The Art of Accompanying [Part 1]

The Art of Accompanying [Part 1] William Browning (bio) COLLAB CORNER Photo: Margo Garrett [Note: In preparing "Collab Corner" for the celebratory 75th Anniversary issue of the Journal of Singing 76, no. 1 (September/October 2019), I discovered a surprising wealth of excellent articles on accompanying and vocal coaching in all four incarnations of NATS journals. One article in particular impressed me and caused me to research its author at some length. I have not only become a fan, but also have regrets at not having known this man during his lifetime. I would have wanted to study with him. I am pleased to present his "The Art of Accompanying" anew in this column, in two parts because of its length, in this issue as well as in the next. A veteran of live radio broadcasting, American pianist, accompanist, and chamber music pianist, William Browning's colorful and impassioned writing style seems to me more a script than an essay. His particular use of italics, run-on sentences, and fractured writing rules are delightful to encounter, if confounding to reprint. He first presented "The Art of Accompanying" from the podium at an Illinois State Music Teachers Association meeting in Chicago, February 14, 1968. The NATS Bulletin Editor Harvey Ringel was so taken with the speech that he printed it in the October 1968 edition of the periodical. The work is presented here exactly as it appeared its first publication except for obvious misspellings and punctuation adapted to Journal of Singing usage. Some of Mr. Browning's messages resonate in me as important truth for all time, but he greatly amuses me in his humorous look back to a time when a less than flattering opinion of accompanying, indeed, all piano playing, was the point of view of many. We have come a long way. I find this thoroughly thought-provoking, enjoyable reading, and hope you will too. MG] There are no true beginnings or endings in any art form. In our present technocracy we find too great a temptation to place by word, date, formula, and measurement the beginnings and endings of artistic involvements and practices only to find that those very boundaries that we have so meticulously ordered have suddenly been knocked askew by some brash movement which has brought into practice that which we so carefully catalogued and shelved. Witness today the great renascence of the Rococco and Baroque musical masterpieces. Works and [End Page 523] performance practices of several centuries past have been again brought to our attention—dragged, as it were, from the pages of our history books. We had thought that we had arrived at a period of formulated paper music only to discover that we now must face up to the centuries-old debates of ornamentation, improvisation, thoroughbass, tablature, and accompaniment—my interest is the last named: accompaniment . . . now, there is only one older field of musical endeavor in performance, and that, of course, is the area of the vocalist. Our instrumental world came into existence only as a means of decorating, of providing an atmosphere—an aura—to the vocalist. Passing centuries have brought those "accompanying" instruments to their own "solo" status upon a vocal tradition, but always there remains the problem of the necessary accompaniment and the accompaniment for most of these instruments. Of the formal instruments, only the harpsichord, the piano, the organ, and sometimes the harp, have escaped the enslavement by the accompanist and are truly independent of the "help-mate," and, as I will point out later, this sometimes is a greater detriment than an asset for the "help-mate" himself! Click for larger view View full resolution William Browning photo, circa 1975 With the re-vitalization of our thought by the reinstatement of the Renaissance, Rococco, Baroque, Bellini, Donizetti, Bach, Handel, and Mozart performance practices and the ensuing enlightenments in our performance and education schematics, we must not delay a re-studying of the art of accompanying—to use that much abused and bemused cliché. This thought and study must be stressed not merely as a utilitarian measure for providing a "background" for our vocalists and instrumentalists, but as a means in itself, i.e. the development of...