The Italians sing and
act with their whole souls." Nevertheless, Beethoven refused to adapt
his music to the style of the Italian singers--fortunately; for, if
he had, it would now be as obsolete as most of Rossini's and
Donizetti's.
When Berlioz made his famous tour in Germany, matters had somewhat
improved, to judge from the following remarks in his "A Travers
Chants:" "They say that the Germans sing badly; that may seem true in
general. I will not broach the question here, whether or not their
language is the reason of it, and whether Mme. Sontag, Pischek,
Tichatschek, Mlle. Lind, who is almost a German, and many others, do
not form magnificent exceptions; but, upon the whole, German vocalists
sing, and do not howl; the screaming school is not theirs; they make
music." Nevertheless, about the same time, Liszt complained that a
perfect training of the voice such as he admired in Viardot Garcia,
had almost become a legend of the past; and only eight years ago, an
excellent German critic, Martin Plueddemann, wrote that "Germany has
many good orchestras and not a few excellent pianists, even among
amateurs; but a city of 100,000 inhabitants seldom has ten vocalists
whose voices are tolerable, and of these two or three at most deserve
the name of artists.
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