Bel canto (Italian for "beautiful song" or "beautiful song", pronounced [b? 'kanto] ), along with a number of similar constructions ("bellezze del canto"/"bell'arte del canto"), is a term related to the Italian singing. It has several different meanings and is subject to various interpretations.
The words were not related to "school" singing until the mid-19th century, when writers in the early 1860s used it nostalgically to describe the way the singing began to decline around 1830. Nevertheless, "both music and general dictionary see suitable for trying [a] the definition of [bel canto] until after 1900 ". The term remains vague and ambiguous in the 21st century and is often used to evoke lost singing traditions.
Video Bel canto
History of terms and their definitions
As commonly understood today, the term "canton" refers to the Italian vowel style prevailing in most of Europe during the 18th century and early 19th century. Sources of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries "will lead us to believe that the bell is limited to the beauty and tone, the legato phrasing, and the skill in executing highly florid parts, but contemporary documents [ 18th century and early 19th century] describe the way multifaceted performance goes beyond these limits. "The main features of the bel canto style are:
- prosodic chant (use of accent and emphasis)
- match list and tonal sound quality to emotional content of words
- a highly articulated way of pronunciation based on the insertion of grammatical and rhetorical pauses
- delivery varies by some type of legato and staccato
- liberal apps of more than one type of portamento
- messa in voce as the main source of expression (Domenico Corri calls it "the soul of music" - The Singer Preceptor , 1810, vol 1, pp. li>
- often change the tempo through rhythmic rubato and accelerate and slow down the whole time
- the introduction of various graces and divisions into arias and recitations
- gestures as a powerful tool for enhancing the vowel delivery effect
- vibrato is primarily provided to enhance the expression of certain words and to decorate longer notes.
The Harvard Music Dictionary by Willi Apel says that bel canto shows "the Italian vocal technique of the 18th century, with an emphasis on the beauty of sound and brilliancy of performance rather than dramatic expressions or romantic emotions." Regardless of the repeated reactions to bel canto (or its misuse, such as the look for itself; Gluck, Wagner) and often exaggerating of virtuoso elements (coloratura), it should be regarded as a very artistic and only technique appropriate for Italian opera and for Mozart. The building was initially tied closely to that of the Italian opera seria (A. Scarlatti, NA Porpora, N. Jommelli, JA Hasse, N. Piccinni). "
Bel canto in the 18th and early 19th century
Because of the style of bel canto developed in the 18th and early 19th centuries, Handel's music and his contemporaries, like Mozart and Rossini, benefited from the application of bel canto > principles. Operas accept the most dramatic use of techniques, but the style of bel canto applies equally to oratorio, albeit in a somewhat less flamboyant manner. Da capo arias these works provide a challenge for the singers, because the repetition of the opening section prevents the story line from developing. Nonetheless, singers are needed to keep the emotional drama moving forward, and therefore they use the principles of bel canto to help them create repeated material in a new emotional mask. They also include a variety of ornaments (Domenico Corri says da capo arias was created for the purpose of The Singer Preceptor, vol. 1, p.Ã, 3]), but not every singer is equipped to do this, some authors, notably Domenico Corri himself, point out that singing without ornament is an acceptable practice (see The Singer Preceptor , vol 1, p3). Singers regularly decorate arias and recitations, but do so by adjusting their trimmings with the prevailing sentiments of the pieces.
Two famous 18th-century lecturers were Antonio Bernacchi (1685-1756) and Nicola Porpora (1686-1768), but many others existed. Some of these teachers are castrati. Singer/writer John Potter states in his book Tenor: History of a Voice that:
- For most of the 18th century castrati defines the art of singing; it is the loss of their irreparable skill that in time creates the myth of the bell bell, the way of singing and conceptualizing singing that is entirely different from anything that the world heard before or will hear again./dd>
Bel canto in nineteenth-century Italy and France
In other applications, the term "bel canto" is sometimes attached to the Italian opera written by Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) and Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848). This composer wrote bravura work for the stage during what is sometimes called by the music experts "bel canto era". But the style of singing has begun to change around 1830, Michael Balfe wrote the new teaching methods necessary for Bellini and Donizetti ( New Singing Universal Methods , 1857, iii), so the opera Bellini and Donizetti are actually vehicles for a new era of singing. The last important operatic role for a castrato was written in 1824 by Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864).
The phrase "bel canto" was not commonly used until the later part of the 19th century, when it was opposed to developing a stronger and stronger singing style associated with the German opera and, above all, Richard Drama Wagner's revolutionary music. Wagner (1813-1883) denounced the Italian singing model, alleging that it was only concerned with "whether G or A would be rounded out". He advocated a new German stream of singing, which would draw "a deep spiritual and passionate spirit into the orbit of an unmatchable Expression".
Interestingly enough, French musicians and composers never embraced more florid Italian bell styles from the 18th century. They disliked the castrato's voice and because they placed a premium on the clear expression of their vocal music texts, they objected to the sung words obscured by excessive fioritura.
The popularity of bel canto styles embraced by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini faded in Italy during the mid-19th century. It was followed by a heavier, more energetic, less embroidered approach to singing needed to perform Giuseppe Verdi's innovative works (1813-1901) with maximum dramatic impact. Tenors, for example, begin to inflate their tones and provide high C (and even high D) directly from the chest rather than switching to the voice/falsetto sound as they did before - sacrificing vocal agility in the process. Sopranos and baritones react in a similar way to their tenor counterparts when confronted with a composition filled with Verdi's drama. They subdued their sound production mechanisms for greater pressure and cultivated the attractive tops of their respective ranges at the expense of their lower but less sharp lower tones. At first at least, the technique of contraltos and bass songs of the 19th century was less influenced by Verdi's musical innovations, built by successors Amilcare Ponchielli (1834-1886) and Arrigo Boito (1842-1918).
Bel canto and his critics
One reason for the eclipse of the old Italian singing model is the growing influence in the music world of opponents of bel canto, who regard it as out of date and condemn it as a vocalization without content. But for others, bel canto became a lontar art of elegant, subtle, and sweet music. Rossini lamented in a conversation that occurred in Paris in 1858 that: "Unfortunately for us, we have lost our dutch". Similarly, the so-called German style is ridiculed as it is heralded. In the introduction to a collection of songs by an Italian master published in 1887 in Berlin under the title "Il bel canto", Franz Sieber wrote: "In our day, when the most disgusting assault under a special" dramatic song " has spread everywhere, when fools seem more interested in how hard than how beautiful the singing is, a collection of songs may be welcome - as the title suggests - can help in restoring bel canto to the rightful place. "
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the term "bel canto" was raised by teachers singing in Italy, among them retired Verdi bartender Antonio Cotogni (1831-1918) was a very famous figure. Cotogni and his followers dragged him against the fiery and vibrant style of vocalism that the singers increasingly adopted after about 1890 to meet the harsh demands of verismo writing by composers such as Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857-1919) Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945) and Umberto Giordano (1867-1948), as well as the hearing challenges posed by non-Italianat stage work Richard Strauss (1864-1949) and other late-romantic/composers of the early-modern era, with a vocal line heavy and angular as well as dense orchestral textures.
During the 1890s, the Bayreuth Festival directors initiated a very strong Wagnerian style of singing that was completely against the ideals of Italian lardanto. Called "Sprechgesang" by its supporters (and nicknamed "Bayreuth's skin" by some opponents), the new Wagnerian style prioritizes the articulation of individual words from the composer's libretti over the delivery of legato. This text-based anti-legato approach to vocalism spread throughout the German-speaking part of Europe before World War I.
As a result of many of these factors, the concept of bel canto becomes veiled in mysticism and is confused by most individual ideas and interpretations. To complicate matters further, German musicology in the early 20th century created its own historical app for "bel canto", using the term to denote the simple liricism that came to the fore in Venetian operas and Roman cantata during the 1630s and 40s composer Antonio Cesti, Giacomo Carissimi, and Luigi Rossi) as a reaction to previous rappresentativo dominated text-domination. Unfortunately, the use of the old bel canto term is widely circulated in Robert Haas' Die Musik des Barocks and, later, in Manfred Bukofzer Music in the Baroque Era . Because the style of Italian singing of the 17th century is no different in any way from the 18th century and early 19th century, relationships can be drawn; but, according to Jander, most music experts agree that this term is best restricted to the use of the mid-nineteenth century, which shows a style of singing that emphasizes the beauty of tones and technical expertise in delivering highly florid music or long, flowing features and parts cantilenes that are difficult to sustain.
Maps Bel canto
Bel canto revival
In the 1950s, the phrase "bel canto revival" was created to refer to renewed interest in the operas of Donizetti, Rossini, and Bellini. These composers became obsolete during the later years of the nineteenth century and their works, while never completely disappearing from the repertoire of performances, were rarely performed during the first half of the 20th century, when Wagner, Verdi and Puccini operas holding power. The situation changed significantly after World War II with the emergence of a group of enterprising orchestras and the emergence of a new generation of singers such as Montserrat Caballà ©, Maria Callas, Joan Sutherland, Beverly Sills and Marilyn Horne, who obtained a bel canto. technique. These artists breathed new life into the composition of the stage Donizetti, Rossini and Bellini, treated them seriously as music and popularized them throughout Europe and America. Today, some of the most frequently performed operas in the world, such as Rossini's The Barber of Seville and Donizetti Lucia in Lammermoor , are from the cantonese era.
Many 18th century operas requiring adroit bel canto skills also experienced postwar revivals, from the lesser known Mozart and Haydn to the extensive Baroque works by Handel, Vivaldi, and others.
Inheritance teaching bel canto
Musicians sometimes apply the label "bel canto technique" to the achievement warehouse and the virtuoso vocal concepts that are provided by singing teachers to their students during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Many of these teachers are castrati.
"All of their pedagogical works follow the same structure, beginning with the exercise on a single note and eventually evolving into scale and improvisation decoration" writes Potter who continues, "The truly creative ornaments necessary for cadenza involve models and formulas that can produce improvisation new material, coming towards the end of the process. "
The idea that pervades today that the singer must refrain from improvisation and always cling to a scorecard issued by a composer is a relatively recent phenomenon, enacted during the first decade of the 20th century by dictatorial conductors such as Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957 ), who championed the dramatic operas of Verdi and Wagner and believed to keep the players with a strict rope of interpretation. This was noted by Potter (page 77) and Michael Scott.
However, Potter notes that when the 19th century evolved:
- The general trend... is for singers who have never been taught by castrati (there are some of them left) and for serious studies to start later, often in one of the new conservatories rather than with a personal teacher. Traditional techniques and pedagogy are still recognized, but his teachings are generally in the hands of the tenors and baritones who at that time were at least once removed from the tradition itself.
The early nineteenth-century teachers described the sound as consisting of three registers. Chest breasts are the lowest of the three and the highest register head, with a passaggio in between. These registers must be seamlessly integrated and fully balanced before a trainee's singer can get the total order from his natural instrument, and the surest way to achieve this result is for the trainee to practice vocal exercises diligently. Teachers of the times bel canto are the people who strongly believe in the benefits of vocalise and solfeggio. They strive to strengthen their pupils' respiratory muscles and equip them with time-honored vocal attributes such as "purity of tones, legato perfection, expressions informed by eloquent portamento, and beautifully changing ornaments", as noted in Introduction Volume 2 of Scott's < > The Record of Singing .
Major improvements occurred in the existing sound classification system during the 19th century when the international opera repertoire was diverse, divided into a typical and expanded nationalist school in size. All new categories of singers such as mezzo-soprano and Wagnerian bass-baritone emerged towards the end of the 19th century, as well as new sub-categories such as lyric coloratura soprano, sopranos and dramatic spinto soprano, and various levels of tenor, stretching from lyrics through spinto become heroic. These classification changes have a lasting effect on the way the singing teachers set the voices and the way in which the opera house management releases their production.
It would be wrong, however, to think that there is uniformity amongst councils among the nineteenth century bel canters when it comes to conveying their knowledge and instructing students. Each of them has his own pet training and idea regime; but, basically, they all follow the same set of Canto bell rules, and the exercises they make to improve their students' breathing, dexterity, reach and technical control are valuable and, indeed, still used by some teachers.
Manuel GarcÃÆ'a (1805-1906), author of the influential treatise L'Art du Chant , is the most prominent of the pedagogues that perpetuated the bel-canto principles in their teachings and writings during the second half of the 19th century. Her like-minded sister Pauline Viardot (1821-1910), was also an important voice teacher, as were her colleagues Viardot Mathilde Marchesi, Camille Everardi, Julius Stockhausen, Carlo Pedrotti, Venceslao Persichini, Giovanni Sbriglia, Melchiorre Vidal and Francesco Lamperti Together with Francesco's son, Giovanni Battista Lamperti). The voices of some of their former students can be heard on acoustic recordings made in the first two decades of the 20th century and re-published since LP and CD. Some examples of 19th century artist's historic and artistic discs are strongly influenced by bel canto-influenced vocal styles and techniques before the "Bayreuth skin" and the dramatic excesses of opera verismo are:
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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