[Illustration: MRS. BLAKE-ALVERSON AND HER TWO SONS
Wm. Ellery Blake
Geo. Lincoln Blake]
"Ferdinand Sieber, in answer to questions 286 and 287, Art of Singing,
says: 'Question 286. How should the longer sung notes be taught? Here
the rule should be enforced that every radical note should be
accompanied with a swelling of the tone where it is intended to sing
the following ones in crescendo, and on the other hand, the strength
of tone diminishes when these notes are to be sung decrescendo. If
there is a pause, a messa di voce should be executed.'
"'Question 287. Is not then this constant vibration of the voice a
gross fault? It causes great confusion in regard to the expression
among singers of different degrees of ability. We read daily that it
is reprehensible in this or that singer to indulge in this vibration,
while in reality it is the tremolando which is blamed. The vibration
of the voice is its inmost life-throb--its pulse--its spring. Without
it there is only monotony. But if the vibration is changed to
tremolando the singer falls into an intolerable fault which is
warranted only in very rare cases when it serves as a means to express
the very highest degree of excitement.'
"W.J. Henderson in the Art of the Singer, says of messa di voce, 'It
is by the emission of tones swelling and diminishing that we impart to
song that wave-like undulation which gives it vitality and tonal
vivacity.' But when speaking of the rendition of Handelian arias, he
evidently uses the term vibrato in the same sense as Sieber does
tremolando.
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