The Tragi-Comedy of English Singing - food for thought..from Anna Sims.."The English Breather"..(with a sting in the tail)..

...it cannot be denied that in certain directions we have made great progress in England during the last twenty years. The standard of instrumental playing is one hundred per cent, higher , and we have a group of composers who are rapidly bringing us into line with International standards of achievement. But there is one branch of executive musical art in which there is to be discerned, not only no advance of any kind, but a distinct movement of retrogression. I refer to singing, which is at the moment in nothing less than a desperate condition of decline, and the responsibility of blame may be fairly divided between the singers themselves and those to whom it has been entrusted the task of their education. Let it first be made clear that nothing can be urged aganst the quality of English voices or the musical intelligence of the average young English singer, as compared with the corresponding type abroad. We have a large number of first rate voices and an enormous number of singing students, and yet in these islands, a judicious selection would hardly suffice to complete the necessary personnel of a single good opera company. The question that at once arises in one's mind is, why is it that all these young people of voice and talent, who in their thousands pass through our schools of music, arrive practically nowhere ? We know that when they embark upon their course of study they are often sound and promising in every respect, vocally and mentally. Yet we see these same again some years afterwards, and in nearly every case we have difficutly in detecting signs of the slightest development, indeed, some are even less competent and capable of assimilation than in the earlier days. What can possibly have happened in the meantime to have produced this unhappy state of seeming paralysis? Undoubtedly the main cause is to be found in the deplorable system of training most of them have received either in the great schools of music or from private teachers. There can be no question that almost the greatest drawback in the musical life of this country is the scarcity of good singing masters, and the appalling overgrowth of bungling incompetence that dares to imagine that without the smallest qualifications it can mould and handle the most delicately sensitive and beautiful of instruments in the weorld. Not only are the professors themselves dangerously inadequate, but what is of equal malevolence is the point of view prevailing in the music schools toward the whole question of singers and singing. For years the unfortunate vocal student has been regarded as something rather less than a human being, at any rate as a creature of unusually inferior intelligence. Upon their entering an institution, the authorities, convinced of their comparative lowliness in the animal kingdom...at once set about remedying the students defects by giving them what they call a good general music education. It does not matter a rap whether the unfortunate victim has any special desires on the subject, or shows any aptitude or not for playing the double bassoon or writing fugues in thirty six parts. True to their peculiar theory that singers should be musicians first and singers afterwards, they whittle away the precious time of the student in providing them with a superficial knowledge of half a dozen subjects, and a really useful acquaintance with none of them. It would be difficult to find a single vocalist of merit in the whole of this country who could be brought to deny that the time given up to the study of singing at one of our great musical institutions was not, from beginning to end, an utter waste of time and money...! ..O.K., O.K.... before you start lambasting me (Simsannabim) with a defensive tirade at my audacity in publishing such a scathing report on the subject of English voice training, let me explain that this article appeared in The London Daily Chronicle of March 15th. ..1915 !! ..from the pen of one ..Thomas Beecham...later Knighted for his services to music...yes, Dear Old Tommy Beecham. I love listening to recordings of his concerts, etc., and hearing his 'dry, throaty' voice singin' along ...Unfortunately, from the reports of many talented young singers, I receive messages that indicate the current situation is not dissimilar to that of 1915....can you believe it...?? For instance, the latest 'craze hitting the fan' ..(or throat ? ) is ..'tilting the larynx'..which is totally irrelevent to acquiring the skills for the development of "The ART of Singing"...after all..'singing' is simply ' talking on a musical note'...simple as that and mostly dependant on good natural breathing . I'm often asked "What makes you think you're right about breathing..?." I DON'T think I'm right.." Yes you DO" ..."No I don't - I KNOW I'm ' right or it wouldn't still be working for me " ...any questions ...?? Please k..p b.......g..