# The Skills of Nineteenth Century Singers



## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

24 perfect trills in 3 minutes!






I ran across a YT video series of demonstrations that were made in the early 1900s to go along with a book by the vocal pedagogue Hermann Klein, himself a pupil of Manuel Garcia. They are by the incredible signer Janet Spencer, a student of Klein, a supremely gifted contralto with perfect technique. She demonstrates flawless trills, runs, legato, portamento, ornaments, triplets, arpeggios, staccato, the works. Each recording was, like all recordings at the time, recorded in one take. It's a pleasure to hear her beautiful and extremely phonogenic voice go through the exercises. They have a kind of hypnotic effect. The downside is that they are examples of the schooling of a finished voice that has been coordinated properly and reached a very advanced stage of vocal training. They therefore don't allow us to really glimpse what went into arriving at that stage, and what a great singer Spencer sounded like at each step.

Runs:





You can see more at the channel (there are 20 demonstrations).

Here's what she sounded like with all these skills put together in an actual song:





It's a remarkable window into the world of 19th century vocalism.


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## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Great find! Exquisite singing. It's painful to know that this level of singing is a thing of the past


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

A wonderful find. Who would have guessed that anything like this existed? It carried me back to my singing years and the many hours of vocalizing that got me as far as I did get. I'm left feeling grateful for our great tradition of singing and for having been able to contribute modestly to it.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Deleted post deleted post


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Bonetan said:


> Great find! Exquisite singing. It's painful to know that this level of singing is a thing of the past


Indeed. There are almost no contraltos now, let alone contraltos with trills and agility!


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## adriesba (Dec 30, 2019)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Indeed. There are almost no contraltos now, let alone contraltos with trills and agility!


I love contralto voices! Where are they?!


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

adriesba said:


> I love contralto voices! Where are they?!


I imagine it's hard to train a contralto if one thinks chest voice is damaging, which is a far too common belief these days.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

But I agree, I love contraltos! Sigrid Onegin, Emmi Leisner, Louise Kirkby-Lunn, Rosette Anday, Maria Olszewska, Margarete Matzenauer, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, Clara Butt... there used to be many great contraltos all at the same time. They were all A+ singers.


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## adriesba (Dec 30, 2019)

vivalagentenuova said:


> I imagine it's hard to train a contralto if one thinks chest voice is damaging, which is a far too common belief these days.


I don't know a whole lot about singing, so sorry if this is a silly question, ... but isn't chest voice the same voice for speaking? How then would it be damaging?


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

adriesba said:


> I don't know a whole lot about singing, so sorry if this is a silly question, ... but isn't chest voice the same voice for speaking? How then would it be damaging?


It's not a silly question. The view that chest voice is damaging is silly view! There's a difference between having some chest in your sound and having a fully and separately developed chest register which is then coordinated (blended) with the head voice at the end of the process of building the voice. That's what I think modern pedagogues think is harmful. Modern singers have the former, old singers had the latter. There are probably other reasons for the lack of low voices as well, but that's one that springs to mind.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

The "nasal resonance" crowd seems to have this idea that singing is inherently damaging, and so you have to "place" your sound "forward" into your "nasal resonators" (which don't resonate hardly anything) because that's somehow safer. You can see views like that articulated in masterclasses with Horne, Fleming, DiDonato, Florez etc.. You'll never get a rich sound like that. One reason I love the old contraltos is the rich, full sound of their voices. I call it "purple" sound, because I associate it with the Preiser CD covers, which is where I first heard singers like Leisner and Onegin. It's smooth and warm, but dark and powerful.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Marilyn Horne was one of the few modern singers to bring back the booming chest register and it certainly didn't seem to damage her voice. Ewa Podles as well. Podles is about the only real contralto I can think of in the last generation .


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

....and Marian Anderson


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

nina foresti said:


> ....and Marian Anderson


Thanks Nina! She was one of the greatest, but I hadn't listened to her in decades and she was well over a generation before Podles. There just aren't many. My favorites were Maureen Forrester and Kathleen Ferrier, but both are generations ago. 
'


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## adriesba (Dec 30, 2019)

For a contralto, I like Jean Madeira.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

adriesba said:


> For a contralto, I like Jean Madeira.


Her Clytemnestra was unreal.


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## adriesba (Dec 30, 2019)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Her Clytemnestra was unreal.


Indeed she may be my favorite for that role though I also really like Astrid Varnay in the Böhm video. But I'm not super familiar with _Elektra _recordings, so I should hear more.

Madeira also recorded her role as Carmen which is interesting if a bit unusual. I believe she also has an Amneris, but I haven't heard it. And wow she made an excellent Erda! I wish there were more recordings of her.


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