The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[LMcD]

Do you think the producer of the Breakfast programme would take any notice if a number of us just happened to contact the programme suggesting the inclusion of a number (say half a dozen) of shorter pieces by unjustly neglected British composers? To avoid suspicion, these lists could be sent in over, say, a couple of months, with any on-air mention of the first list or work apparently encouraging more suggestions.

[kernelbogey]

...Where my problem lies with classical vocal vibrato is where it becomes so wide as to make one wonder where the actual written pitch has gone!

And of course it's much more evident in a 'bleeding chunk' on the radio: in the Opera House there is so much else going on - mise-en-scêne, action and so forth - that wide vibrato is just one part of the bigger picture.

With Lieder, I imagine our taste has changed, perhaps under the influence of HIPP orchestral sound.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Edit: Not entirely clear that the is for vinteuil

I think the human voice and the 'man made' instruments have inspired very different kinds of music. You don't like 'heavy vibrato'? Switch it off! You don't like the sound of gut strings or 'out of tune' harpsichords? Avoid 'em at all costs! Your prerogative. We would all accept, though, wouldn't we, that we're only expressing our personal tastes and tolerances? Other valid opinions available.

Not so sure about that. You might think Mozart Symphonies one of the purest forms of “instrumental music. “ Yet it’s said that Josef Krips could sing or hum all of them from memory. Yes that might be tricky with some Boulez but I bet Jane Manning or Cathy Berberian could have a good stab at it. Very little music if any lacks some sort of melody or arrangement of differing top notes .
I’m not expressing an opinion as to whether vocal music is “better “ than instrumental music . I actually think it’s a false dichotomy . They are so intertwined. Ben Webster mentioned below is a classic example of a vocal instrumentalist - to which we could add Heifitz, Kreisler and and any other instrumentalist worth listening to with the possible exception of untuned percussion players. I do a good impression of the Eastenders sig tune drum intro though …

[Serial_Apologist]

French Frank is right - different horses for different courses: at a certain stage in musical history instrumental advances began to predicate instrumental over vocal forms, and in the process the character of melody changed from what it had been while solely vocally inspired. Similarly instrumentalists sought to imitate or capture vocal expressive characteristics such as vibrato in their technique - perhaps more in the 19th century than before or since. Nowhere has "vocalisation" been more prominently evidenced than in jazz in its primarily instrumental form - think of Ben Webster's growly vibrato and phrase-concluding "fuff-fuffs"! - nor attempted to be denied or minimised, if one listens to the great Bebop and Cool players (although they did tend to "revert" when playing ballads). Ironically scat singing in jazz would mark the impact of instrumental melodic dexterity on vocal improvising.

Where my problem lies with classical vocal vibrato is where it becomes so wide as to make one wonder where the actual written pitch has gone!

[smittims]

The thing about the voice, I always think,is that it's so personal, so much more a part of the person than,say,the tone of a clarinettist. So I'm always wary of criticising the particular sound of a singer. However fine their technique or musicianship, there will always be people who just don't like their voice. Peter Pears and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau have many detractors in this way. Conversely, one often makes allowances for a favourite voice even when the technique isn't quite equal tothatof the best. I'm thinking of Kenneth McKellar in Messiah, whom I much enjoyed hearing yesterday,.

[french frank]

Edit: Not entirely clear that the is for vinteuil

I think the human voice and the 'man made' instruments have inspired very different kinds of music. You don't like 'heavy vibrato'? Switch it off! You don't like the sound of gut strings or 'out of tune' harpsichords? Avoid 'em at all costs! Your prerogative. We would all accept, though, wouldn't we, that we're only expressing our personal tastes and tolerances? Other valid opinions available.

... it may 'begin' with the human voice.

A very particular perspective to say that it 'ends' there.

Not everyone is keen on the human voice - for some of us the joy of instrumental music is precisely bicoz there ain't no singing.

And please don't say that all instrumentalists are striving to replicate the sound of the human voice.

If some of us find the sound of a wide vibrato deeply unpleasant we are allowed to say so

[Ein Heldenleben]

... it may 'begin' with the human voice.

A very particular perspective to say that it 'ends' there.

Not everyone is keen on the human voice - for some of us the joy of instrumental music is precisely bicoz there ain't no singing.

And please don't say that all instrumentalists are striving to replicate the sound of the human voice.

If some of us find the sound of a wide vibrato deeply unpleasant we are allowed to say so

I don’t think there’s an instrumental player on earth who wouldn’t benefit from listening to and learning from the great singers. Even better try singing what you are about to play - as Chopin taught . I don’t think an instrumentalist who despises the human voice is likely to be worth listening to and I’m struggling to think of a single decent or great composer who didn’t write vocal music . It’s the Alpha and Omega really.
Say whatever you wish or better still sing it !

[vinteuil]

Music begins and ends with the human voice .

... it may 'begin' with the human voice.

A very particular perspective to say that it 'ends' there.

Not everyone is keen on the human voice - for some of us the joy of instrumental music is precisely bicoz there ain't no singing.

And please don't say that all instrumentalists are striving to replicate the sound of the human voice.

If some of us find the sound of a wide vibrato deeply unpleasant we are allowed to say so

[Master Jacques]

Yes indeed # Music begins and ends with the human voice . Some recent highlights on R3 - Tomasso singing Cavaradossi, Goerne singing An Die Mond, Callas. Yes some singers develop an “excessive” vibrato with age - but I don’t or didn’t see many turning down tickets for a Callas opera performance . They are often singers who’ve given everything for art - one that often involves very slender women making themselves heard over a 100 piece orchestra like at Jenufa last night . They deserve our thanks not scorn.

Bravo! I raise a Gromit-like eyebrow when people are so deafened by a bit of vibrato, that they can't hear the supreme artistry which often lies underneath.

In addition to which, we should take issue with any implication that somehow vibrato-heavy singing is a recent phenomenon, for men or women no longer in their early twenties, having to bawl over the ultra-loud modern orchestra. You only have to listen to recordings from the early years of the 20th century to disprove that theory; and singers in eighteenth-century London weren't immune from loosening vocal chords either. It's human, happens to all of us, and deserves better than easy mockery.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Unless you are indulging in post-modern irony (and who knows?) that's your problem; though you would be better advised to keep it to yourself. For Radio 3 needs no encouragement to reduce the amount of what you call 'big, vibrato-heavy voices' to very nearly zero as it is. In this, it's as usual following Classic FM, another populist station hamstrung by listener prejudice against good singers and singing (aka 'warbling').

All we get these days in R3 playlist programmes is the odd bit of Pavarotti doing a Neapolitan job, or Baker doing a Sea Song. We've moved a long way downwards and backwards, from the point where the cultivated human voice was considered the height of Western civilisation. I despair.

Yes indeed # Music begins and ends with the human voice . Some recent highlights on R3 - Tomasso singing Cavaradossi, Goerne singing An Die Mond, Callas. Yes some singers develop an “excessive” vibrato with age - but I don’t or didn’t see many turning down tickets for a Callas opera performance . They are often singers who’ve given everything for art - one that often involves very slender women making themselves heard over a 100 piece orchestra like at Jenufa last night . They deserve our thanks not scorn.

[Serial_Apologist]

Unless you are indulging in post-modern irony (and who knows?) that's your problem; though you would be better advised to keep it to yourself. For Radio 3 needs no encouragement to reduce the amount of what you call 'big, vibrato-heavy voices' to very nearly zero as it is. In this, it's as usual following Classic FM, another populist station hamstrung by listener prejudice against good singers and singing (aka 'warbling').

All we get these days in R3 playlist programmes is the odd bit of Pavarotti doing a Neapolitan job, or Baker doing a Sea Song. We've moved a long way downwards and backwards, from the point where the cultivated human voice was considered the height of Western civilisation. I despair.

Nevertheless there has been quite a bit of criticism of what I have come to find to be "excessive" vibrato in some (mainly female) opera, choral and Lied singers - and not just on this forum. Just because some element within the broad span of an under-represented music is open to criticism shouldn't imply betrayal on the part of those making it, any more than the broad "line" against supporting Ukraine that has been demonstrated by much of the Left means that my disagreement, as a stronger-than-ever-by-the-day advocate of socialist solutions to the world's problems, should be silenced or asked to mute myself.

[Master Jacques]

Yes, can we please make that a 24-hr ban? I have zero tolerance for those big, vibrato-heavy voices and invariably have to switch off at the first hint of lied or aria. All you choral singers can stay, though.

Unless you are indulging in post-modern irony (and who knows?) that's your problem; though you would be better advised to keep it to yourself. For Radio 3 needs no encouragement to reduce the amount of what you call 'big, vibrato-heavy voices' to very nearly zero as it is. In this, it's as usual following Classic FM, another populist station hamstrung by listener prejudice against good singers and singing (aka 'warbling').

All we get these days in R3 playlist programmes is the odd bit of Pavarotti doing a Neapolitan job, or Baker doing a Sea Song. We've moved a long way downwards and backwards, from the point where the cultivated human voice was considered the height of Western civilisation. I despair.

[smittims]

Oh dear . This is starting to sound like the letters John Drummond received when he was Controller , Radio 3.:

'What Radio 3 needs is a 90-minute organ recitel every day'.

'Please ban all chamber music'.

etc.

[esmondo]

there should be a prohibition on warbling

Yes, can we please make that a 24-hr ban? I have zero tolerance for those big, vibrato-heavy voices and invariably have to switch off at the first hint of lied or aria. All you choral singers can stay, though.

[LMcD]

I could never listen to Jazz in the morning. It would be like having spicy food and whisky for breakfast. I always think of Jazz as an evening thing.

I suspect it's part of a Cunning Plan whereby every Radio 3 programme is required to trail as many other programmes as possible in as many different ways as possible.