From: le01167@portal.lasc.lockheed.com (Ron Nadel)
Subject: Re: The Artists of our day (was Das Lied van der Erde and Mahler 1)
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Organization: Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. - Rye Canyon
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 18:42:52 GMT

In article <BvvCnG.MIC@news.udel.edu>, conrad@brahms.udel.edu (Jon Conrad) writes...

>projection.  The ELEKTRA video from the Met shows this clearly. [Nilsson]
>still outsang her competition of course, and I'm not saying she sang
>badly in her early years, in any fundamental way.  But there was a 
>definite deterioration in her last decade or so.
> 
So Nilsson's vocal quality was simply due to age intead of misuse?

>>How about Elisabeth Soederstrom?
> 
>The last time I saw her at the Met, in MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, she began
>"Porgi amor" a MINOR THIRD low.  It took her a minute or so to crank
>herself up to pitch, and even then there was a flutter that kept pitch
>ill-defined.  I was torn between wanting to make allowances for a
>beloved veteran artist, and thinking "this is intolerable."

Interesting.  Again, are her vocal trials caused by age or misuse?

>>On the one hand it may be that singers are not singing as well as they used
>>to, but I also think that the amount of singing they do nowadays is too
>>taxing on their voices.  
> 
>What's the difference?  Singing too much, too taxingly, is bad singing.
>You seem to think the two halves of your sentence are opposites, but
>they are in agreement.

Well, I don't know, Jon, they seem different to me.  A singer can sing
properly technically, but sing too often, and a singer can sing with
improper technique and ruin the voice in that fashion (usually quicker).
What I'm trying to do is distinguish if modern singers are not singing
as well as the earlier greats (technically), or if modern singers just
sing more often.  The result can be the same (wobbly voice), but the
causes are different.

>>And they just can't say no to all those booking dates.  
>> 
>Nonsense.  Of course they can.  The more conscientious ones do.  If you
>say yes to things you shouldn't be doing, you are compromising your own
>artistic and vocal standards, and have nobody to blame but yourself.
> 
True enough, and if you sing with poor technique it's your own fault, too.
I just meant that many/most artists are weak in the face of the money etc
and so sing more often now than the greats of days gone by (there are perhaps
less great singers so more demand on existing ones).  So modern singers may
sing just as well as the bygone greats, but have poorer judgement.

>>I think of Kollo in this regard as well.  
>> 
>And he's an example of what I was just talking about, someone who had no
>care for his limitations and chose to sing things that wrecked his
>voice...sang higher parts, and turned it into a loud piercing instrument --
>serviceable, but no pleasure to hear.  It was his choice, but that
>doesn't mean we have to endorse it.

I wasn't endorsing it at all.  My follow up was prompted by your remark
earlier that the modern singers don't sing as well as the "greats".  So
I wondered if their vocal wobbles were due to poorer singing technique or
singing more often.  One being a vocal thing, the other a judgment issue
(for the singer).  I often hear that the musicians today are not on a par
with musicians from another day, and I find it difficult to determine the
accuracy of this judgement (for either singers or instrumentalists).  I
don't quarrel that there a lots of wobblers out there, I just am trying to
know if it's really due to poorer talent/ability/training (our times vs. 
older times) or something else.

This probably leads now to a new thread devoted to the question are artists
today not as good, or better, than before?

When you read, in Berlioz's scores, his admonitions to conductors on which
sections need to be particularly practiced with the strings because of their
tendency to have difficulties with this and that, I wonder if our modern
orchestras are made of more proficient (better) musicians.  On the other hand,
we have only a few super tenors/sopranos etc, able to give the great opera
roles their due, and there are no real coloraturae are there?  And there are
some exceptions to these rules which obscure trends...so what do you think?

Ron