...it's the singer, not the song

Here are some examples of cadenzas by Manuel Garcia II (or 'The Sequel', as I like to think of him). The reason I'm presenting them here is that I'm continuing my thoughts from my last post ("...it's what he would have wanted"), which were on creativity and whether a singer can be a composer in their own right. Well, they used to be. In the 18th century, — the golden age of bel canto — singers were trained in harmony and counterpoint exactly as composers were; they had to be able to understand and analyse the music they were singing so that they could improvise over the top of it. So in those days a singer was judged as much on their taste in improvisation and variation as they were on tone, execution, intonation and everything else that we judge a singer on. And the final test in taste came at the end of a song, when the accompaniment would pause and you would be required to improvise a cadenza showing off everything that you could do, all in one breath!

By the 19th century, though they were still showing off, singers tended to write their cadenzas beforehand and learn them off by heart. But they would still write their own, so it would be a unique part of the performance, the singer's own cadenza. If they weren't creative, their teacher or accompanist would write it for them.

These days, everyone seems to borrow each other's instead of writing their own. There are some variations on songs which have become standard, which I think is a real shame. This doesn't just apply to singers; instrumentalists do this, too, because 'classical musicians' have become so scared of improvisation. Any jazz musician will tell you it's not scary — there are rules for learning it; you don't just make up random notes and hope they form themselves into a tune. You have to understand the chords and the key you are playing in, just as those old singers used to do.

And — look! Here's a handy guide by Garcia, showing you how to build on a simple tune until you have the confidence to turn it into something awesome!

Don't you think it would be fun to encourage singers to be creative again? A new singer singing any old song makes it seem fresh. I think it's a shame that in the 19th century Manuel Garcia the Sequel said, "In the eighteenth century, the singer modulated according to his fancy; now this liberty is only accorded to artists who unite knowledge with perfect taste." Then he gave an example by his sister.

I prefer an example by one of his students, Jenny Lind, who apparently had quite a unique taste when it came to writing a cadenza, but I like how literal she was in interpreting the words. She wrote a cadenza on the word 'tears', and her descending staccato chromatic scale really sounds like tears falling.

But of course — the words! You don't even have to change the notes to be creative with a song. But that will have to be the subject of another post.

...then I heard Tom

A few years ago, my mum decided to try to work out her family tree. She didn't get any further than her grandparents when she came across someone called Tom Burke. She couldn't work out if he was a relative, or just a very close friend of the family, but she remembered hearing stories about him, and she remembered that he was a singer. So she looked him up. Turns out he became the greatest tenor in the world in his time!

I won't go on about him now — fact is, we found some recordings of him singing, and I was amazed; I had never heard singing like it. I got fascinated; I started listening to singers from that era and before; right back to the first singers who made records.

Quite a few of them were taught by one Mathilde Marchesi, and she wrote a book: Bel Canto, A Theoretical & Practical Vocal Method. On the cover it says, 'Mathilde Marchesi, Teacher of Melba and Calvé, successor to Garcia'.

I took this book to my singing teacher, showed her the exercises in it, and asked her what she thought of them. She laughed and said, "Well, they're a bit old fashioned, aren't they, dear?"

Unfortunately, not very long after that, Rae became too old to teach me any more, and I didn't know where to go to find another teacher as good as her. But I knew that if I was going to sing, I was going to sing in that old fashioned way. So I turned to Marchesi's book. I turned straight to page one, and began to read. On almost every page there was a revelation waiting for me. I worked my way through every exercise; I was determined to get through the whole book, even though at times it seemed impossible.

But I did it. I got through it, and I had the recordings of her students, the superstars of their day, to listen to and copy, so that I could try to really sound like a Marchesi student.

Because it was a family tree that got me started on this journey into the Past, I decided to work out my own family tree. My mum's been getting on very well with our biological tree; she's discovered a cousin she never knew she had, who has traced our family right back to the 17th century, which is really cool. But it also turns out my singing pedigree is really impressive!

The first great singing teacher that we know of is the Big Daddy of Bel Canto, a guy called Porpora, who was born in the 17th century. Via both my singing teachers, I can trace my lineage straight back to Porpora, passing almost every singing legend of the last 300 years on the way!

So if anyone still wants to argue that I don't know what I'm talking about with regards to Bel Canto, argue with this!

P.S. There are a lot of names missed off here, for space reasons!