Jenny Lind's Singing Method

Letters detailing the method of a famous voice teacher are rare, and even rarer are those written by a famous singer.

So there was great interest when a letter in the hand of Jenny Lind, the legendary soprano who took America by storm under the auspices of P.T. Barnum, came to light and was published in The Musical Quarterly in 1917. You can read it here. Written to Professor Bystrom in Sweden, Lind details various aspects of her training with Manuel Garcia, including the trill, sustained notes, breathing and phrasing, formation of the mouth, use of the soft palate in the upper range, and the 'binding' of one note to another. In the history of vocal pedagogy, it is a most unusual document.