Great Singers on the Art of Singing

By Harriette Brower and James Francis Cooke

Book Overview

This outstanding volume is a compilation of the most important chapters from two books in which master singers and teachers offer invaluable advice on topics essential to every singer -- from basic vocal training to the ineffable qualities that make a singer great.
Twenty-seven concise and insightful chapters include "Italy, the Home of Song" by Enrico Caruso; "The Will to Succeed -- A Compelling Force" by Geraldine Farrar; "Teaching Yourself to Sing" by Amelita Galli-Curci; "The Know How in the Art of Singing" by Mary Garden; "Building a Vocal Repertoire" by Alma Gluck; "A Visit to Mme. Lilli Lehmann" by Lilli Lehmann; and "Common Sense in Training and Preserving the Voice" by Dame Nellie Melba.
Advice from these great singers, along with practical and inspirational observations by David Bispham, Florence Easton, Frieda Hempel, Ernestine Schumann-Heink, and other luminaries of the opera world make this a fascinating and informative volume that will delight singers at all levels as well as all lovers of opera and its legendary stars.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0486291901
• ISBN13: 9780486291901
• Release Date: March 2012
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Excellent book for what it has to offer

A warning to begin with: the book is written in that dry academic way that was common in those days when these singers were interviewed. So, it isn't going to be "fun reading" in that sense. The book is valuable for insight into what these great singers thought about singing, but the explanations were not so detailed as to teach you "how to sing" under their various methods of singing. One will often find that they actually don't agree with each other at all. The real issue to deal with when reading this book is you really have no clue, based on what is written, about the various vocal methods taught. The most famous is that of Mathilde Marchessi, who was the teacher of a number of the singers in the book. We have all her "scales" and the lot published by various companies now, but fully understanding her method today is really impossible. Though she taught a fully balanced and even scale, she required all her singers be ultimately very high lying Coloratura sopranos. That highwire palatal placement gave a lovely high sound but was unable to produce great volume or dramatic quality (see Melba's totaly failure and stupidity in singing the Siegfried Brunhilde). If one is going to read the book, I recommend LISTENING to recordings of these various singers. The recordings will be horrible because they will be extremely old and from a time long before quality recording. So, remember, you are getting only a ghostly image of their voices. One will often HEAR what they are talking about, even if it is impossible to actually figure out how they did it. Books like this are often written to show really interested and searching singers and voice students a glimpse of the past, when singing was supposedly at its height. It is like, if we could only see how they did it, and follow their "secrets", we will sound as good. Well, this book makes it clear that you will NEVER learn their secrets (even with singers like Caruso who are more forth-coming with what they tell you), simply because they never tell you those things they are doing which were wrong, and in spite of themselves and their technique, not because of it, they produce great sounds. It is a great book to understand the singers of that day, but it must NEVER be considered a text book on singing. You will become more confused, more unable to figure out what to do, by reading the different and conflicting ideas of correct singing than imaginable. And if you listen to their singing, with open ears, you may actually learn that these singers quite often didn't follow their own advice, and often did things that we would call simply unmusical and in opposition to the style of the music they sang. Their greatness is not in question, and that is because they proved by their lives and their careers that they were excellent (and if you see the list of equally great compeditors they sang against, you will understand just what they were up against to become the greatest of the great they were; there were