Sixty Years of California SongAlverson, Margaret Blake
History
Sixty Years of California Song
Alverson, Margaret Blake
Music -- California -- History and criticism
I found in her a real student, a most attentive listener, a voice
small but clear and high. Later on in the development it proved very
elastic, nothing acceptable below middle C. A pure lyric soprano, it
was constantly developing higher in the tones. I often cautioned her
not to sing so high, it would not do, when she would reply, "I cannot
help it, it just goes there." I paid my closest attention to her for
the period of four years. In that time she had not only learned to
sing and play, but also studied harmony and languages. Latin and
German she studied in school, Italian in the studio with Professor
Arena, Spanish from her father, who is a linguist. With all this
colossal work for this young mind and her achievements in technic and
languages I was yet dissatisfied, for I had not yet received a
response that I had longed and hoped for while she was drinking in all
this vast amount of knowledge. She never gave out to let me see any
result of all this accumulation of musical knowledge which I knew she
possessed, never asking a question or advancing any question or
enthusiastic outburst of expression. Being romantic in my
interpretation of song I hoped she had imbibed also a strain of it
which she lacked, as I noticed in the beginning. I was at my wits'
ends to find the spring, but she resisted all my efforts. I knew she
was excessively shy but did not think that would prevent her in
showing in some way her appreciation of the instruction and her idea
of what she had formed of all this teaching, explanation and example
in these years.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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