
Morell Mackenzie on Those who Pretend to See with their Fingers (1886)
'It cannot be too clearly understood at the outset that the voice is generated solely in the larynx. It is necessary to insist on this...
'It cannot be too clearly understood at the outset that the voice is generated solely in the larynx. It is necessary to insist on this...
‘Although our declamation cannot be notated, it seems to me that one might be able to preserve it in some way. It would be sufficient if...
‘There is a type of passionate delivery of speech that stands midway between actual song and common declamation. It occurs, like song, in...
[pp. 44-45] 'No historical method mentions this type of voice [the voix sombrée] ; it is only since Gilbert Duprez's debut that we have...
‘Turn into a town Church, for instance, and what does one hear? Fifty charity children squalling their little windpipes to pieces in...
'While this study has shown that the wax cylinder phonograph system significantly alters spectral measurements of the voice output...
‘At 5 o'clock I attended a rehearsal at the Thomas School. The cantor Hauptmann had the grand double-choir motet (by Bach) Singet dem...
On the occasion of this remarkable operatic event, the most accomplished tenore robusto of his times, Dozelli, was the Otello to...
‘I offer you namely my arrangement of the famous Stabat mater by Palestrina, in the original manuscript of which there were no expression...
‘2. To produce a good note, the singer should be in an easy posture, with his head upright and his shoulders back, so as to allow the...
‘A great defect into which some of the best modern singers have fallen is that of having introduced florid ornaments into recitative,...
‘A few trials will suffice to prove that every shade of passion, however slight, will effect in a peculiar way the physical condition,...
'In regard to the accommodation of the melody to the natural pitch of the vowel sounds, the composer is assisted by the spirit of the...
‘How often may the master [Palestrina] himself have conducted it [the Missa Papae Marcelli] with sublime enthusiasm, full of the fire...
‘The reasons why professional musicians have failed to apply our very extensive and ever-increasing knowledge of Classical- and...
The time table of daily duty was, 9 to 9.45, scale practice; 10 to 11, morning service; 11 to 12.30 or 1, music practice; 2 to 3.45,...
‘To many in the singing profession, in fact, an investigation of past approaches seems irrelevant. Even a casual survey of recent...
'The fragment of recitative [below] has two effects. By the words, “Io credeva che alcuno,” Desdemona expresses the depression that...
Question. How can one remedy the fault that a choir, when it sings a well-known church chorale without sheet music, as must often happen,...
In altering or re-arranging words, or syllables, care should be taken to retain and mark the measure or accent of a melody, and only...