Perhaps the ideal of
singing would be attained when a marvellous voice, which had absorbed
into itself all that temperament and training had to give it, sang
inarticulate music, like a violin which could play itself. There is
nothing which such an instrument could not express, nothing which exists
as pure music; and, in this way, we should have the art of the voice,
with the least possible compromise.
The compromise is already far on its way when words begin to come into
the song. Here are two arts helping one another; something is gained,
but how much is lost? Undoubtedly the words lose, and does not the
voice lose something also, in its directness of appeal? Add acting to
voice and words, and you get the ultimate compromise, opera, in which
other arts as well have their share and in which Wagner would have us
see the supreme form of art. Again something is lost; we lose more and
more, perhaps for a greater gain. Tristan sings lying on his back, in
order to represent a sick man; the actual notes which he sings are
written partly in order to indicate the voice of a sick man. For the
sake of what we gain in dramatic and even theatrical expressiveness, we
have lost a two-fold means of producing vocal beauty.
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