Early Music Singing
Early Music Singing
I am an occasional interloper on a Facebook forum titled Vibrato is a Bizarre and Unnecessary Affection.
After viewing the various posts both by the moderator and others, I surmise that this complaint is directed primarily,
although not exclusively, at vibrato as used by singers performing early music, specifically Baroque music.
The general tenor (pun intended) is that vibrato is out of place in this repertoire, but there is disagreement
as to whether some vibrato is permissible, or if it should be eliminated altogether. Some feel that a 'straight'
style of singing is best, with no vibrato at all. Others feel that vibrato is okay, the question being where
and when to apply it.
I feel that all of these well-intentioned posters have missed the point. The use of vibrato in Baroque music
should be considered within the greater context of something called the Rhetorical Style. This is a performance
style that gained momentum in the 1960s, thanks to the efforts of several pioneering musicians, chief among them
Frans Brüggen, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and Gustav Leonhardt. Collectively, they (and their many students who followed
them) began performing music of the 17th and 18th centuries on period instruments using the interpretive and expressive
means embodied in the Rhetorical Style, also known colloquially as HIP, or Historically Informed (or Inspired)
Performance. The success of Brüggen, Harnoncourt, and Leonhardt was immediate and long-lasting. It spawned a
movement—really, a revolution—that is now the de facto standard for period instrumentalists around the world.
This is perhaps not the time or place to go into the details of this performance style. Suffice it to say what while great
strides have been made since the ‘60s in the performance of the standard orchestral instruments of the era—violin,
transverse flute, oboe, bassoon, horn, trumpet—as well as several non-standard instruments like the harpsichord,
lute, and viola da gamba, the quality of early music singing has not kept pace. Quite frankly, there have been
far too many examples of poorly judged, even bad early music singing that does not live up to the high standards
of present-day Baroque instrumental performance.
The problem seems to be most acute in performances of Baroque opera (Handel, Rameau, Scalatti), where an overblown,
vibrato-y style prevails. One hears it in oratorio and sacred music as well. Take the typical period-instrument
performance of Messiah, where the soloists seldom match the sounds from the orchestra. Instead, they seem intent
on 'belting it out' as if they were on the stage at the Met.
I have my theories why this should be so. One obvious reason is that while instrument technique during the Baroque
revival often rested in the hands of a few prominent teachers, Baroque vocal pedagogy was never as centralized or
clearly codified. In that regard, one only has to think of the Baroque oboe during the early days of its revival
in the 1970s. Prospective players were limited by the scarcity of available instruments, and only a handful of
teachers were qualified to teach. This resulted in a much more unified—one might even say, professional—style
of playing the Baroque oboe, even considering individual and national differences.
But singers—and teachers of singing—continued to study and perform Handel and Rameau as if oblivious to the
on-going developments in the instrument world. True, several specialists emerged in the ‘70s and ‘80s who
cultivated a style befitting the newly-formatted instrumental style. I would venture to say, however, that
many more 'specialists' appeared who, by nature of their star power were quickly engaged by opera houses
and record labels to sing the Greatest Hits of the Baroque. Two examples of this latter category come
immediately to mind.
There’s no denying that the Italian mezzo Cecilia Bartoli has 'star power'. In her many recorded performances
of the music of Vivaldi, for example, she grabs your attention from the very first note and never lets go
(she’s also fascinating to watch). But can there be any doubt that the actual sound coming out of
her throat is as far removed from Vivaldi as, say, Jazz is from Mozart? Not to mention the inevitable high
note 'bomb' that ends practically every aria she sings.
Another example is the Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin. Despite her many 'critically acclaimed' recordings of
Handel and Vivaldi, the actual sound of her voice, with its constant vibrato and heavy delivery, is to me the
complete antithesis of what Baroque music is about. She would be great singing Puccini or Verdi, but evidently
that’s not her cup of tea.
Most egregiously, both singers have little understanding of rhetoric and its importance in Baroque music.
But more about that later.
Full disclosure: I endured the typical American vocal pedagogy during my undergraduate years in the late ‘60s.
While I was not a vocal major, I got enough of the 'treatment' to understand what was going on.
Basically, whether singing Bach, or Schubert, or Brahms, the student is required to develop a 'product', a vocal
presence that couples a heavily modulated sound (vibrato) with a strong, confident delivery. One is required to
stand tall and resolute and look the audience square in the eye. (One recommendation for getting rid of stage
fright: imagine that the audience is naked!)
Curiously, whether singing in English or in a foreign language, little consideration was given to the meaning
of the words, and especially to communicating the meaning to the audience. In other words, the concept
of music as rhetoric. American singers are notoriously substandard when it comes to languages, and this
shortcoming in my vocal upbringing is one that took me a long time to overcome.
Clearly, the pedagogic goal in every major conservatory around the world is to ready the student for the operatic
world. Your best bet as a singer is to land a job in a major opera house. With diligence and good luck, you may
eventually work your way up to prima donna or primo uomo. But you must do so singing your guts out
in a 4000-seat hall, with a 100-piece orchestra blaring away in front of you. No wonder that Cecilia and Karina
sound the way they do.
It should come as no surprise that the swaggering, 'look at me' operatic style demanded of present-day singers
is the complete antithesis of the Rhetorical Style as practiced during the Baroque era. For starters, singers
back then sang in small, resonant rooms and were accompanied by smallish ensembles with greatly reduced decibel levels.
Given the intimate setting, the primary goal of Baroque musicians was to move the audience, to evoke certain emotions,
rather than to 'wow' them. These emotions, called variously passions, sentiments, or affects, were
embodied in a set of standardized figures, or musical gestures. Musicians were trained to recognized these figures
and render them in such a way that the listener would be moved, much in the same a good actor can make his audience
laugh or cry. As J.J. Quantz famously put it:
The musician and the orator have the same aim […] namely to make themselves
masters of the hearts of their listeners, to arouse or still their passions, and to transport them now to this
sentiment, now to that.
(trans. Reilly)
In the Baroque era, the performer was as important as the composer, if not more so, because the music on the
page was only an approximation. It needed the creative input of the performer to be fully realized.
As the Baroque gave way to the Classical and Romantic periods, a new paradigm emerged, one in which the
performer’s importance was greatly diminished, and the composer’s 'feelings' were tantamount. The 'rhetorical'
aspect of music performance disappeared, to be replaced with the concept of 'absolute' music—in other words,
music that doesn’t need to be performed to be appreciated. It’s no wonder that in this cultural context, instrumentalists—and
especially singers—no longer have a grasp of the Rhetorical Style.
As Bruce Haynes has written (in reference to performances of Baroque music), Our singers are in trouble, and need our help.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
This naturally begs the question: are there any singers active today who can at least give us an idea, however imperfect,
of the true Rhetorical Style in music? The answer is: there are a few, and while they might not satisfy all the requirements,
they can at least serve as model for younger singers who wish to perform Baroque music in a more enlightened, less operatic style.
Two that come immediately to mind are Dame Emma Kirkby and Suzie LeBlanc.