Among the pieces in my recorded Baroque music library are various vocal numbers. Typically the singers (usually female) have a style in which the notes come out sounding flat with no vibrato, apparently generated back in the throat (or antrums/nasal sinuses, it’s hard to tell).
I have developed a moderate loathing for this singing style and tend to jab at the iPod selector to move to the next piece as soon as I hear it.
I dug up what appears to be a reference to the style:
“While singing under the teacher I mentioned before, I developed a technique that I also saw employed with the Baroque group #1: a high-larynxed way of singing that shortens a singer’s vocal life by at least 15 to 20 years. Personally, I suffered from intonation problems, breath problems, and registration problems as a result of this terrible technique of singing. I was only 22 years of age when my vocal cords simply could not sustain proper pitch any longer. I know of several famous Baroque singers who have dropped out of their career by age 35 to 40 because of high-larynxed singing: a technique which places tremendous pressure directly on the vocal folds. This is NOT healthy or acceptable vocalism. Rather it is vocal abuse to be clear and simple. In addition, it is important to note that high-larynxed singing can only be effective in a live or active acoustic. Otherwise, the audience simply experiences a sound that is quite harsh, unflattering, and often under-pitched. With all of this said, many audiences tolerate this justified sound as authentic. The truth is that any singer who learns an excellent technique can sing any style of music without vocal fatigue or abuse, yet serve the style appropriately.”
Note the use of the word “authentic”. How the hell do we know what Baroque singers actually sounded like? And even if it’s authentic, it sounds like shit. :mad:
Interesting! I’m a big fan of the baroque, and have followed the “original instruments” debate for years. (My vote: some of both! I love the original instruments AND I love modern instruments! They both sound wonderful, just in different ways!)
I did not know there was a similar debate regarding singing style!
One of my many LPs is “An Elizabethan Evening.” On it, two particular songs are sung in a “naive” style, as if by ordinary people without real musical training. Like, pick any four of us at random from the SDMB, and have us try to sing together. It’s gonna be…challenging.
The intent was to show how music at the time of Elizabeth might really have sounded. Hm… Let’s just say that it’s a style best used very sparingly!
Is it possible to get a link to the same piece of music performed in the two styles? Maybe one of the arias from Bach’s Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach?
Do the two styles have names? That’d make searching easier.
I hate non-vibrato singing even more than too-wide-vibrato singing. I also believe “original” instruments were replaced for a reason (though I make an exception for the harpsichord).
I own loads of CD and LP copies of Old Bach’s cantatas, Passions, and Masses, and Handel’s operas and oratorios. Never been irritated by the singing styles.
I too spend hours with baroque music and have never come across a particular style of singing that I find irritating. Certainly there are mediocre performances occasionally but that’s a different kettle of fish.
We don’t. At least, not with any certainty but we can make some educated guesses. I must point out however that, like others have said, I wasn’t aware that there was such a thing as “authentic Baroque singing style”.
As for the educated guesses, performers read the treatises that were written at the time and try to identify differences with more recent practices in terms of vibrato, ornementation, tempo, rhythm, actual instruments and, in some cases, improvisation. If you read these texts, you can come to an understanding of what sort of performance Baroque musicians were aiming for at the time but it’s impossible to be 100% sure that the result will be exactly the same as what people were doing then. It’s certainly closer than the Romantic-influenced approach that dominated until the 60s and 70s, but it’s probably not perfectly identical, which is why some people prefer the term “historically-informed performance”, rather than “authentic”.
On original instruments, I sometimes wonder what Bach or Handel or Purcell, or other composers would say if they if they could hear modern instruments. Perhaps they’d say, “This is wonderful! So much better than in our time! I only wish we’d had instruments like that.”
“We” don’t “know” anything of the sort. There are decades of scholarly debate about such stylistic nuances as whether vibrato was intended to be an ornament or to be used continuously, with all sorts of music and contemporary writings cited. The last time I spent any time digging into the matter (which, admittedly, was about 20 years ago) the “vibrato as ornament only” theory was prevalent, but styles and academic theories shift over time so who knows.
Personally I prefer sparse vibrato for Baroque music - the “flat” sound done well can be beautiful and bring out the best in the music. Too much vibrato will muddy up some of the florid passagework Baroque music favors; reserving it for emphasis is much better IMO.
Of course, any style of singing performed poorly is, tautologically, bad.
I was taught that the lack of vibrato in most Baroque era music was due to the preponderance of male vocalists, both adult and child, whose vocal production naturally tends to include less vibrato. The voice of a young boy was considered the purest and truest vocal sound and was thus emulated by other vocalists of the time.
I don’t think it’s true that male vocalists ‘naturally’ use less vibrato. It’s not due to any physical factor. It’s simply a matter of choice and training, for both male and female singers of all ages. Boy sopranos could easily be trained to use vibrato if anyone wanted them to sing that way.
There’s also no significant difference between the voices of young girls and young boys. Some English cathedral choirs have girl choristers today, and with a similar level of training, there are similar results.
Here’s a Bach aria with heavy vibrato. It’s performed this way in every recording I’ve heard (and one live performance – heavenly!) so I’m guessing Bach wrote it that way.
It may (or may not?) have been a standard technique, but it was one of many tools in the composer’s toolbox.
What I’m trying to guess is how it would sound without the vibrato…and I think it would still be very pretty.
(Short: two minutes.)
(Jagen ist die Lust der Gotter – hunting is the joy of the gods – from the Hunt Cantata, bwv 208 – also famous for “Sheep May Safely Graze.”)
This is rapidly changing notes, as you will see if you look at the score. Vibrato is not written into the score. Vibrato is performed on a single note, particularly a sustained note.
See the two examples I gave above of the solo in Allegri’s Miserere. The first example is sung with vibrato, the second is the same passage without vibrato.
Listen to about a minute of each, just to the end of the part with the top C. You will hear the difference.
Naturally since I went looking for it, it was difficult to find in my music library.
However this recording provides a fairly decent sample of the way-back-in-the-throat-deep-in-the-antrums singing style.
Note that she is using vibrato, which makes it slightly more tolerable. Sung completely flat in that manner, it is (to use the professional term), blech.
