The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-04-08
PERENNIAL VOICES OF
 THE GREAT SINGERS
Paths Protected "Nex Farewell Tou-A Teacher Who Expects Teach for Years More-Remiiscnces of Jenny Lind. Gnsi and Malbran-- Continued Vogue of the
 Italian Method of Teaching Singing.

cal instructor at the conservatory in Boston. That is what Jean de Resxke
 meant when he said: T find the sing
 CTS art becomes narrower and mar
 rower all the time, until can truly
 say that the great question of sing
 ing becomes a question of the nose"-
 a curious statement. by the way. if one
 does not. understand that people sing
 through the nose," as 1t is termed. only
 when the nasal passages are In reality
 stopped up. and that when these are
 wide open there is no trace of nasal
 sound.
 The old Italian method of teaching
 singing. so it's advocates say, pro-
 duced Gabrielli. thaA most wonderful singer of the eighteenth century. with
 6 voice of two and One-half octaves.
 perfectly smooth and equafbte in all its range: the clear notes of the beau
 tiful, witty and dissipated Sophie Ar
 mould. at whose salon and recitals Ben temin Franklin was a frequent inter- ested attendant; Mrs. Elisabeth Bill lington, the finest singer of English birth, regarding whom Haydn made his celebrated epigram in the presence of Sir Joshua Reynolds. the painter: You have made a mistake. You have represented Mrs. Bi.ington listening to the angels. You should have made the angels listening to her."
 Reared in the same school of rig orous insistence upon simple things was Henrietta Sontag, of whom it was
 said: She appeared to sing with the volubility of a bird and to experience all the pleasure she imparted." The traditions of the school have been car ried on in England down to this day
 by Professor Manuel Garcia, son of the
 celebrated Spanish tenor for whom
 Almaviva '. The Barbe. of Seville"
 At the advanced age of 101--for he
 was born on March IT, lso5--Senor Garcia still, according to a recent re- port, preserves the parfty of his voice
 and vitality of his constitution. He
 evidently expects to teach Italian sing
 ing for long time yet, for he not long ago told a young lady who az
 piled to him for lessons to come again in three years. as her voice was at present too immature for serious work He has actually been teaching for eighty years. Of the same re- markable family and trained with firm
 kindness by her father was Manuel
 Garcia's sister, Madame Malibran, the foremost soprano of aer day, who met
 with an untimely end as result of u fall from a horse.
 Then there was Grisi, London's fav- orite. who missed only one year of ap- pearance in that metropolis from 1884
 to 1861. and her husband. Mario. who once TtIuS6u LO Cut Oll utS uSdfu the request of the Czar of Russia, say ing that he would Sather lose . monarchs favor than run any risk of | injuring his voice. Trained by Manuel Garcia many years ago was Jenny | Lind. whose popularity in America un- der the management of P. T. Barnum was enormous. There Is long list of American singers educated in the old | Italian way. amongst them Clara
 Louise Kellogg. MinnIe Hauk, Annie Louise Cary and Emma Abbott. Prom | inent among those still on the stage | is Lillian Nordica. a star pupil of the New England Conservatory of Music
 some years ago and later trained by | Signor Sangiovanhi Tn Milan.
 Adelina Patti herself, of course, counts as one of the foremost expon- ents of the method, and Sir Morell ] Mackenzie. a great throat specialist, | said not long ago that hers was the only throat he had ever examined in | which the vocal cords were left in ab-
 solutely perfect condition after many years of strenuous use.
 Because there exists so long list
 of the successes of the old Italian style of singing teaching 1t gains greater and greater ascendency in every country of the world where sing
 ing Is taught. Among the music | schools of this country 1t is now prac- l ticaIly supreme. The period of experi- menting seems to have passed here. In so representative an institution as | the New England Conservatory of
 Music, with its two thounsand and more students, all the teaching of
 singing is after the Italian manner.
 The same thing is true to an extent of the music schools in Germany. France and England. Only in Italy, | where the method was originally de-
 vised, has it any way lost its vogue. Theoretically the Italian masters all teach the old Italian method, but it
 is said that comparatively few of them
 stick to the spirit of the traditions of the eighteenth century.