Voice
In the beginning was the voice. Voice is sounding breath, the audible sign of life.
Singing, the vocal production of musical tones, is so basic to man its origins are long lost in antiquity and predate the development of spoken language. The voice is presumed to be the original musical instrument, and there is no human culture, no matter how remote or isolated, that does not sing. Not only is singing ancient and universal, in primitive cultures it is an important function associated not so much with entertainment or frivolity as with matters vital to the individual, social group, or religion. Primitive man sings to invoke his gods with prayers and incantations, celebrate his rites of passage with chants and songs, and recount his history and heroics with ballads and epics. There are even cultures that regard singing as such an awesome act they have creation myths relating that they were sung into existence.
Throughout its history, opera has consistently presented singers with the greatest challenges of any vocal genre. Pertinent steps in the development of opera (conveniently, the longest active span of any musical form) now become the path of choice in tracing the evolution of vocal performance.
The German genius, Richard Wagner (1813-1883), dominated the first half of this period, and no other person, before or since, has had such a profound effect on opera and singing. His ideas developed in detail and application over his lifetime, and it is their most advanced state that is summarized here.
Wagner felt he had reached a higher level of integration between music and drama than the term opera conveyed, and preferred to style his works ‘dramas’. They are now called music dramas. He wrote both the text and the music and shaped them, in the spirit of the time, as GESAMTKUNSTWERKEN . An important tool in achieving this integration was the Leitmotiv (leading motive), a device that strongly bonded dramatic meaning to a musical idea. It involved assigning a brief melodic theme or harmonic sequence (a motive) a specific dramatic meaning. There could be such a motive for each person, thing or concept in the story: a spear motive, a sword motive, an earth motive, a magic fire motive, a redemption-through -love motive, etc. When one of these dramatic entities or concepts appeared in the story, it was attended by its own special music. These motives were worked into the orchestral material in a stream-of -consciousness manner, and with a little foreknowledge of their significance a listener could understand the basic story line without even hearing the singers. Used in another way, the motives could convey such subtleties as the true intent or thoughts of a character, even when the words he sang said something else: If a treachery motive is played as the villain is mouthing assurances, the audience would know, even if his victim did not, that he cannot be trusted. Wagner’s development of this material was remarkable. Often several motives would be sounded simultaneously to create a complex, interwoven tapestry of sound and meaning, or a motive would be altered slightly to suggest some change in the condition of its dramatic counterpart. It was such a direct and useful link between music and dramatic communication that virtually every theatrical composer since Wagner has used the idea, from the Kiss Motive in Verdi’s Otello, to the throbbing bass pattern announcing the presence of the shark in the Jaws movies.
Wagner’s coeval and Italian counterpart, Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901), inherited the mantle of Italian Romantic opera from his predecessors and sustained it, almost single-handedly, for over half a century. His ideas, like Wagner’s, developed and changed during that span, but essentially he remained bound to the traditional number (unitized) format of opera, the idea of the vocal artist as the primary protagonist of the drama, and the accompaniment function of the orchestra. Only in his final works did he abandon the number opera system and employ the continuous music mode of his German rival.
Verdi gradually minimized his use of the cabaletta form (it was as forced, dramatically, as the da capo aria had been) and eventually learned to seek sound dramatic situations in the libretti he set. His devotion to the dramatic baritone voice type (he frequently used it in leading roles) did much to popularize its use. Verdi wrote little for the lyric voice, and it was his creation of a basic repertoire for the dramatic voice that was his most important contribution to singing. The opera Il Trovatore (1853) represents his mid-career style:
The vocal parts are very demanding. Azucena, a mezzo-soprano, has to sing a high C. Luna, a baritone, has to hold a high G. Manrico’s stretta is a tough test of a tenor’s power and vocal technique. Leonora’s “D’amor sull’ali rosee” is a bel canto masterpiece: a seventeen-note run, from the high C to low A, always following the orchestra’s speed.
- –Joseph Wechsberg, Verdi
In Italy, a new operatic school called verismo (realism) had developed. It did away with period costumes, gods and castles and cast its stories in a contemporary frame. Real sweat (social injustice), real blood (treachery and torture) and real situations (desertion and infidelity) were what these composers wanted in their libretti. Musically, they continued Verdi’s course and wrote melodious scores in the continuous music format; the orchestra served an accompaniment function, while dramatic voices and high-note climaxes were featured. Several of the most famous realistic operas, Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945) and I Pagliacci by Ruggiero Leoncavallo (1858-1919), appear to be based on true stories and there is nothing in them that could not have actually happened. (In following its honest story line, the Mascagni libretto came to a situation where all the characters had exited and no one was left on stage to sing! Mascagni wrote an instrumental interlude for this moment, and it has become a famous intermezzo.) The popular opera, La Bohème, by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), is another fine example of the style and is also based on incidents in the lives of real people. Contemporary and controversial themes (with their implications for realistic acting) were becoming accepted subjects in opera.
Cubism, the abstract art style that took things apart and recombined the fragments in unexpected ways, was analogous to the human experience in World War I and the period that followed. The explosion and fragmentation were over, but things would never be the same again.
Having endured the war, the public wanted little more than to forget the past and enjoy the present. But composers also wanted to forget the past and were bent on experimentation and exploration that would lead them away from traditional subjects and conventional harmony and tonality. Unfortunately their new found rhythmic complexities, jarring polytonality, experimental orchestrations and atonality were not at all what the public wanted and, as contemporary classical music became more complex and severe, its audience decreased significantly
Postwar circumstances were such that the everpresent alternate stream of musical creativity–the popular entertainment style–would enjoy an unprecedented surge in importance. Popular music goes back to at least the Dark Ages when the Ionian mode, our major key, was nicknamed modus lascivus—the wicked mode. The trouvères , Stephan Foster, George Gershwin and such disparate works as Sumer is icumen in, The Beggar’s Opera, Yankee Doodle and Star Dust have all been a part of its history. Now, put off by the unattractiveness of contemporary classical styles, the public would turn successively to Tin Pan Alley, Jazz, Blues and Swing for its musical fare. The capturing of the public interest by these new styles was helped by their easy accessibility, for technology was providing new means for spreading their enjoyment
Again, young performers had to choose between two forms of vocalism so disparate crossover was rarely possible between them: the so-called classical and popular styles. A new American phenomenon, lyric-voiced song stylists called crooners, were idolized by their public, and many established long and lucrative careers. Early on there was Rudy Vallee who, in a time before electronic amplification, made a personal trademark of the megaphone he used to extend the carrying power of his voice. Then came Bing Crosby, whose lifelong career included stage, radio, television, film, and whose recordings, such as White Christmas, are still heard. Later would come Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, Tony Bennett and many others, all artists in a style requiring faultless diction, subtle nuancing of text, seamless line and a light, unstudied tone production. The effortlessness of their vocalism was predicated on the use of electronic amplification, and their accompaniment, be it dance band, small instrumental ‘combo’ or piano, was astutely arranged to be supportive without being competitive. Tailored writing had returned. It has been noted the ‘conversational naturalism’ of the microphone singer represents a rebirth of the text-centered singing manner favored by the Florentine Camerata. This and other interesting ideas are developed in Henry Pleasant’s book, The Great American Popular Singers, and those interested in popular singers and singing, from Al Jolson through Barbra Streisand, should read it.
Electronic amplification was introduced in 1925 and the recording of musical instruments (especially string tone) was much improved, as was the ability to record ensembles and larger groups of performers. The orchestral repertoire began to enter record catalogs. The electronic method not only improved fidelity, it allowed the manipulation of sound: balancing tonal forces, controlling volume and timbre. The recording and broadcasting industries were making major strides in the application of technology to sound, and would continue to improve their equipment and techniques during subsequent decades. These advances in audio reproduction were soon used to add sound to motion pictures and, fittingly, it was a film titled The Jazz Singer (1927) that introduced the idea. The musical entertainment business had become a rapid growth industry.
World War II pushed technology along new paths, and a magnetic sound recording format, using coated tape, was a pertinent development. It had several advantages over the older wax disc method of recording. It was very easy to edit (cut and splice), enabling mistakes or faults, which occurred while the performance was being recorded, to be easily corrected. Prior to this, all recording had been accomplished in ‘complete takes’ and if the final note of an aria or scene wasn’t perfect, the entire selection had to be performed again in the hope of improving it. The new ease of editing also allowed composite recordings to be made. The best parts of Take #4 could be joined to the best parts of Take #40 (which could be recorded days or months later) and few would be the wiser. In truth, primitive recording tricks had been going on for some time, and a famous soprano once attended a recording session to sing several high notes, which her friend, an aging artist, could no longer perform. The tape recorder also allowed ‘live’ recordings to be made with much more facility than had discs. Many of the finest recorded performances we enjoy today were made with tape equipment at actual performances, where the special quality of communication that can result when an artist interacts with an audience was captured. Tape has also proved useful for singers in study and training situations, making it relatively easy for them to hear themselves as others do.
After WWII, a young entertainer, Les Paul, almost single-handedly changed the course of popular music by adding electronic pickups to his acoustical guitar, thus inventing the electrical guitar. Further, while tape recording the sounds of his new instrument, he experimented with combining multiple recording tracks together into a composite whole. His ideas became the cornerstones of the popular music recording industry and enabled a new entertainment style–rock and roll.
Rock, unlike ragtime and jazz, is based exclusively on the song format (a textless rock selection is very rare), while its style is defined by using both standard and electronic instruments, conventional harmonies, electronic amplification and a driving rhythmic beat. The texts, addressed to the adolescent and young adult ‘market’, are often socially audacious or rebellious and are delivered with remarkable emotional intensity and expenditure of energy.
As we have seen, the art of singing is constantly evolving. Today, when more people enjoy a wider variety of music and singing than at any previous time, there can be no doubt the vocal art is vigorously alive and will continue to develop.
Music of one kind or another almost totally pervades our lives. The hope of the turn-of-the-century French composer, Erik Satie, for a music that would be as commonplace and unnoticed in our daily routine as furniture or wallpaper has been fulfilled. Background music attends us everywhere: in shopping malls, washrooms, elevators, medical waiting rooms. Even while holding on the telephone, we are subject to its presence. What long-term effect this musical wallpaper may ultimately have on our perception of other music–designed to be attentively listened to–is impossible to foresee.