Bel canto
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Bel canto (Italian for "beautiful singing" or "beautiful song", )—with several similar constructions (''bellezze del canto'', ''bell'arte del canto'')—is a term with several meanings that relate to Italian singing. The phrase was not associated with a "school" of singing until the middle of the 19th century, when writers in the early 1860s used it nostalgically to describe a manner of singing that had begun to wane around 1830. Nonetheless, "neither musical nor general dictionaries saw fit to attempt definition f bel cantountil after 1900". The term remains vague and ambiguous in the 21st century and is often used to evoke a lost singing tradition.


History of the term and its various definitions

As generally understood today, the term ''bel canto'' refers to the Italian-originated vocal style that prevailed throughout most of Europe during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Late 19th- and 20th-century sources "would lead us to believe that ''bel canto'' was restricted to beauty and evenness of tone,
legato In music performance and notation, legato (; Italian for "tied together"; French ''lié''; German ''gebunden'') indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected. That is, the player makes a transition from note to note wit ...
phrasing, and skill in executing highly florid passages, but contemporary documents hose of the late 18th and early 19th centuriesdescribe a multifaceted manner of performance far beyond these confines." The main features of the ''bel canto'' style were: *
prosodic In linguistics, prosody () is concerned with elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (vowels and consonants) but are properties of syllables and larger units of speech, including linguistic functions such as intonation, st ...
singing (use of accent and emphasis) * matching
register Register or registration may refer to: Arts entertainment, and media Music * Register (music), the relative "height" or range of a note, melody, part, instrument, etc. * ''Register'', a 2017 album by Travis Miller * Registration (organ), th ...
and tonal quality of the voice to the emotional content of the words * a highly articulated manner of phrasing based on the insertion of grammatical and rhetorical pauses * a delivery varied by several types of ''
legato In music performance and notation, legato (; Italian for "tied together"; French ''lié''; German ''gebunden'') indicates that musical notes are played or sung smoothly and connected. That is, the player makes a transition from note to note wit ...
'' and '' staccato'' * a liberal application of more than one type of ''
portamento In music, portamento (plural: ''portamenti'', from old it, portamento, meaning "carriage" or "carrying") is a pitch sliding from one note to another. The term originated from the Italian expression "''portamento della voce''" ("carriage of the v ...
'' * ''
messa di voce ''Messa di voce'' (Italian, ''placing of the voice'') is a singing technique that requires sustaining a single pitch while gradually making the voice louder (crescendo) and then softer (diminuendo). It is considered to be a particularly advanced t ...
'' as the principal source of expression (Domenico Corri called it the "soul of music" – ''The Singer's Preceptor'', 1810, vol. 1, p. 14) * frequent alteration of tempo through rhythmic ''
rubato Tempo rubato (, , ; 'free in the presentation', literally ) is a musical term referring to expressive and rhythmic freedom by a slight speeding up and then slowing down of the tempo of a piece at the discretion of the soloist or the conductor. Ru ...
'' and the quickening and slowing of the overall time * the introduction of a wide variety of
graces In Greek mythology, the Charites ( ), singular ''Charis'', or Graces, were three or more goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity, goodwill, and fertility. Hesiod names three – Aglaea ("Shining"), Euphrosyne ("Joy"), and Thali ...
and divisions into both arias and recitatives * gesture as a powerful tool for enhancing the effect of the vocal delivery * ''
vibrato Vibrato (Italian language, Italian, from past participle of "wikt:vibrare, vibrare", to vibrate) is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch (music), pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. ...
'' primarily reserved for heightening the expression of certain words and for gracing longer notes. The ''
Harvard Dictionary of Music ''The Harvard Dictionary of Music'' is a standard music reference book published by the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. The first edition, titled ''Harvard Dictionary of Music'', was published in 1944, and was edited by Willi Apel. ...
'' by
Willi Apel Willi Apel (10 October 1893 – 14 March 1988) was a German-American musicologist and noted author of a number of books devoted to music. Among his most important publications are the 1944 edition of '' The Harvard Dictionary of Music'' and ''Fre ...
says that bel canto denotes "the Italian vocal technique of the 18th century, with its emphasis on beauty of sound and brilliance of performance rather than dramatic expression or romantic emotion. In spite of the repeated reactions against ''bel canto'' (or its abuses, such as display for its own sake;
Gluck Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (; 2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate and raised in Bohemia, both part of the Holy Roman Empire, he g ...
,
Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
) and the frequent exaggeration of its virtuoso element ( coloratura), it must be considered as a highly artistic technique and the only proper one for Italian opera and for
Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
. Its early development is closely bound up with that of the Italian '' opera seria'' ( A. Scarlatti, N. Porpora, J. A. Hasse, N. Jommelli, N. Piccinni)."


18th and early 19th centuries

Since the ''bel canto'' style flourished in the 18th and early 19th centuries, the music of
Handel George Frideric (or Frederick) Handel (; baptised , ; 23 February 1685 – 14 April 1759) was a German-British Baroque composer well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, concerti grossi, and organ concertos. Handel received his training i ...
and his contemporaries, as well as that of Mozart and Rossini, benefits from an application of ''bel canto'' principles. Operas received the most dramatic use of the techniques, but the ''bel canto'' style applies equally to oratorio, though in a somewhat less flamboyant way. The
da capo aria The da capo aria () is a musical form for arias that was prevalent in the Baroque era. It is sung by a soloist with the accompaniment of instruments, often a small orchestra. The da capo aria is very common in the musical genres of opera and orato ...
s these works contained provided challenges for singers, as the repeat of the opening section prevented the story line from progressing. Nonetheless, singers needed to keep the emotional drama moving forward, and so they used the principles of ''bel canto'' to help them render the repeated material in a new emotional guise. They also incorporated embellishments of all sorts (
Domenico Corri Domenico Corri (4 October 1746 – 22 May 1825) was an Italian composer, impresario, Music publisher (popular music), music publisher, and voice teacher. Career Corri was born in Rome and studied voice with Nicola Porpora in Naples. The son o ...
said da capo arias were invented for that purpose 'The Singer's Preceptor'', vol. 1, p. 3, but not every singer was equipped to do this, some writers, notably Domenico Corri himself, suggesting that singing without ornamentation was an acceptable practice (see ''The Singer's Preceptor'', vol. 1, p. 3). Singers regularly embellished both arias and recitatives, but did so by tailoring their embellishments to the prevailing sentiments of the piece. Two famous 18th-century teachers of the style were
Antonio Bernacchi Antonio Maria Bernacchi (23 June 1685 – 1 March 1756) was an Italian castrato, composer, and teacher of singing. He studied with Francesco Antonio Pistocchi. His pupils included Farinelli, for a brief period during 1727, and the tenor Anton Ra ...
(1685–1756) and
Nicola Porpora Nicola (or Niccolò) Antonio Porpora (17 August 16863 March 1768) was an Italian composer and teacher of singing of the Baroque music, Baroque era, whose most famous singing students were the castrati Farinelli and Caffarelli (castrato), Caffarel ...
(1686–1768), but many others existed. A number of these teachers were castrati. Singer/author John Potter declares in his book ''Tenor: History of a Voice'' that:
For much of the 18th century castrati defined the art of singing; it was the loss of their irrecoverable skills that in time created the myth of ''bel canto'', a way of singing and conceptualizing singing that was entirely different from anything that the world had heard before or would hear again.


19th-century Italy and France

In another application, the term ''bel canto'' is sometimes attached to Italian operas written by
Vincenzo Bellini Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini (; 3 November 1801 – 23 September 1835) was a Sicilian opera composer, who was known for his long-flowing melodic lines for which he was named "the Swan of Catania". Many years later, in 1898, Giu ...
(1801–1835) and
Gaetano Donizetti Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti (29 November 1797 – 8 April 1848) was an Italian composer, best known for his almost 70 operas. Along with Gioachino Rossini and Vincenzo Bellini, he was a leading composer of the '' bel canto'' opera style dur ...
(1797–1848). These composers wrote
bravura In classical music a bravura is a style of both music and its performance intended to show off the skill of a performer. John Alexander Fuller-Maitland, ''A dictionary of music and musicians (A.D. 1450-1889)'p. 271-272/ref> Commonly, it is a virt ...
works for the stage during what musicologists sometimes call the "bel canto era". But the style of singing had started to change around 1830,
Michael Balfe Michael William Balfe (15 May 1808 – 20 October 1870) was an Irish composer, best remembered for his operas, especially ''The Bohemian Girl''. After a short career as a violinist, Balfe pursued an operatic singing career, while he began to co ...
writing of the new method of teaching that was required for the music of Bellini and Donizetti (''A New Universal Method of Singing'', 1857, p. iii), and so the operas of Bellini and Donizetti actually were the vehicles for a new era of singing. The last important opera role for a castrato was written in 1824 by Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864). The phrase "bel canto" was not commonly used until the latter part of the 19th century, when it was set in opposition to the development of a weightier, more powerful style of speech-inflected singing associated with German opera and, above all,
Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
's revolutionary music dramas. Wagner (1813–1883) decried the Italian singing model, alleging that it was concerned merely with "whether that G or A will come out roundly". He advocated a new, Germanic school of singing that would draw "the spiritually energetic and profoundly passionate into the orbit of its matchless Expression." French musicians and composers never embraced the more
florid Florid (literally "flowery") is a word with several meanings, including red in color, ornate, and abundant or disorganized. It may also refer to: * Florid, Illinois, United States, an unincorporated community * Great Wall Florid, a car See also ...
extremes of the 18th-century Italian bel canto style. They disliked the castrato voice and because they placed a premium on the clear enunciation of the texts of their vocal music, they objected to the sung word being obscured by excessive
fioritura Fioritura ( , , meaning "flourish" or "flowering"; plural ) is the florid embellishment of melodic lines, either notated by a composer or improvised during a performance. It usually involves lengthy, complex embellishments, as opposed to standardi ...
. The popularity of the bel canto style as espoused by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini faded in Italy during the mid-19th century. It was overtaken by a heavier, more ardent, less embroidered approach to singing that was necessary to perform the innovative works of
Giuseppe Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...
(1813–1901) with maximum dramatic impact. Tenors, for instance, began to inflate their tone and deliver the
high C C or Do is the first note and semitone of the C major scale, the third note of the A minor scale (the relative minor of C major), and the fourth note (G, A, B, C) of the Guidonian hand, commonly pitched around 261.63  Hz. The actual frequ ...
(and even the high D) directly from the chest rather than resorting to a suave head voice/
falsetto ''Falsetto'' (, ; Italian diminutive of , "false") is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous ed ...
as they had done previously – sacrificing vocal agility in the process. Sopranos and
baritone A baritone is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the bass and the tenor voice-types. The term originates from the Greek (), meaning "heavy sounding". Composers typically write music for this voice in the r ...
s reacted in a similar fashion to their tenor colleagues when confronted with Verdi's drama-filled compositions. They subjected the mechanics of their voice production to greater pressures and cultivated the exciting upper part of their respective ranges at the expense of their mellow but less penetrant lower notes. Initially at least, the singing techniques of 19th-century
contralto A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type. The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typically b ...
s and
basses Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass ...
were less affected by the musical innovations of Verdi, which were built upon by his successors Amilcare Ponchielli (1834–1886),
Arrigo Boito Arrigo Boito (; 24 February 1842 10 June 1918) (whose original name was Enrico Giuseppe Giovanni Boito and who wrote essays under the anagrammatic pseudonym of Tobia Gorrio) was an Italian poet, journalist, novelist, librettist and composer, best ...
(1842–1918) and Alfredo Catalani (1854–1893).


Detractors

One reason for the eclipse of the old Italian singing model was the growing influence within the music world of bel canto's detractors, who considered it to be outmoded and condemned it as vocalization devoid of content. To others, however, bel canto became the vanished art of elegant, refined, sweet-toned musical utterance. Rossini lamented in a conversation that took place in
Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
in 1858 that: "Alas for us, we have lost our bel canto". Similarly, the so-called German style was as derided as much as it was heralded. In the introduction to a collection of songs by Italian masters published in 1887 in Berlin under the title ''Il bel canto'', Franz Sieber wrote: "In our time, when the most offensive shrieking under the extenuating device of 'dramatic singing' has spread everywhere, when the ignorant masses appear much more interested in how loud rather than how beautiful the singing is, a collection of songs will perhaps be welcome which – as the title purports – may assist in restoring bel canto to its rightful place." In the late-19th century and early-20th century, the term "bel canto" was resurrected by singing teachers in Italy, among whom the retired Verdi baritone Antonio Cotogni (1831–1918) was a pre-eminent figure. Cotogni and his followers invoked it against an unprecedentedly vehement and vibrato-laden style of vocalism that singers increasingly used after around 1890 to meet the impassioned demands of
verismo In opera, ''verismo'' (, from , meaning "true") was a post-Romantic operatic tradition associated with Italian composers such as Pietro Mascagni, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano, Francesco Cilea and Giacomo Puccini. ''Verismo'' as an ...
writing by composers such as
Giacomo Puccini Giacomo Puccini (Lucca, 22 December 1858Bruxelles, 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer known primarily for his operas. Regarded as the greatest and most successful proponent of Italian opera after Verdi, he was descended from a long li ...
(1858–1924),
Ruggero Leoncavallo Ruggero (or Ruggiero) Leoncavallo ( , , ; 23 April 18579 August 1919) was an Italian opera composer and librettist. Although he produced numerous operas and other songs throughout his career it is his opera '' Pagliacci'' (1892) that remained hi ...
(1857–1919),
Pietro Mascagni Pietro Mascagni (7 December 1863 – 2 August 1945) was an Italian composer primarily known for his operas. His 1890 masterpiece '' Cavalleria rusticana'' caused one of the greatest sensations in opera history and single-handedly ushered in the ...
(1863–1945), Francesco Cilea (1866–1950) and
Umberto Giordano Umberto Menotti Maria Giordano (28 August 186712 November 1948) was an Italian composer, mainly of operas. He was born in Foggia in Apulia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples. His first opera, ''Marina ...
(1867–1948), as well as the auditory challenges posed by the non-Italianate stage works of
Richard Strauss Richard Georg Strauss (; 11 June 1864 – 8 September 1949) was a German composer, conductor, pianist, and violinist. Considered a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras, he has been described as a successor of Richard Wag ...
(1864–1949) and other late-romantic/early-modern era composers, with their strenuous and angular vocal lines and frequently dense orchestral textures. During the 1890s, the directors of the
Bayreuth Festival The Bayreuth Festival (german: link=no, Bayreuther Festspiele) is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived ...
initiated a particularly forceful style of Wagnerian singing that was totally at odds with the Italian ideals of bel canto. Called "
Sprechgesang (, "spoken singing") and (, "spoken voice") are expressionist vocal techniques between singing and speaking. Though sometimes used interchangeably, ''Sprechgesang'' is directly related to the operatic ''recitative'' manner of singing (in which ...
" by its proponents (and dubbed the "Bayreuth bark" by some opponents), the new Wagnerian style prioritized articulation of the individual words of the composer's
libretti A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major l ...
over legato delivery. This text-based, anti-legato approach to vocalism spread across the German-speaking parts of Europe prior to
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. As a result of these many factors, the concept of bel canto became shrouded in mystique and confused by a plethora of individual notions and interpretations. To complicate matters further, German
musicology Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some mu ...
in the early 20th century invented its own historical application for "bel canto", using the term to denote the simple lyricism that came to the fore in Venetian opera and the Roman cantata during the 1630s and '40s (the era of composers
Antonio Cesti Pietro Marc'Antonio Cesti () (baptism 5 August 162314 October 1669), known today primarily as an Italian composer of the Baroque era, was also a singer ( tenor), and organist. He was "the most celebrated Italian musician of his generation". Biogr ...
,
Giacomo Carissimi (Gian) Giacomo Carissimi (; baptized 18 April 160512 January 1674) was an Italian composer and music teacher. He is one of the most celebrated masters of the early Baroque or, more accurately, the Roman School of music. Carissimi established the ...
and
Luigi Rossi Luigi Rossi (c. 1597 – 20 February 1653) was an Italian Baroque composer. Born in Torremaggiore, a small town near Foggia, in the ancient kingdom of Naples, at an early age he went to Naples where he studied music with the Franco-Flemish comp ...
) as a reaction against the earlier, text-dominated stile rappresentativo. Unfortunately, this anachronistic use of the term bel canto was given wide circulation in Robert Haas's ''Die Musik des Barocks'' and, later, in
Manfred Bukofzer Manfred Fritz Bukofzer (27 March 1910 – 7 December 1955) was a German-born American musicologist. Life and career He studied at Heidelberg University and the Stern conservatory in Berlin, but left Germany in 1933 for Switzerland, where he ob ...
's ''Music in the Baroque Era''. Since the singing style of later 17th-century Italy did not differ in any marked way from that of the 18th century and early 19th century, a connection can be drawn; but, according to Jander, most musicologists agree that the term is best limited to its mid-19th-century use, designating a style of singing that emphasized beauty of tone and technical expertise in the delivery of music that was either highly florid or featured long, flowing and difficult-to-sustain passages of .


Revival

In the 1950s, the phrase "bel canto revival" was coined to refer to a renewed interest in the operas of Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini. These composers had begun to go out of fashion during the latter years of the 19th century and their works, while never completely disappearing from the performance repertoire, were staged infrequently during the first half of the 20th century, when the operas of Wagner, Verdi and Puccini held sway. That situation changed significantly after
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
with the advent of a group of enterprising orchestral conductors and the emergence of a fresh generation of singers such as
Montserrat Caballé Montserrat Caballé i Folch or Folc (full name: María de Montserrat Bibiana Concepción Caballé i Folch (, , ; (12 April 1933 – 6 October 2018), known simply as Montserrat Caballé, was a Catalan Spanish operatic soprano. She sang a wide v ...
, Maria Callas,
Leyla Gencer Ayşe Leyla Gencer (, née Çeyrekgil; 10 October 192810 May 2008) was a Turkish operatic soprano. Gencer was a notable ''bel canto'' soprano who spent most of her career in Italy, from the early 1950s through the mid-1980s, and had a reperto ...
, Joan Sutherland,
Beverly Sills Beverly Sills (May 25, 1929July 2, 2007) was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s. Although she sang a repertoire from Handel and Mozart to Puccini, Massenet and Verdi, she was especially renowned f ...
and
Marilyn Horne Marilyn Horne (born January 16, 1934) is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer. She specialized in roles requiring beauty of tone, excellent breath support, and the ability to execute difficult coloratura passages. She is a recipient of the Natio ...
, who had acquired bel canto techniques. These artists breathed new life into Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini's stage compositions, treating them seriously as music and re-popularizing them throughout Europe and America. Today, some of the world's most frequently performed operas, such as Rossini's ''
The Barber of Seville ''The Barber of Seville, or The Useless Precaution'' ( it, Il barbiere di Siviglia, ossia L'inutile precauzione ) is an ''opera buffa'' in two acts composed by Gioachino Rossini with an Italian libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was base ...
'' and Donizetti's ''
Lucia di Lammermoor ''Lucia di Lammermoor'' () is a (tragic opera) in three acts by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian-language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's 1819 historical novel ''The Bride of Lammermoor''. ...
'', are from the bel canto era. Many 18th-century operas that require adroit bel canto skills have also experienced post-war revivals, ranging from lesser-known Mozart and Haydn to extensive Baroque works by Handel, Vivaldi and others.


Teaching legacy

Musicologists occasionally apply the label "bel canto technique" to the arsenal of virtuosic vocal accomplishments and concepts imparted by singing teachers to their students during the late 18th century and the early 19th century. Many of these teachers were castrati. "All heirpedagogical works follow the same structure, beginning with exercises on single notes and eventually progressing to scales and improvised embellishments" writes Potter who continues, "The really creative ornamentation required for cadenzas, involving models and formulae that could generate newly improvised material, came towards the end of the process." Today's pervasive idea that singers should refrain from improvising and always adhere strictly to the letter of a composer's published score is a comparatively recent phenomenon, promulgated during the first decades of the 20th century by dictatorial conductors such as
Arturo Toscanini Arturo Toscanini (; ; March 25, 1867January 16, 1957) was an Italian conductor. He was one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the late 19th and early 20th century, renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orch ...
(1867–1957), who championed the dramatic operas of Verdi and Wagner and believed in keeping performers on a tight interpretive leash. This is noted by both Potter and Michael Scott. Potter notes, however, that as the 19th century unfurled:
The general tendency ... was for singers not to have been taught by castrati (there were few of them left) and for serious study to start later, often at one of the new conservatories rather than with a private teacher. The traditional techniques and pedagogy were still acknowledged, but the teaching was generally in the hands of tenors and baritones who were by then at least once removed from the tradition itself.
Early 19th-century teachers described the voice as being made up of three registers. The chest register was the lowest of the three and the head register the highest, with the
passaggio Passaggio () is a term used in classical singing to describe the transition area between the vocal registers. The ''passaggi'' (plural) of the voice lie between the different vocal registers, such as the chest voice, where any singer can produce ...
in between. These registers needed to be smoothly blended and fully equalized before a trainee singer could acquire total command of his or her natural instrument, and the surest way to achieve this outcome was for the trainee to practise vocal exercises assiduously. Bel canto–era teachers were great believers in the benefits of
vocalise A vocal warm-up is a series of exercises meant to prepare the voice for singing, acting, or other use. There is very little scientific data about the benefits of vocal warm-ups. Relatively few studies have researched the effects of thesexercis ...
and solfeggio. They strove to strengthen the respiratory muscles of their pupils and equip them with such time-honoured vocal attributes as "purity of tone, perfection of legato, phrasing informed by eloquent
portamento In music, portamento (plural: ''portamenti'', from old it, portamento, meaning "carriage" or "carrying") is a pitch sliding from one note to another. The term originated from the Italian expression "''portamento della voce''" ("carriage of the v ...
, and exquisitely turned ornaments", as noted in the introduction to Volume 2 of Scott's ''
The Record of Singing ''The Record of Singing'' is a compilation of classical-music singing from the first half of the 20th century, the era of the 78-rpm record. It was issued on LP (with accompanying books) by EMI, successor to the British company His Master's Voi ...
''. Major refinements occurred to the existing system of
voice classification A voice type is a group of voices with similar vocal ranges, capable of singing in a similar tessitura, and with similar vocal transition points ('' passaggi''). Voice classification is most strongly associated with European classical music, t ...
during the 19th century as the international operatic repertoire diversified, split into distinctive nationalist schools and expanded in size. Whole new categories of singers such as
mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano or mezzo (; ; meaning "half soprano") is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middle C ...
and Wagnerian
bass-baritone A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing thr ...
arose towards the end of the 19th century, as did such new sub-categories as
lyric coloratura soprano A coloratura soprano is a type of operatic soprano voice that specializes in music that is distinguished by agile runs, leaps and trills. The term '' coloratura'' refers to the elaborate ornamentation of a melody, which is a typical component o ...
,
dramatic soprano A dramatic soprano is a type of operatic soprano with a powerful, rich, emotive voice that can sing over, or cut through, a full orchestra. Thicker vocal folds in dramatic voices usually (but not always) mean less agility than lighter voices but a ...
and
spinto Spinto (from Italian, "pushed") is a vocal term used to characterize a soprano or tenor voice of a weight between lyric and dramatic that is capable of handling large musical climaxes in opera at moderate intervals. (Sometimes the terms ' or ' a ...
soprano, and various grades of tenor, stretching from lyric through spinto to heroic. These classificatory changes have had a lasting effect on how singing teachers designate voices and opera house managements cast productions. There was, however, no across-the-board uniformity among 19th-century bel canto adherents in passing on their knowledge and instructing students. Each had their own training regimes and pet notions. Fundamentally, though, they all subscribed to the same set of bel canto precepts, and the exercises that they devised to enhance breath support, dexterity, range, and technical control remain valuable and, indeed, some teachers still use them. Manuel García (1805–1906), author of the influential treatise ''L'Art du chant'', was the most prominent of the group of pedagogues that perpetuated bel-canto principles in teachings and writings during the second half of the 19th century. His like-minded younger sister,
Pauline Viardot Pauline Viardot (; 18 July 1821 – 18 May 1910) was a nineteenth-century French mezzo-soprano, pedagogue and composer of Spanish descent. Born Michelle Ferdinande Pauline García, her name appears in various forms. When it is not simply "Pauli ...
(1821–1910), was also an important teacher of voice, as were Viardot's contemporaries
Mathilde Marchesi Mathilde Marchesi (née Graumann; 24 March 1821 – 17 November 1913) was a German mezzo-soprano, a singing teacher, and a proponent of the bel canto vocal method. Biography Marchesi was born in Frankfurt. Her father's last name was Graumann; ...
,
Camille Everardi Camille Everardi (1824–1899) was a Belgian operatic baritone who had an active international career during the 1850s through the 1870s. He particularly excelled in the works of Vincenzo Bellini and Gioachino Rossini. Several music critics of h ...
,
Julius Stockhausen The gens Julia (''gēns Iūlia'', ) was one of the most prominent patrician families in ancient Rome. Members of the gens attained the highest dignities of the state in the earliest times of the Republic. The first of the family to obtain the c ...
, Carlo Pedrotti, Venceslao Persichini,
Giovanni Sbriglia Giovanni Sbriglia (June 23, 1832 – February 20, 1916), was an Italian tenor and prominent teacher of singing. A native of Naples, Sbriglia attended the city's music conservatory under Emanuele De Roxas before making his debut, aged 21, at the ...
, Melchiorre Vidal and
Francesco Lamperti Francesco Lamperti (11 March 1811 or 1813 – 1 May 1892) was an Italian singing teacher. Biography A native of Savona, Lamperti attended the Milan Conservatory where, beginning in 1850, he taught for a quarter of a century. He was director ...
(together with Francesco's son
Giovanni Battista Lamperti Giovanni Battista Lamperti (24 June 1839 – 18 March 1910) was an Italian singing teacher and son of the singing teacher Francesco Lamperti. He is the author of ''The Technics of Bel Canto'' (1905) and source for ''Vocal Wisdom: Maxims of Giovan ...
). The voices of a number of their former students can be heard on acoustic recordings made in the first two decades of the 20th century and re-issued since on LP and CD. Some examples on disc of historically and artistically significant 19th-century singers whose vocal styles and techniques exemplify bel canto ideals include the following: Sir
Charles Santley Sir Charles Santley (28 February 1834 – 22 September 1922) was an English opera and oratorio singer with a ''bravura''From the Italian verb ''bravare'', to show off. A florid, ostentatious style or a passage of music requiring technical skill ...
(born 1834),
Gustav Walter Gustav Walter (11 February 1834, Bílina, Bohemia – 31 January 1910, Vienna) was a German (from Bohemia) operatic tenor who sang leading roles for more than 30 years at the Vienna Staatsoper in Austria. He was a highly regarded interpreter o ...
(born 1834),
Adelina Patti Adelina Patti (19 February 184327 September 1919) was an Italian 19th-century opera singer, earning huge fees at the height of her career in the music capitals of Europe and America. She first sang in public as a child in 1851, and gave her la ...
(born 1843),
Marianne Brandt Marianne Brandt (1 October 1893 – 18 June 1983) was a German painter, sculptor, photographer, metalsmith, and designer who studied at the Bauhaus art school in Weimar and later became head of the Bauhaus ''Metall-Werkstatt'' (Metal Workshop ...
(born 1842),
Lilli Lehmann Lilli Lehmann, born Elisabeth Maria Lehmann, later Elisabeth Maria Lehmann-Kalisch (24 November 1848 – 17 May 1929) was a German operatic soprano. She was also a voice teacher. Biography The future opera star's father, Karl-August Lehmann, wa ...
(born 1848), Jean Lassalle (born 1847),
Victor Maurel Victor Maurel (17 June 184822 October 1923) was a French operatic baritone who enjoyed an international reputation as a great singing actor. Biography Maurel was born in Marseille. Educated in music and stagecraft at the Paris Conservatory, ...
(born 1848),
Marcella Sembrich Prakseda Marcelina Kochańska (February 15, 1858 – January 11, 1935), known professionally as Marcella Sembrich, was a Polish coloratura soprano. She is known for her extensive range of two and a half octaves, precise intonation, charm, port ...
(born 1858),
Lillian Nordica Lillian Nordica (December 12, 1857 – May 10, 1914) was an American opera singer who had a major stage career in Europe and her native country. Nordica established herself as one of the foremost dramatic sopranos of the late 19th and early 20t ...
(born 1857),
Emma Calvé Emma Calvé, born Rosa Emma Calvet (15 August 1858 – 6 January 1942) was a French operatic soprano. Calvé was probably the most famous French female opera singer of the Belle Époque. Hers was an international career, and she sang regularly ...
(born 1858),
Nellie Melba Dame Nellie Melba (born Helen Porter Mitchell; 19 May 186123 February 1931) was an Australian operatic dramatic coloratura soprano (three octaves). She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early 20th centur ...
(born 1861),
Francesco Tamagno Francesco Tamagno (28 December 1850 – 31 August 1905) was an Italian operatic tenor who sang with enormous success throughout Europe and America.Warrack, John and West, Ewan (1992), ''The Oxford Dictionary of Opera'', 782 pages, On 5 February ...
(born 1850),
Francesco Marconi Francesco Marconi (14 May 1853 r 1855– 5 February 1916) was an operatic tenor from Rome who enjoyed an important international career. In 1924, a reputable biographical dictionary of musicians called him 'one of the most renowned and esteemed ...
(born 1853), Léon Escalais (born 1859),
Mattia Battistini Mattia Battistini (27 February 1856 – 7 November 1928) was an Italian operatic baritone, referred to as the "King of Baritones" in multiple publications.Steane, J.B., 1998. Singers of the Century, vol. 2. Amadeus Press, Portland, pp.&nbs ...
(born 1856),
Mario Ancona Mario Ancona (28 February 1860 – 23 February 1931), was a leading Italian baritone and master of bel canto singing. He appeared at some of the most important opera houses in Europe and America during what is commonly referred to as the "Golde ...
(born 1860),
Pol Plançon Pol Henri Plançon (; 12 June 1851 – 11 August 1914) was a distinguished French operatic bass (''basse chantante''). He was one of the most acclaimed singers active during the 1880s, 1890s and early 20th century—a period often referred to as ...
(born 1851), and Antonio Magini-Coletti and Francesco Navarini (both born 1855).


Quotations

*"There are no registers in the human singing voice, when it is accurately produced. According to natural laws the voice is made up of one register, which constitutes its entire range." *"Bel-canto is not a school of sensuously pretty voice-production. It has come to be a generally recognised thing that voice, pure and simple, by its very composition, or "placing", interferes with the organs of speech; making it impossible for a vocalist to preserve absolute purity of pronunciation in song as well as in speech. It is because of this view that the principle of "vocalising" words, instead of musically "saying" them, crept in, to the detriment of vocal art. This false position is due to the idea that the 'Arte del bel-canto' encouraged mere sensuous beauty of voice, rather than truth of expression." *"''Bel-canto'' (of which we read so much) meant, and means, versatility of tone; if a man wish to be called an ''artist'', his voice must become the instrument of intelligent imagination. Perhaps there would be fewer cases of vocal-specialising if the modern craze for 'voice-production' (apart from linguistic truth) could be reduced. This wondrous pursuit is, as things stand, a notable instance of putting the cart before the horse. Voices are 'produced' and 'placed' in such wise that pupils are trained to 'vocalise' (to use technical jargon) the words; ''i.e.'', they are taught to make a sound which is indeed ''something like'' but is not the word in its purity. 'Tone' or sound is what the average student seeks, ''ab initio'', and not verbal purity. Hence the monotony of modern singing. When one hears an average singer in one rôle, one hears him in all." *"Those who regard the art of singing as anything more than a means to an end, do not comprehend the true purpose of that art, much less can they hope ever to fulfil that purpose. The true purpose of singing is to give utterance to certain hidden depths in our nature which can be adequately expressed in no other way. The voice is the only vehicle perfectly adapted to this purpose; it alone can reveal to us our inmost feelings, because it is our only direct means of expression. If the voice, more than any language, more than any other instrument of expression, can reveal to us our own hidden depths, and convey those depths to other souls of men, it is because voice vibrates directly to the feeling itself, when it fulfils its 'natural' mission. By fulfilling its natural mission, I mean, when voice is not hindered from vibrating to the feeling by artificial methods of tone production, which methods include certain mental processes which are fatal to spontaneity. To sing should always mean to have some definite feeling to express." *"The decline of Bel Canto may be attributed in part to Ferrein and García who, with a dangerously small and historically premature knowledge of laryngeal function, abandoned the intuitive and emotional insight of the anatomically blind singers." *"Voice Culture has not progressed .. Exactly the contrary has taken place. Before the introduction of mechanical methods every earnest vocal student was sure of learning to use his voice properly, and of developing the full measure of his natural endowments. Mechanical instruction has upset all this. Nowadays the successful vocal student is the exception."


References

Notes Sources * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Further reading

*Brown, M. Augusta (1894)
University of Pennsylvania "Extracts From Vocal Art"
in ''The Congress of Women'', Mary Kavanaugh Oldham (ed.), Chicago: Monarch Book Company, p.  477. * Celletti, Rodolfo (1983), ''Storia del belcanto'', Fiesole: Discanto (English edition, translated by Frederick Fuller (1991), ''A History of Bel Canto'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, ) *Coffin, Berton (2002), ''Sounds of Singing'', Second Edition, Littlefield. * Christiansen, Rupert (15 March 2002)
"A tenor for the 21st century"
''
The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was fo ...
'' Accessed 3 November 2008. *Juvarra, Antonio (2006) ''I segreti del belcanto. Storia delle tecniche e dei metodi vocali dal '700 ai nostri giorni'', Curci, 2006 * Marchesi, Mathilde (1970), ''Bel Canto: A Theoretical and Practical Vocal Method'', Dover. * Pleasants, Henry (1983), ''The Great Singers from the Dawn of Opera to Our Own Time'', London: Macmillan. *Rosselli, John (1995), ''Singers of Italian Opera: The History of a Profession'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. *Rushmore, Robert (1971), ''The Singing Voice'', London: Hamish Hamilton. *Somerset-Ward, Richard (2004), ''Angels and Monsters: Male and Female Sopranos in the Story of Opera'', New Haven & London: Yale University Press. * Reid, Cornelius L. (1950), ''Bel Canto: Principles and Practices'', Joseph Patelson Music House * Rosenthal, Harold; Ewan West (eds.) (1996), ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera'', London: Oxford University Press. *Scalisi, Cecilia (November 10, 2003)
"Raúl Giménez, el maestro del bel canto"
''
La Nación ''La Nación'' () is an Argentine daily newspaper. As the country's leading conservative newspaper, ''La Nación''s main competitor is the more liberal '' Clarín''. It is regarded as a newspaper of record for Argentina. Its motto is: "''La Nac ...
''. Accessed 3 November 2008.
Traité complet de chant et de déclamation lyrique
Enrico Delle Sedie (Paris, 1847


External links

Articles
Bel Canto: Historically Informed, Re-Creative Singing in the Age of Rhetorical Persuasion, c.1500 – c.1830
*Nigro, Antonella
Observations on the Technique of Italian Singing from the 16th Century to the Present Day
from the book "Celebri Arie Antiche: le piu' note arie del primo Barocco italiano trascritte e realizzate secondo lo stile dell'epoca" by Claudio Dall'Albero and Marcello Candela.

*Samoiloff, Lazar S. (1942), "Bel Canto"
The Singer's Handbook
Digitized material
''"Bel Canto"'' Titles
from the
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music, ...
(e.g. Lamperti, Giovanni Battista: ''The Technics of Bel Canto'') * Garcia, Manuel; Garcia, Beata, (trans.) (1894)
''Hints on Singing''
London: E. Ascherberg. *Greene, Harry Plunket (1912)
''Interpretation in Song''
New York: The Macmillan Company. * Lehmann, Lilli; Aldrich, Richard, (translated from ''Meine Gesangskunst'', 1902) (1916)
''How to Sing''
New York: Macmillan.
Audiobook

''Bel canto by Harvard''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bel Canto 18th-century music genres 19th-century music genres Italian opera terminology