Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Translator's introduction and commentary
- Note on the text and musical examples
- TREATISE ON VOCAL PERFORMANCE AND ORNAMENTATION
- Preface
- Dedication
- 1 On the qualities of the human voice and its improvement
- 2 On good performance and how to use the voice
- 3 On good performance, with regard to text and music
- 4 On good performance, with regard to ornaments
- 5 On good performance, with regard to passaggi
- 6 On good performance, with regard to the various genres of vocal forms and in consideration of performing in various places
- 7 On cadenzas
- 8 On arbitrary variation of the aria
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - On good performance and how to use the voice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Translator's introduction and commentary
- Note on the text and musical examples
- TREATISE ON VOCAL PERFORMANCE AND ORNAMENTATION
- Preface
- Dedication
- 1 On the qualities of the human voice and its improvement
- 2 On good performance and how to use the voice
- 3 On good performance, with regard to text and music
- 4 On good performance, with regard to ornaments
- 5 On good performance, with regard to passaggi
- 6 On good performance, with regard to the various genres of vocal forms and in consideration of performing in various places
- 7 On cadenzas
- 8 On arbitrary variation of the aria
- Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The singer who has a good voice, who has mastered any defects and has no trouble with rhythm and intonation must also know how to make good use of these skills; that is, he must know how to perform well. The Italians call good use of the voice portamento di voce, or simply portamento. By this term they understand nothing more than a connection of tones which progresses either by stepwise motion or by leaps. In German this has been literally translated as carrying of the voice (Tragen der Stimme). This translation can be accepted as long as one is aware of what actually is to be understood by this term.
The essential feature of the so-called portamento or carrying of the voice lies in the fact that while progressing from one tone to the next without a gap or break, no unpleasant slur or pull through smaller intervals should be detected. In the first case one says: the singer pushes; in the latter, he howls. In the first case the fault lies in the fact that the singer attacks the tones too strongly and also pushes them forward as his chest is too weak to sustain the tones evenly; in the second case semitones can be heard which do not have a harmonic relationship to either one of the other tones.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001