the music, the expression of the music becomes more definite and intelligible for the hearer, and thus with the higher cultivation of vocal music, and by means of it, even our whole modern system of harmony has been developed.

Women were, by ecclesiastical law, excluded from participation in church music, and as the voices of boys could be used only for a few years, they did not suffice to meet the ever-increasing demands of church music. At first it was attempted to supply the place of the sopranists and contraltists with so-called falsettists. As, however, these substitutes proved insufficient, the soprano and contralto of boys were sought to be preserved in men. And so, in 1625, appeared the first male sopranist in the Papal chapel in Rome. Such sopranists and contraltists soon appeared in great numbers, and as their organs of singing continued soft and tender as those of women, and their compass was the same, to them the education of female voices was given over exclusively. Thenceforth women became the richest ornament of the opera, then blooming into beauty. But only when the ecclesiastical law forbidding women to take part in church music was annulled, did women begin, in the middle of the last century, to take the place of those male sopranists and contraltists.

It thus became unnecessary to secure longer duration to the voices of boys, especially as these were never able to attain to the peculiar grace of the female voice, and so this class of singers gradually died out. But still in the first half of the present century there were many of them living and sought for as teachers of singing. To the disappearance of this kind of singers, Rossini thinks the decline of vocal art is to be mainly ascribed.

The art of singing rose in the course of the seventeenth century to an extraordinary height of cultivation, and was diffused more and more by means of the opera, then blooming, as we have said, into beauty. But in that brilliant springtime of vocal art, it was not mere externals, such as beauty of tone, flexibility, etc., that were striven for, but, above all, the correct expression of the feeling intended in the composition. This rendered necessary to the singer the most thorough Æsthetic culture, going hand in hand with the culture of the vocal organ. For only thus could he succeed in acting upon the souls of his hearers, in moving them and carrying them along with him in the emotions which the music awakened in his own mind. The dramatic singer was now strongly tempted to neglect the externals of his art for the Æsthetic, purely inward conception of the music. Certain, at least, it is that to the neglect of the training of the voice (Tonbildung), and to the style of writing of our modern composers—a style unsuited to the art of singing, and looking only to its spiritual element—the decline of this art is in part to be traced. Mannstein says that, with the disappearance of those great masters, power and beauty of tone have fallen more and more into contempt, and at the present day it is scarcely known what is meant by them. True it is, that a beautiful tone of voice (Gesangston), which must be considered the foundation and first requisition of fine singing, is more and more rare among our singers, male and female, and yet it is just as important in music as perfect form in the creations of the sculptor.

But the complete technical education of the earlier singers misled many of them into various unnatural artifices, in order to obtain notice and distinction. The applause of the public caused such trickeries to become the fashion among artists. The multitude, accustomed to such effects, began to mistake them for art. By the gradual disappearance of the male sopranists, instruction in singing fell into the hands of tenor singers, who usually cultivated the female voice in accordance with their own voices, which could not be otherwise than injurious in the uncertainty existing as to the limits in compass and the difference between the male and female organs of voice.

Thus it has come to pass that people are now apt to imagine that they know all that is to be known; and as teaching in singing is generally best paid, the office has been undertaken, without the slightest apparent self-distrust, by many persons who have not the slightest idea what thorough acquaintance with the organs of singing, what comprehensive knowledge of all the departments of music and what Æsthetic and general culture, the teacher of singing requires. Very few persons indeed clearly understand what is meant by the education of a voice, and what high qualifications both teacher and pupil always require. The idea, for instance, is very prevalent that every musician, whatever may be the branch of music to which he is devoted, and especially every singer, is qualified to give instruction in singing. And therefore a dilettanteism without precedent has taken the place of all real artistic endeavors. Be this, however, as it may, such is the wide diffusion and popularity of music beyond all the other arts, that the want of singers artistically educated, and consequently also of a recognized sound method of instruction, becomes more and more urgent; and although we have in these times distinguished singers, male and female, as well as skilful teachers, yet the number is very small and by no means equal to the demand.

But now, as every evil, as soon as it is felt to be such, calls forth the means of its removal, already in various ways attempts are making in the department of the Art of Singing to restore it as perfectly as possible to its former high position, and if possible to elevate it to a yet higher state. It was natural that the attempt should, first of all, be made to revive the old Italian method of instruction, and that, by strict adherence in everything to what has come down to us by tradition, we should hope for deliverance and salvation; for to the Italians mainly vocal music was indebted for its chief glory. Without considering in what a sadly superficial way music—and vocal music especially—is now treated in Italy, many have given in to the erroneous idea that any Italian who can sing anything must know how to educate a voice. Thus many incompetent Italians have become popular teachers in other countries.

The old Italian method of instruction, to which vocal music owed its high condition, was purely empirical, i. e., the old singing masters taught only according to a sound and just feeling for the beautiful, guided by that faculty of acute observation, which enabled them to distinguish what belongs to nature. Their pupils learned by imitation, as children learn their mother tongue, without troubling themselves about rules. But after the true and natural way has once been forsaken, and for so long a period only the false and the unnatural has been heard and taught, it seems almost impossible by empiricism alone to restore the old and proper method of teaching. With our higher degree of culture, men and things have greatly changed. Our feeling is no longer sufficiently simple and natural to distinguish the true without the help of scientific principles.

But science has already done much to assist the formation of musical forms of art. Mathematics and physics have established the principal laws of sound and the processes of sound, in accordance with which our musical instruments are now constructed. Philosophical inquirers have succeeded also in discovering the eternal and impregnable laws of Nature upon which the mutual influences of melody, harmony and rhythm depend, and in thus giving to composition fixed forms and laws which no one ventures to question. And more recently Professor Helmholtz, in his great work, “Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen,” has given to music of all kinds a scientific ground and basis. But for the culture of the human voice in singing science has as yet furnished only a few lights. The well-known experiments of Johannes MÜller upon the larynx gave us all that was known, until very recently, respecting the functions of the organ of singing. Many singing masters have sought to found their methods of instruction upon these observations on the larynx, at the same time putting forth the boldest conjectures in regard to the functions of the organ of singing in the living subject. But they have thus ruined more fine voices than those teachers who, without reference to the formation of the voice, only correct the musical faults of their pupils, and for the rest let them sing as they please.

This superficial treatment of science, and the unfortunate results of its application, have injured the art of singing more than benefited it, and created a prejudice against all scientific investigations in this direction among the most distinguished artists and teachers, as well as among those who take an intelligent interest in this department of music. It is a pretty common opinion that science can do little for the improvement of music, and nothing for the culture and preservation of the voice in singing. And the habit of regarding science and art as opposed to each other renders it extremely difficult to secure a hearing for the results of thorough scientific inquiry in this direction.

Science itself admits that it can neither create artistic talent, nor supply the place of it, but only furnish it with aids. Besides, with the whole inner nature of music, no forms of thought (reflection) have anything to do. It has “a reason above reason.” This art transmits to us in sound the expression of emotions as they rise in the human soul and connect themselves one with another. It is the revelation of our inmost life in its tenderest and finest processes, and is therefore the most ideal of the arts. It appeals directly to our consciousness. As a sense of the divine dwells in every nation, in every human being, and is impelled to form for itself a religious cultus, so we find among all nations the need of music dwelling as deeply in human nature. The most uncivilized tribes celebrate their festivals with songs as the expression of their devotion or joy, and the cultivated nations of ancient times, like the Greeks, cherished music as the ethereal vehicle of their poetry, and regarded it as the chief aid in the culture of the soul.

But together with its purely internal character, music has yet another and formal side, for if our art consisted only in the Æsthetic feeling, and in representing this feeling, every person of culture, possessing the right feeling, would be able to sing, just as he understands how to read intelligibly.

Everything spiritual, everything ideal, as soon as it is to be made present to the perceptions of others, requires a form which, in its material as well as in its structure, may be more or less perfect, but it can never otherwise than submit to those eternal laws to which all that lives, all that comes within the sphere of our perceptions, is subject. To discover and establish the natural laws which lie at the basis of all our forms of art is the office of science; to fashion and control these forms and animate them with a soul is the task of art. In singing, the art consists in tones beautiful and sonorous, and fitted for the expression of every variation of feeling. To set forth the natural laws by which these tones are produced is the business of physiology and physics.

Thus is there not only an Æsthetical side to the art of singing, but a physiological and a physical side also, without an exact knowledge, appreciation, observance, and study of which, what is hurtful cannot be discerned and avoided; and no true culture of art, and consequently no progress in singing, is possible.

In the physiological view of vocal art, we have to do with the quality and strength of the organ of singing in the act of uttering sound, and under the variations of sound that take place in certain tones (the register being transcended).

By the physical side is to be understood the correct use and skilful management of the air flowing from the lungs through the windpipe, and brought into vibration by the vocal chords in the larynx.

But the Æsthetics of vocal art, and the spiritual inspiration of the form (of the sound), comprise the whole domain of music and poetic beauty.