From the Easy Chair, Volume 1Curtis, George William
General
From the Easy Chair, Volume 1
Curtis, George William
American essays
When Cecilia says that she has been enchanted by the playing of any
artist, the quality of her feeling and expression justly interprets
the character of his performance. When Jenny Lind first sang in
America one of the most accomplished critics said that he must wait a
little to decide whether she was a great singer. That critic could
never really hear her. Another said that she was a consummate
ventriloquist. He meant that in the Herdsman's Song and the other
Volkslieder and native melodies there was an effect of vocalism which
seemed to him a trick. But to others it suggested wide, solitary
horizons, the sadness and seclusion of remote Northern life. Mere
imagination, retorted the critics. Yes, but to what does art,
especially musical art, appeal? Rubinstein, as he said of himself,
dropped notes without number under the piano. Thalberg did not, nor
Henri Herz. But they dropped something which Rubinstein did not. The
sunshine of a December day in this latitude is often cloudless and
beautiful. But it unfolds no rose and restores no leaf to the bare
bough.
A sweet and true, a full-volumed and thoroughly trained voice, is a
rare gift to any man. But without a certain quality in the singer it
is a perfect fruit without flavor. The singing that haunts us, which
becomes part of our life, which fills the memory with tender and happy
images of other days and scenes, is not necessarily that of the finest
voices, but of that mingling in music of voice and skill and feeling
which weave an enchanted spell. Those who have known the troubadour
Riccardo have doubtless heard what are called greater voices, artists
who hold for a triumphant moment the hazardous peak of the high C,
whose roulades and phrasing are exquisite and admirable. But the
singer whom they wish to hear, whose singing is a part of life, like
the beauty of flowers and the dawn, is the singing of the troubadour
Riccardo. It is so with Cecilia's playing, and it is impossible to
suppose a person sensitive to music who could escape its spell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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