Page 70 I/O DECEMBER 1920 THE ETUDE sang Una voce poco fa at seventy-five, always cautioned me t o never forc e a single tone. I did not study exercises like those of Concone, Panofka , Bordogni, etc., because they seemed t o m e a waste of time, in my case. I did not require musical knowledge, but needed special drill. I kne w wher e m y wea k spots were. Wha t was th e use of vocal studies which required me t o do a lot of wor k and only occasionally touched those portions of m y voice which needed special attention? Learnin g a repertoire was a great task in itself, an d ther e was n o time t o waste upon anythin g I did not actually need. Because of th e natura l fluency I have mentioned, I devoted most of m y time t o slqwer exercises at first. Wha t could be simpler than this ? Ex.1 "These, of course, wer e sung in the most convenient rang e in m y voice. Th e mor e rapid exercises I took fro m C to F above the treble staff. Ex.2 "Eve n t o this day I sing up t o high F every day, in order tha t I ma y be sure that I hav e the tones t o E below in public work . Anothe r exercise which I used very frequentl y wa s this, in th e for m of a trill. Great care wa s take n t o hav e the intonation (pitch ) absolutely accurate in th e rapi d passages, as well as in th e slow passages. Ex.3 in th e Unite d States jus t then. B y merest accident I ra n into an America n frien d (Mr . Thorner ) on Broad -way. H e had hear d m e sing in Italy, an d immediately took me t o Maestr o Campanini, wh o was looking then fo r a coloratura sopran o t o sing fo r only tw o perform -ances in Chicago, as the remainder of his progra m wa s filled fo r the year. Thi s was in the ^springtime, an d it meant that I was t o remain in Ne w Yor k until October an d November . Th e opportunity seemed like an unusual accident of fate, and I resolved t o stay, studying m y own voice all the while t o improve it mor e an d more. October an d the debut in Rigoletto came. Th e applause as-tounded me ; it wa s electric, like a thunder-storm . N o one was mor e astonished tha n I. Engagement s an d offer s came fro m everywhere, but not enough, I hope, t o ever induce me not t o believe tha t in the vocal ar t one must continually strive fo r higher and highe r goals. Laziness, indifference and lassitude which come wit h success are the ruin of Ar t an d the artist. Th e norma l healthy artist with th e righ t ideals never reaches his Zenith. If he did, or if he though t he did, his career would come to a sudden end." Harsh Chords in the Bass and What to Do With Them BY E. H. Pierce A PIANIST wh o possesses a keen sense of beauty of tone is apt to be shocked and disappointed occasionally, perhaps even mor e than he dares confes s to himself, at the unmusical distribution of the tones of a ful l chor d foun d occasionally in the piano composition of Haydn , Mozar t an d even Beethoven, not to mention the lesser lights of the same epoch. Such chord s as do not strike the ear altogether pleasantly, it mus t be admitted . Chopin, Schuman n o r Liszt would have probably writte n instead "Whe n I had reached a certain point, I determined that it migh t be possible fo r m e t o get an engagement . I was the n twenty, and m y dear mothe r wa s horrified at the idea of m y goin g on the .stage so young. She wa s afrai d of evil influences. I n m y own mind I realized that evil wa s everywhere, in business, society, everywhere, and tha t if one wa s t o keep out of dirt an d come out clean, one must mak e one's ar t th e object first of all. Ar t is so great, so all-consuming tha t any one with a deep reverence fo r its beauties, its grandeur , can hav e but little time fo r th e lower thing s of life. All tha t an artist calls fo r in his soul is t o be permitted t o wor k at his best in his art . Then , and then only, is he happiest. Because of my mother' s opposition, and because I felt I was stron g enough t o resist the temptations which she kne w I might encounter, I virtually eloped with a copy of Rigoletto under m y ar m and mad e m y wa y fo r the Teatr o Constanzi, the leading Oper a Hous e of Rome . " I migh t readily have secured letters fro m influential musical friends, such as Mascagn i and others, but I de-termined tha t it would be best t o secure an engagemen t upon m y own merits, if I could, and the n I would kno w whethe r or not I wa s really prepare d t o mak e m y debut, or whethe r I ha d better study more. I went t o the man -ager's office and, appealing t o his business sense, told hi m that, as I was a youn g unknow n singer, he could secure m y services fo r little money, an d begged fo r per -mission t o sing fo r him. I kne w he wa s beset by such requests, but he immediately gave me a hearing, and I wa s engaged fo r one performanc e of Rigoletto. Th e nigh t of the debut came, and I wa s obliged t o sing Caro Nome again in response t o a vociferou s encore. Thi s wa s followed by other successes, and I wa s en-gage d fo r tw o year s fo r a South America n tour, unde r the direction of m y good frien d and adviser, the grea t operatic director, Mugnone. I n South Americ a ther e wa s enthusiasm everywhere, but all the time I kept work -ing constantly with my voice, striving t o perfec t details. "A t the end of the South America n tour I desired t o visit Ne w Yor k and find out wha t Americ a wa s like. Because of the wa r Europ e was operatically impossible (i t was 1916), but I had not the slightest idea of singing ha d a much thinner and lighter tone, especially in the bass, these thickly-bunched chord s really did not sound bad at all. Thi s is not mer e theory ; the write r has had opportunities fo r playing on several ancient instru-ments, both pianos and harpsichords , which hav e been restore d and put in goo d orde r and good tune, and finds this to be the case. I t is surprisin g to see ho w much better a Mozar t sonata sounds on a piano of Mozart' s day ; how well some of the preludes of Bach's Well-tempered Clavichord sound on a really-truly clavi-chor d ! What , then, shall w e do wit h these old pieces whe n we play them on a moder n piano? Wha t does a good organis t do whe n he has occasion to play piano music on the organ ? H e arranges it for the organ—none but the veriest bungler woul d attempt to execute it literally as written , the natur e of the tw o instruments being so entirely dissimilar. Why then should we not arrange ancient piano music for the mod-em piano? Ther e ar e at least tw o way s in which chord s such as we have mentioned could be treate d withou t doing any violence to the composer's idea ; one wa y woul d be to redistribut e them (a s in Exampl e II) , makin g use of the pedal ; the other way, to strike them as written , holding the outer notes of the lef t hand their proper value, but letting the inner notes be cut short, thus giving the ful l percussion effect of a heavy chord, but without the sustained harshness. Played which ar e much mor e sonorous and at the same time less harsh . I t is a well-known principle of acoustics, as applied to harmony , tha t the lower voices of a chor d should be mor e widely separated than the upper voices. Th e fol-lowing example illustrates wha t may be called the "chor d of nature, " which is specially harmoniou s be-cause the upper voices already exist in the lowest bass tone as its overtones o r "upper partials." Ex . Il l Wha t was the reason fc*r this apparent callousness to good effect on the par t o f the older composers? Thei r orchestral compositions contain nothing of the sort, but are perfec t models in the proper distribution of chords , so it could not have been fro m any lack in the sense of beauty. Pian o technic wa s not so highly developed at that time, except in the matte r of smooth-runnin g rapid passages, and chord s exceeding the gras p of an octave would have offere d ver y serious difficulty to players ; also the power s of the dampe r pedal wer e only just beginning to be realized. O n the harpsichord , which was still in use in Mozart' s day, though the piano was beginning to take its place, no such device existed, and composers would scarcely be so bold as to writ e chords which demanded an obbligato dampe r pedal fo r their prope r performance . But the chief reason, afte r all, was the fac t that on the instruments of tha t day, which Of course, one should not tak e these liberties too carelessly, nor withou t a due appreciation of the com-poser's probable intention. Th e close of Beethoven's Sonata Op. 110 presents an example in which it would be sacrilege to change a note—all the mor e so, because in his later works , Beethoven shows a keen appreciation and understandin g of the function s of the pedal, as is evidenced by his minute and frequen t directions. In the passage quoted, the chor d of A flat is graduall y built up by the use of arpeggios sustained by the pedal ; whe n it has arrive d at the utmos t fullness the sudden strikin g of the final chor d gives a climax of grea t power, like the sudden clash of tne drum s an d cymbals in an orchestra . I n such a case as this the player has nothing else to do than to obey the composer's indications lit-erally.
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