# What does it mean, if the singer has "musicality" ?



## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

I have heard several times of the superb "musicality" of Maria Callas. Now in the other thread, Renata Scotto is discussed as having it. What does it mean ? 

Normaly, I would understand it as somebody, who has correct pitch hearing and processing, unlike me and Florence Foster Jenkins. Or the fact that somebody likes music at all (that would be me as well).

But what does it mean if we are talking about opera singers ???


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## Op.123 (Mar 25, 2013)

Good phrasing, good legato, lack of distracting mannerisms, dramatic instinct, appropriate response to the text, clear, unaspirated fioritura, good diction, appropriate and varied dynamics etc.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Some other examples of many besides Callas:
Steber, Caruso, Gigli, Muzio, Pertile, Ponselle, Tucker, Zeani, Schipa


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Some singers have it just naturally. It is an innate feeling of how the music should go and understanding the needs of different composers. It's hard to put into words, but I know it when I hear it. Callas had it in spades. Indeed Victor De Sabata once said to Walter Legge, "If the public could understand as we do how deeply musical she is, it would be amazed."

It's a way of looking at all those dots and signs on the printed page and making real musical sense of them.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Some singers have it just naturally. It is an inate feeling of how the music should go and understanding the needs of different composers. It's hard to put into words, but I know it when I hear it. Callas had it in spades. Indeed Victor De Sabata once said to Walter Legge, "If the public could understand as we do how deeply musical she is, it would be amazed."
> 
> It's a way of looking at all those dots and signs on the printed page and making real musical sense of them.


Apropos of Tsaras observation, Will Crutchfield in the New York Times once said that Carlo Bergonzi “thinks words, not eighth notes!”.... the dots on the page are realized in sound! In Italian opera in particular, I find myself affected by a singer who makes vivid the alternation between legato lyricism and firm declamation. Such an overplayed chestnut as Vesti la Giuba will work for me once again when the tenor has a sense of building and emphasizing the words in the angular phrases leading to the climax and then releasing the famous “ridi pagliaccio” in a powerful legato line.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Not so long ago we were comparing different versions of Otello's _Dio mi potevi scagliar_. It starts with repeated Gs on the stave descending to low D for _della vergogna_, the notes punctuated by rests, as in _Dio_ (rest) _mi potevi _(rest) _scagliar_ (rest) _tutti mali _(rest) _della miseria _(rest) _della vergogna _etc. The best versions, such as those by Melchior (even when he is singing in German) and Vickers, sing the notes as written, observe the rests and note values exactly, but still manage to create maximum tension. They trust the composer and carry out his intructions. Now if we turn to someone like Del Monaco, we note that he adds intrusive sobs, sometimes even singing notes other than those written by Verdi. This might be superficially effective, but it is nowhere near as musical as the versions by Melchior and Vickers.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Now if we turn to someone like Del Monaco, we note that he adds intrusive sobs, sometimes even singing notes other than those written by Verdi. This might be superficially effective, but it is nowhere near as musical as the versions by Melchior and Vickers.


Excellent example! Acknowledging the superficial effect is important too, because it is there. But there is a dark burn to the pain of the other two that makes it feel deeper inside the character. The drama is achieved through the music.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Some singers have it just naturally. It is an innate feeling of how the music should go and understanding the needs of different composers. It's hard to put into words, but I know it when I hear it. Callas had it in spades. Indeed Victor De Sabata once said to Walter Legge, "If the public could understand as we do how deeply musical she is, it would be amazed."
> 
> It's a way of looking at all those dots and signs on the printed page and making real musical sense of them.


THIS is the definitive answer.

N.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

Thought of another component today at a lunchtime chamber music concert..... musicality is highly derived from the way a singer or musician interacts with and responds to the other singers and musicians around them. 

Chemistry between two actors onstage has a lot to do with the audience' perception that each actor is being affected by the other actor.... the things they are doing happen *because of* what the other character is doing and are a response to that. It's the same in music. The orchestra will play and the singer will sing. But all singers are far from equally gifted at conveying a great inter-connectedness between those two things. When it happens, the experience is most definitely Musical, with a capital M!


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