PF Tosi "Observations on the flowery song" (1723)

September 16, 2021 0 Comments

“These were the teachings of the school of those teachers whom many mediocre singers now call ancient with disdain. Carefully observe its rules, strictly examine its precepts, and if you are not blinded by prejudices, you will see that this school teaches you to sing in tune. ., project the voice, make the words understand, express, use the proper gesture, act in tempo, improvise the appropriate adornments, compose and study delicate and sensitive singing, in which only good taste and judgment triumph. Compare this school with yours, and if you find an area that lacks its precepts to instruct you, take the rest from the Modern. ” Pier Francesco Tosi, Observations on the flowery song, p. 78.

The foundations of the method and style of bel canto were established during the creation of opera and monodiacal singing in the late 16th century. As the new art form developed, virtuous singers emerged onto the international scene with almost inhuman agility, variety, and beauty. Mostly castrati, but also with all kinds of voices, these highly skilled singers became the world’s first rock stars, with an influence, income and lifestyles to match.

The techniques of these bel canto singers (and most of the singers themselves) originated exclusively in conservatori and private voice studios in Italy. The training and techniques they used were passed down orally from master to apprentice for generations and very little was recorded in writing. Pier Francesco Tosi was the first to publish (in 1723) a treatise on song of considerable length and detail. It quickly became a fundamental and stylistic model for the generations of singing treatises that followed, from Mancini in 1777 to Richard Miller and Clifton Ware today. In 40 years, Tosi’s Opinioni de ‘cantori antichi, e moderni, or sieno osservazioni sopra il canto figurato had been translated into English, German and French.

A Castrato himself, when writing Opinioni, Tosi drew on his own bel canto musical training as a child in Italy (probably Milan), as well as on his extensive experience as a professional singer and singing teacher. He also clearly developed his repertoire and taste for ornamentation from the many singers he observed throughout his career, including “Il Cortnoa”, “La Santini”, “Sifacio”, Rivani and especially Pistocchi. While his treatise is directed at and expresses a clear bias towards the castrated male voice, Tosi’s occasional mention of singers of other types shows that he believed that all singers were trained in the same way.

From Tosi’s writings we discover the surprising fact that bel canto training focused on auditory aesthetics with almost no physiological instruction. Unlike the many process-based singing methods developed since Garcia’s Treatise (1840) that have focused on breathing, abdominal support, throat and head resonance, and laryngeal and pharyngeal positioning, the “old-school Italian” method was results-based, focusing on intonation, tone, and the successful and tasteful use of ornamentation. In fact, the scope of Tosi’s physical advice to the singer was: “Never let the Scholar hold the Musick-Paper, in Singing, before his Face” (p. 29) “.[e] [the mouth] in one way […] rather inclined to a smile “(p. 12) and” the scholar’s voice […]it must always come out clean and clean, without passing through the nose, or drowning in the throat; which are two of the most horrible defects of a singer “(pp. 10-11). It can be seen that even these instructions were given to specifically fix an oral or visual aesthetic, rather than as part of a technical method.

Opinioni mainly addresses the singing teacher, explaining what and how they should teach their students. It also includes a chapter and several passages for the future professional singer with advice on good taste, ornaments, performance skills, and the life and business of professional singing. Tosi highlights the need for a long period of training for students in music reading and composition, singing and ornament construction, as well as in grammar, diction, social decorum, and acting. All the standard ornaments of the time are painstakingly presented: appoggiatura, messa di voce, eight types of trills, passaggi (divisions), and portamento. Tosi also dedicates a chapter each to the recitative and the singing of arias, preaching on the need to improvise one’s graces and divisions on the spot in performances.

There are some teachings of Tosi in his Opinioni that have been particularly interesting to singers and scholars over the years. Tosi clearly advocates joining and combining the chest and head registers, (p. 11) the first recorded vocal pedagogue to do so. While earlier writers such as Zacconi (Practica di Musica, 1592, ch. 2) and Caccini (Le nuove musiche, 1602, intro.) Declared that singers should only sing with their “natural voice”, Tosi went so far as to say “Yes [the chest and head register] if they are not perfectly united, the Voice will be of several Registers and, consequently, it must lose its Beauty. “(p. 11) Tosi is also the first recorded encouragement of the use of rubato as an ornament. While again and again he criticizes singers who accidentally sing out of tempo or lengthen the notes with self-aggrandizement as in modern fermatas, anima”[t]he stealing time […], as long as you do a Restitution with Wit “; that is, as long as the singer recovers the accompaniment, allowing him to keep the tempo (p. 67).

Another interesting element of Opinioni are Tosi’s discussions of intonation and sol-fa-ing. During a period when keyboards, strings, and even singers used various methods of temperament, Tosi laments that “except for a few teachers, modern intonation is very bad.” (p. 9) Talk about a different “major and minor semitone” (or a major and minor semitone) whose “[d]The reference cannot be known by an organ or harpsichord, if the keys of the instrument are not divided. it is out of tune, because the latter goes up. “(p. 10) Tosi’s remedy for poor intonation is to initiate the young singer into music theory, using the traditional gamut created by Guido. Old-fashioned at the time Tosi wrote his treatise, however he insisted on its use.

Opinioni in fact, it was a turning point for much more than the theory and tuning of early Baroque music. Tosi spends a considerable amount of time in his treatise praising the “ancient” cantabile style (or “Pathetick”, as the original translator put it) of his generation, around the end of the 18th century. He can’t seem to understand why “the Mode” has moved to the fast-paced and highly ornate style of “Allegro”, popular at the time of writing, which he considers to have insufficient singing training, ignoring the traditional modes of the Church and virtuous demonstrations “in bad taste” as the great sin of the “modern” musical generation. However, being a pragmaticist, he continues to encourage that “it will be useful to a prudent scholar, who wishes to be an expert in both ways” (p. 40).

Pier Francesco Tosi was born in Cesena, Italy in 1653 or 1654. There is a disagreement between sources as to whether he was the son of the composer Giuseppe Felice Tosi. He was neutered before puberty to preserve his high-pitched voice. While it is not known where he received his rudimentary musical training, he sang in a church in Rome from 1676 to 1677 and in Milan Cathedral from 1681 to 1685, when he was fired for “misconduct.” Thereafter, he made his only recorded opera appearance at Reggio nell’Emilia in 1687 (at Varischino’s Odoacre) and was established for a time in Genoa. In 1693 Tosi moved to London, where he took singing students and sang at weekly public concerts. In 1701 he entered the service of the Austrian Emperor Joseph I and Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, whom he served as a musical agent and diplomat, traveling extensively until 1723. In 1724 he returned to London in flames with the works of Handel, where he again taught and was founding member of the Academy of Ancient Music. He took holy orders sometime before his death in Faenza, Italy, in 1732. In addition to being a well-known soprano (in the cantabile style, singing mainly chamber music) and singing teacher, Tosi was a composer of several arias and cantatas. (Biographical information taken from “Tosi, Pier Francsco”, New Grove Dictionary of Opera.)

John Ernest Galliard (1666-1747), English translator of Opinioni, was a successful opera composer and oboist in London, playing an important role in the musical life of the city in the first half of the 18th century. He was a founding member of both the Royal Society of Musicians and the Academy of Ancient Music, the latter in which Tosi also participated. Due to the quality of the translation and his long personal relationship with the author, Galliard’s Tosi de Opinioni translation and annotation (published in 1742 as Observations on the Song of Florid) has long been regarded as an authoritative translation and of high quality. (Biographical information taken from “Galliard, John Ernest”, New Grove Dictionary of Opera.)

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