In the treatment of consonants, the German method marks a still
greater advance on the Italian method. Professor Ehrlich thinks that
the reason why Italians care so much for melody and so little for
harmony is because they are too indolent to make the mental effort
which is required to follow a complicated harmonic score. They are,
certainly, too lazy to pronounce any harsh or difficult consonants,
and the Italian language therefore presents a picture of sad
effeminate degeneracy compared with the more vigorous Latin and even
Spanish. Now the English language and the English character have much
more of German vigor and masculine strength than of the Italian
_dolce far niente_: hence, the English vocal style of the future will
have to be modelled after the German style, which, instead of shirking
difficult consonants boldly tackles and utilizes them. It will never
be possible to sing so sweetly in the English and German languages as
in Italian; but it is possible to sing with much more vigor, dramatic
definiteness, and variety of emotional expression.
At the same time, the harshness of the consonants in German and
English song must not be too much emphasized.
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