Today is the anniversary of the death of Pauline Viardot-Garcia, born in Paris, France, on July 18, 1821, and died in the City of Lights on May 18, 1910.

Viardot-Garcia had many successful students and exponents, including Lydia Torrigi-Heiroth, born in 1857 and who died not long before Viardot-Garcia in 1907, when she was 50. Anticipating her imminent demise, Torrigi-Heiroth wrote her own obituary. What follows is an article on the teaching of singing that Torrigi-Heiroth wrote and published in 1900. It tells us a great deal about the teaching of the Garcias. I have translated both into English from the original French with help from Google Translate.

Saint Petersburg, October 7, 1907.

Very distinguished Sir, Being very seriously ill, I have arranged for this letter to be sent to you after my death. And as I think that you will be kind enough to inform my friends in Italy by means of your esteemed journal, I enclose in my letter a biographical notice, thinking that, as you were too young when I was undertaking my Italian career, you could not remember the details.

Thanking you and hoping that the Mondo artistico, my friend of so many years, will speak of me one last time, I send an affectionate greeting to my dear artistic homeland, beautiful Italy, and to you a friendly handshake and a thousand wishes for prosperity. Welcome, dear Sir, the testimony of my esteem.

Lydia Torrigi-Heiroth

This artist, fond of posthumous publicity, died in Saint Petersburg on October 26. Belonging to a very distinguished family from Saint Petersburg, Ms. Torrigi-Heiroth, after learning the piano with Czerny and di Sanctis, became, at the Conservatory of this city, a student of Ms. Nissen-Saloman, then came to perfect her skills in Paris with Mme. Viardot, and was heard at the Russian concerts of our Exhibition of 1878. She made her debut as a dramatic singer in Bucharest, then performed in Venice and Florence, leaving the theater for a moment to marry an Austrian nobleman, Baron Lindegg, but soon returned and made herself heard successfully in Milan, Bologna, and successively in Cairo, Porto, Geneva, Kyiv, Moscow, Saint Petersburg, etc. She then devoted herself to teaching, opening a singing school in Milan in 1892. She moved to Paris after three years and then left Paris to direct a class at the Geneva Conservatory. This distinguished woman also occupied herself with literature, wrote in various newspapers, gave lectures on art, and gave evidence of rare activity of all kinds.

Le Ménestrel, Paris, France, November 23, 1907.

Teaching Singing

This very important brand of musical teaching is singularly neglected by musicians concerned with progress in the art. This results in the regrettable fact that in many musical institutions, the teaching of singing is encumbered by all kinds of outdated and useless studies, while private teaching is given over to a quantity of abuse, from which numerous students and teachers of singing who practice their art with conscience suffer.

A few years ago, a Milan musical journal, Il Mondo artistico, undertook the publication of a series of articles concerning the question of vocal teaching, but this laudable attempt was met with criticism by some teachers of singing (and especially those who have no right to teach, not having been singers themselves) to a controversy so full of personal attacks, that the director of the Mondo artistico judged more prudent to close the section, without having arrived at any useful result for art. A few years later, the Paris newspaper l'Eclair opened a survey among artists and teachers to define the question whether singing should be taught to women by female teachers or by men? I do not know what the result of this investigation was, but it seems to me that to establish a truth, one only has to observe the facts and the results of these facts, which would be - in the present case - the result different teachings. However, in Paris itself, the evidence of the facts is so striking that the response to the request of L'Eclair presents itself to everyone. Thus, although at the Paris Conservatory, no woman's name appears among the singing teachers, the best teachers in this city, who attract the greatest number of students and enjoy a universal reputation—and let us add: those who have trained the best current artists—are precisely women, who are called: Mme. Pauline Viardot-Garcia, Marchesi, Krauss, Artôt-Padilla, Colonne, etc. All these ladies teach according to the Garcia method. Isn't this a very curious fact and worth remembering?

But that is not the main subject of this article: I have just learned, through the Italian newspapers, the news that the management of one of the Conservatories of Italy has recently appointed him to the position of professor of singing in this Institution, a pianist-composer, instead of a former singer. And I wonder how a similar thing can happen in a country, which was the cradle of vocal art and should serve as an example to others? How could this Management assume that a person, who has never sung himself, will be able to pose and develop the voices of the future singers who will be entrusted to him?

Because there is no doubt that the most delicate part of vocal teaching is precisely in the pose of the voice, that is to say in the way of teaching how to give the sounds a correct broadcast. This requires not only the experience of someone who has sung himself, but also a special gift, an intuition, which is not given to everyone. Uneducated voices often present themselves in aspects very different from their true quality, but almost always they are harsh, uneven and, sometimes, strident. The exercise transforms them and precisely, the teacher's skill consists of knowing how to discern the type of voice of the student and giving him the normal development, specific to his quality of voice. And although this truth is well known, it is not as easy to put into practice as is believed: it often happens that a teacher, deceived by the ease of a student in singing on high notes, makes her study as a soprano, while this same student, by changing teachers, is subsequently transformed from a bad soprano with thin and strident high notes - into a beautiful contralto. And vice versa, It's still very fortunate when, following such perilous gymnastics, the student's voice resists and does not remain damaged forever!

Consequently, if the correct pose of the voice is already a delicate and difficult job for a singer, who knows from experience, how to take sounds, what is it for a pianist or a conductor, who never sang himself?

The correct emission of sound requires that each register of the voice be well defined, well placed — and each register has its special mechanism.

According to Garcia 1) —whose manual Ecole du chant should be considered the true gospel of vocal art — the female voice has three registers: 1) the chest register, 2) the medium or falsetto, and 3) the head register. Garcia also combines these last two into one: falsetto-head. Indeed, experience shows us that this register (f5-b5) must be pressed in the head. And here is the difficulty. Today, we see that the medium (especially among students of male teachers) is sung by students in chest voice. This comes from the difficulty that a teacher with little experience or skill has in explaining how to take sounds and establish the transition from chest voice to medium. In this case, we either hear the chest notes being sung in falsetto (as often happens in France) or the medium in chest voice—on the open vowel a—which forms these open and white voices, which we hear a lot nowadays and whose sound is characterized by Garcia as the quack of a duck.

This passage, so difficult to establish (between the chest notes and the medium), sometimes puts off students, but it should be noted that a very gifted student and even of ordinary abilities, will understand it quite easily, while for the others, we are sometimes obliged to resort to a practical demonstration using our own voice. What can a male teacher, whose voice differs from the female voice, and, even more so, a teacher who does not sing at all, do in such a case?

The open sound, which I have just spoken about, is, unfortunately, a general thing in teaching in all countries since two of my colleagues, Mr. Chev. Ottavio Novelli, professor at the Warsaw Conservatory, and Mr. Chev. Vittorio Carpi, a professor in Milan, brings this fact to public attention in brochures and newspaper articles. I add my protests to their writings because by finding myself in a city where students from all countries of the world arrive to receive instruction, in general, and also to learn music and singing, I can study the teaching methods used in different countries. And I must note that, with a few rare exceptions, almost all of these students have a very open voice sound, which comes from the fact that they sing in the medium register — in the chest.

I note, moreover, the almost general use of the vocalizations of Concone, Bordogni, Panofka, etc., which the students are made to sing on a very open a or by naming the notes: do, re, mi, etc.

I also note the practice in force in musical institutions of having students attend music theory classes.

Now, these two kinds of teaching are completely useless and even harmful: this is why. 1) Vocalizations: What goal do we want to achieve by making people sing on a note or by naming the notes with music of mediocre value? Is it to pose and develop the voice? — No, you must establish and develop your voice through exercises. Get used to singing a melody? — No, because the student will develop musically much more by singing melodies of progressive difficulty, but which have literary value, like the works of the great classics of singing: German, French, etc., and that — immediately with the words, which represent a meaning and not the insipid do, re, mi, etc.

The singing of vocalizations is harmful because these “romances without words” sung on vowels, without the voice being supported by pronunciation, tire the voice a lot. What I say is based on experience, and I am ready to tell readers the facts I know and use because I do not want to abuse their attention.

2) The study of music theory. The use of it is so rooted in musical institutions that it takes a certain courage for me to talk about it. And I ask those who, perhaps, will protest against what I say: what is music theory for? — To teach the different rules of musical grammar, i.e. theory; to play vocal music; to take the intervals; to develop musical ear — right? — Well: the rules of musical grammar are learned through the study of theory, supported by demonstrations on the piano; reading vocal music is best learned by reading music on the piano; taking the intervals with the voice is learned under the direction of the singing teacher in the exercises, which are commonly used to establish the voice; as for developing the ear - it is again the study of the piano which fulfills this aim. Generally, we study the piano well before singing, which can only be started at the age of 16 - 17, and a student who plays the piano is perfectly aware of the sounds and the intervals when he begins singing. Otherwise, it is a sure sign that the student's organization is resistant to the study of music, and it is completely useless to torture her by forcing her to learn to sing.

The study of music theory is, therefore, superfluous because it is a practice from ancient times when music, in general, was taught using the voice. Now, we have a powerful auxiliary in the piano, and the studies of piano and music theory advantageously replace those of music theory.

Music theory is harmful because the singing students who are obliged to attend this course, usually placed under the direction of a master other than their singing teacher, allow themselves to use their voices incorrectly. As a result, they return to singing lessons with tired and out-of-place voices.

This is so true that several professors from musical institutions have been cited to me, who protest for the same reason as me, against music theory classes, vocal sight reading, etc., but who do not dare to raise their voices for fear of attracting inconvenience and unnecessary controversy. In the musical institution where I have the honor of teaching, I send my students to a sight-reading and piano ensemble class. I realize how much they benefit from this teaching, in terms of vocal sight reading and musical development, because the teacher, who is at the head of this class, is not content only to make them mechanically play the pieces, which they decipher, but explains their meaning to them, which makes this teaching very interesting and useful.

I hope my observations, based on experience made as a student, then as an artist, and now, as a teacher, will meet with some sympathy among those who teach singing with conscience. I summarize what I have just written with the following wishes: 1) that the teaching of singing is no longer entrusted to pianists, music composers or conductors; 2) that the vocalizations of Concone, etc. be abolished from teaching and replaced by higher musical literature, sung with words and not on a or by saying the notes and 3) that the music theory class in the Conservatories be replaced by the study of theory (especially and necessarily) and by that of the piano.

I point out that piano studies should not be done as they are for piano students because the prolonged study of an instrument tires the voice, but at such a degree of advancement that would allow the singer to read and perform the accompaniments of the pieces sung. And if this truth is very well known and put into practice for a long time in certain countries, there are others where it is totally unknown and where musical teaching, in general, undergoes a desolate routine - it is mainly to this country to which I dedicate this article.

Professor at the Geneva Music Academy, Lydia Torrigi-Heiroth.

—Torrigi-Heiroth, Lydia. “L’ensignement du chant,” Zeitschrift der Internationalen Musikgesellschaft v.1, 1900, p. 221-225.