Vibrato and The Grand Tradition

[Guido]

I remember reading with some perplexity a post by zamyrabyrd on this forum from a year ago:

It's interesting what you say about a specific approach for a particular song or role. I never really thought about it with regard to Ludwig as my standby for the Lied von der Erde is the Klemperer with Wunderlich and I liked her very much. I listened to the Ich bin der Welt and you are right about the lack of specificity. Also, is there a vibrato in the voice here? This is something that she would not normally be found in the same sentence with. It could be the fault of the recording though.

ZB

and was just reminded of it after buying and beginning to read The Grand Tradition by J.B. Steane. In his entries on Arroyo he said that there is a vibrato, but that it may be the fault of the recording, and about Tebaldi he says that the sound is vibratoless. This is simply untrue by my definition of vibrato which is admittedly derived from string playing, but I have never heard anything that contradicts this definition from the many singing masterclasses I have attended.

I simply don't understand what is meant here. Vibrato is being talked about as if it is undesirable, but really it is the entire life of the sound. It's like the term vibrato is being used instead of "wobble" or "spread". What am I missing?

[knight66]

John Steane was a very expert writer on the voice, but what you quote puzzles me. Some years ago I was trying to describe the voice of Gundula Janowitz and suggested it had no vibrato and she sounded pure like a boy soprano. Next time I listened to her, I listened properly. Of course there was vibrato and she would NEVER be mistaken for a boy soprano. But i guess what i had taken away was the seeming purity of the voice and I suppose I was acting like the witness to an accident, I was relating my 'truth' of what I thought I had heard, it was wrong.

We have puzzled before how the same voice can strike different ears differently.

Vibrato should be applied as appropriate. At times it is subdued, at others, obvious but not obtrusive. It is a method of warming the sound and giving it life. It also can help the sound to carry, though there are other ways to project a very quiet sound.

Arryo and Tebaldi were both Verdi singers and I know of no renouned Verdi soprano who does not deploy vibrato.

It may well be that in the cases Steane quotes, the proximity of the microphones eccagerated the vibrancy of the voice so that it became disturbing. Like you, where I hear a wobble, that is how I would describe it, or as a pronounced vibrato perhaps. Try Gwyneth Jones and you will hear a distinct and to my ears very unpleasant wobble which can mysteriously disappear occasionally with laser beam top notes.

Mike

[Parsifal]

Vibrato is the principal reason I listen to classical singing so rarely.

[Guido]

Thanks for the reassurance Mike! Janowitz has a very narrow, fast vibrato which along with its crystalline timbre give the voice a purity and radiance that I can understand why you linked the sound to a boy soprano. Of course as you realised they're nothing alike in real terms, but the feeling they evoke can be similar. I actually am not that keen on Janowitz outside of the famous Karajan Four Last Songs (which remain my favourite recording) and some 50s Mozart recordings as the chest register is so underdeveloped and she is so unconcerned with diction, using the text, and colouring the line. Acting wise she is also very limited. Of course, one cannot help but admire the beautiful and singular timbre however.

Would anyone else care to chip in on the topic mentioned in the first post? zamyrabyrd, TsarasLondon?

Vibrato is the principal reason I listen to classical singing so rarely.

And yet you're called Parsifal... It's just a stylistic thing that you have to get used to, like any new artform. There are ugly vibratos it is true, and certainly more ugly voices than beautiful ones in the classical world, but you just have to find the artists that speak to you.

[Parsifal]

And yet you're called Parsifal... It's just a stylistic thing that you have to get used to, like any new artform. There are ugly vibratos it is true, and certainly more ugly voices than beautiful ones in the classical world, but you just have to find the artists that speak to you.

The best part of Wagner is when there is no singing.

I think there is no way for the human voice to be beautiful when it is loud enough to be heard over a 100 piece orchestra.  The only classical singing I can say I really enjoy is vocal with piano (especially Faure) or baroque (Bach arias, particularly).

[Wendell_E]

Vibrato is the principal reason I listen to classical singing so rarely.

But it doesn't bother you in instrumental music? 

[Parsifal]

But it doesn't bother you in instrumental music?

At least in my perception, vibrato is much less prominent in instrumental music.

[Xenophanes]

I remember reading with some perplexity a post by zamyrabyrd on this forum from a year ago:

and was just reminded of it after buying and beginning to read The Grand Tradition by J.B. Steane. In his entries on Arroyo he said that there is a vibrato, but that it may be the fault of the recording, and about Tebaldi he says that the sound is vibratoless. This is simply untrue by my definition of vibrato which is admittedly derived from string playing, but I have never heard anything that contradicts this definition from the many singing masterclasses I have attended.

I simply don't understand what is meant here. Vibrato is being talked about as if it is undesirable, but really it is the entire life of the sound. It's like the term vibrato is being used instead of "wobble" or "spread". What am I missing?

My impression has always been that vibrato is natural, and that the only way to avoid it is with a straight tone, which to my mind always involves a certain amount of strain. So in that sense, I have no idea what is meant by 'employing vibrato.'  IMHO, if you are singing properly, you will have a certain amount of vibrato. Wickedpedia says that vibrato is produced in three ways: by the vocal folds, the diaphragm and by the combination of the two.

"In the apparatus there are three different voice vibrato processes that occur in different parts of the vocal tract. Peter-Michael Fischer vibrato types defined by place of production:

    The vocalis muscle vibrates at a frequency of 6.5 to 8 Hz.
    The diaphragm vibrates at a frequency below 5 Hz vibrato'
    A combination of the two, resulting in a vibrato whose frequency is between 5 and 6.5 Hz vibrato."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibrato#Singing

There is a very interesting little article by David L. Jones:

http://www.voiceteacher.com/vibrato.html

One of my favorite sopranos, Licia Albanese, had a noticeable vibrato, but it never interfered with her words of the beauty of her sound. It projected a kind of vulnerability appropriate to many of the parts she sang.  Here's Micaela's big aria from Carmen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER02ndaSS-4

[knight66]

I think you have explained how the vibrato is employed and listening to singers in different pieces, or even in the same pieces but particular parts of them, the vibrato can be used in the way colour is added. Not all singers do this.

I heard the actor Paul Scofield interviewed. He contrasted himself to Lawrence Olivier by saying that whereas Olivier literally changed the sound of his voice for different parts, Scofield used the same voice, the same tone colours all the time. In singing, Margaret Price used the same tone, what you initially heard was what you got all night. Fischer Dieskau used colours and literally coloured the words and could use vibrato to intensify the tone. Both were always recognisably themselves at all times and each was a great singer.

Mike

[Tsaraslondon]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about vibrato, what it actually means, how wide it should be etc, and many people confuse vibrato with wobble. Schwarzkopf, who knew a thing or two about tehcnique, would vary her vibrato depending on the music she was singing, and how heavy the orchestration. The heavier the orchestration, the more necessary it was to vibrate the voice, as she put it, especially for someone, like her, whose voice was not large. Vibrato helped to project the voice into a large auditorium. It also explains why we hear it more in singers who sing Verdi and Wagner than those who sing Handel and Mozart.

Then there are those singers whose voices have a quick vibrato which is intrinsic to the voice itself, and rarely leaves it, for instance Conchita Supervia, Tito Gobbi and, from the present day, Joseph Calleja, and, I confess, I rather like it.

There is also the question of the vibrato that was fashionable for a time in light voices, and can be heard in the singing of Kathryn Grayson and Jeanette MacDonald. This always sounds to me to be something that is applied, rather than a natural part of their voice production.

Where people get very mixed up is in discussions of Callas, whose voice developed a wobble in later years, and, sometimes, even in her earlier years. This can surely only be attributed to a fault in her technique. I've been listening to a lot of Callas recently, and it is interesting to note, that in contrast to sopranos with richer voices, her vibrato is generally not particularly wide. Like Schwarzkopf, she too uses vibrato less in eighteenth century music than nineteenth century. However, as she got older, sustained notes above the stave became harder and harder to control, and this is where the wobble kicked in. You can hear this in her singing of the aria Senza mamma from Puccini's Suor Angelica. For the most part her singing is admirably clean, she uses vibrato, to be sure, but not excessively so. However on the final climactic soft high A, she is not able to float the note, as say Caballe can do so breathtakingly, and the vibrato becomes wider until it develops a wobble. This was in 1954, still quite early for Callas, and in the same recital, she sings a stunning rendition of Turandot's In questa reggia, the top Cs sung with laser beam precision, and rock solid. No doubt she could have avoided wobbling on the high A in Angelica's aria if she had sung it a bit louder, but that sort of artistic compromise was never part of Callas's temperament.

[zamyrabyrd]

Interesting comments and links here, some food for thought!
My take on the subject is when everything is working in synch, a singer's timbre is consistent that includes the rate of vibrato. I can hardly imagine anyone singing without one, approaching but not reaching, a computer generated 'white tone'.
Practically speaking to get a wider vibrato for me would entail freeing up the breathing, employing less control as it were - not a healthy practice, I believe.
To go in the other direction would entail as quoted in the above link: http://www.voiceteacher.com/vibrato.html
"Vocal nodules can result from such vocal production because of too much pressure held at the glottis to prevent vibrato from occurring in the tone. Choral blend is developed through vowel and acoustical alignment, not squeezing the voice into straight tone sound."
I don't like very much a fast vibrato as with some of the sopranos of the 1930's and 40's, of which Bidu Sayao can be added to the list. For me, it is a monochromatic tone applied to everything - boring! Tastes do change over time and it is doubtful that today this kind of sound would be even hired.

[Guido]

Hi Zamyrabird. In light of what you've just written, what did you mean then in the quoted line in the first post when you said of Christa Ludwig

"Also, is there a vibrato in the voice here? This is something that she would not normally be found in the same sentence with. It could be the fault of the recording though."

And what does anyone make of J.B Steane saying that Tebaldi had a vibratoless sound.

Sorry to force the topic, but it still hasn't been answered.

[Tsaraslondon]

Hi Zamyrabird. In light of what you've just written, what did you mean then in the quoted line in the first post when you said of Christa Ludwig

"Also, is there a vibrato in the voice here? This is something that she would not normally be found in the same sentence with. It could be the fault of the recording though."

And what does anyone make of J.B Steane saying that Tebaldi had a vibratoless sound.

Sorry to force the topic, but it still hasn't been answered.

Guido, I think we'd need to know the context. Was it in relation to the singing of a particular aria? I seem to recall that he discussed a recording of a single aria from time to time.

I read, and enjoyed the book many years ago. Until then, I had never really listened to singers of the pre LP era. Steane's enthusiasm led me to explore and enjoy the singing of a whole host of singers I'd never really heard before. I always found Steane a valuable guide and critic.

[zamyrabyrd]

Hi Zamyrabird. In light of what you've just written, what did you mean then in the quoted line in the first post when you said of Christa Ludwig

"Also, is there a vibrato in the voice here? This is something that she would not normally be found in the same sentence with. It could be the fault of the recording though."

And what does anyone make of J.B Steane saying that Tebaldi had a vibratoless sound.

Sorry to force the topic, but it still hasn't been answered.

I didn't read any books by Steane, so I wonder if this is what he actually wrote about Tebaldi.
When a vibrato is noticed (too fast, "tremolo" or too slow as in "wobble"), then it is probably a sign of vocal dysfunction. But it is present all the time, quietly doing its bit to color the tone. The same goes for string players, unless they are decidedly playing without vibrato as in some Baroque or early music.
Christa Ludwig's voice in the abovementioned recording seemed to have a waver but this is so unlike her that I speculated if it were a fault with the recording.

ZB

[Guido]

Thanks ZB. I understand what you wrote now.

Tsaraslondon here is the passage in full, which is a general introduction to her voice and comes after saying that she has been enthroned as prima donna for a quarter of a century:

"As far as there can be a such a thing this is a voice without idiosyncrasies: standard in range (though the top has not been easy for some years now), standard in power, without vibrato, shrillness, or a detectable division of registers."

I actually bought this book on the strength of your year old recommendation to discover many of the pre-war singers tool.

[Tsaraslondon]

Thanks ZB. I understand what you wrote now.

Tsaraslondon here is the passage in full, which is a general introduction to her voice and comes after saying that she has been enthroned as prima donna for a quarter of a century:

"As far as there can be a such a thing this is a voice without idiosyncrasies: standard in range (though the top has not been easy for some years now), standard in power, without vibrato, shrillness, or a detectable division of registers."

It does seem that, in this context, he is using the word vibrato when wobble would have been more correct.

There does, however, even just by reading the posts in this thread, seem to be no general consensus about what people mean by vibrato. I have just been listening to Leontyne Price's four disc Prima Donna set, which was recorded over quite a long period (hard to know exactly how long, as RCA don't include any recording dates), and the natural vibrato in her voice does become more pronounced in the later discs. It never becomes a wobble, but the oscillations are a little wider than they once were. Is this a natural consequence of a loosening of the vocal chords, as a singer gets older?

Off topic I know, but I found these discs both frustrating and disappointing. Price glides through all the music, from Purcell and Handel, via Bellini and Meyerbeer to Barber and Britten, without any real appreciation of the requirements and style of individual composers and roles. She once said in a Gramophone interview, "It's terrible but you know I just love the sound of my own voice. Sometimes I simply move myself to tears. I suppose I must be my own best fan. I don't care if that sounds immodest," and, in one sense, that's what it sounds like. There is no real quest to get at the truth behind the music. It's no surprise to find that the most successful items are those from roles she actually sang on stage. The rest tend to sound as if she sang through them once, found them lovely, and left it at that.

[Guido]

There's a book of interviews by Helena Matheopoulos in which Price says that she sometimes pours herself some champagne when she's on her own and toasts her own voice. I largely agree with your appraisal - I only very rarely feel I'm hearing any heart felt attempt at characterisation. Her Puccini singing is surely the most luxuriant ever recorded, and some of her Verdi (usually slow cantilenas) I like also, but the play count on my itunes compared to Callas in the same arias speaks volumes: one is an artist I have to return to, one is not.

The vibrato slowing is a natural part of the aging of the chords sadly and yes is due to what you describe. Singers who never try to do dramatic things with their voices tend to last longer (see Te Kanawa) but there's of course no guarantee. I never think Price's fast singing is commensurate with the technical standards of the rest of her singing, and also her chest register and lower passagio is usually slightly disappointing compared to the top. But overall it's the most perfectly rounded, full, solid sound that it's possible to imagine (I always actually imagine a circle when I hear her) and for me more beautiful in timbre than Tebaldi or Caballé, the two other famously beautiful medium sized voices of that era. As an artist she interests me very little though (Tebaldi too for that matter).

With all this I realise that some would say exactly the same of Renée Fleming (my other all time favourite with Callas) - that she's only in love with her voice, that the characterisation is shallow etc. Obviously I disagree vehemently, but I fully realise that these things are very personal!

[knight66]

I have those Price discs and my reaction is a bit different. Once we get away from Handel and Purcell, I enjoy them a great deal. The voice is so healthy and I am grateful for the beauty. She never was penetrative actress and I don't go to her discs for insight. But neither is she a blank singer and if she manages merely generalised expression, I will accept it. I have had a lot of pleasure from the set and especially the less usual modern arias that she chose. The programming was really impressive. I deliberately got hold of some full sets of works that don't really suit her, seduced by the voice. Butterfly and Cosi come to mind. At her best, Aida, Trovatore and Carmen, these are the sets I return to even in preference to singers who get more inside the parts.

I have never noticed what I think of as a wobble within her singing,(not that anyone suggested she had one),she at one point, quite early on, decided she would extend her singing life by doing no more than 60 performances a year. I don't know how long she stuck with that, but I do recall it annoying a famous conductor, can't now recall who, who gave her a sideswipe in the press about it. But perhaps she was really being sensible with her work/life balance. Why flog yourself to death if you can live well off the scarcity rather than risking omnipresence.

Mike

[Tsaraslondon]

Oddly enough, Guido, when I listened the other day to Price singing one of the arias from Barber's Antony and Cleopatra, it was Fleming who came into my mind. I don't know if she has sung the role, but I'd have thought it would suit her admirably now. But actually the problem I sometimes have with Fleming is exactly the opposite of that I have with Price. It often feels to me that Fleming tries too hard to dramatise and characterise the music. I don't know how best to describe it, other than that her responses are often external rather than internal, applied rather than experienced from within.

As for Price, today I was listening to Disc 3 of the Prima Donna Collection. This was the only one of the set I had on LP, which I originally bought back when I was in my mid 20s. I loved it then, for the beautiful singing and for the wide range of music on the record, most of which was unfamiliar to me at the time. Since then, of course, I have got to know most of these pieces rather better, and, though there is much pleasure to be derived from Price's gorgeous voice, in prime health, even through its range, right up to a glorious, if unnecessary, high D in the aria from I Lombardi, there are few of the arias that I don't now prefer sung by someone else. Mike is right to say that she is not a blank singer. There is a real personality here, but, for me, it is often a case of the singer getting in the way of the song. New to me when I bought the disc was Thais's glorious Dis moi que je suis belle, and Price's soaring singing of it made this my favourite piece on the album. I would not however prefer it to Fleming's on the complete set, possibly an insidious comparison; Fleming has stage experience of the role, Price did not.

RCA's presentation of this set is really shoddy. I believe there were, in all, 5 LPs in the series, issued at various times between 1965 and 1980, which have now been condensed onto 4 CDs. Annoyingly this means that though, say, disc 3 is mostly made up of Volume 3 in the series, they have added arias from one or more of the other volumes. Recording dates are not given. There is no doubt, however, that during those fifteen years, though the voice remained admirably firm, it thickened and became less responsive. I don't know when she recorded Casta Diva, which appears on the final CD, but it was really ill advised, as was Gilda's Caro nome on the same disc.

[Wendell_E]

New to me when I bought the disc was Thais's glorious Dis moi que je suis belle, and Price's soaring singing of it made this my favourite piece on the album. I would not however prefer it to Fleming's on the complete set, possibly an insidious comparison; Fleming has stage experience of the role, Price did not.

Actually, Price did sing Thaïs three times at the Lyric Opera of Chicago (Nov. 23, 25, & 27, 1959).  Back in those days Lyric only did 2-4 performances of each opera.  I'm fairly certain she never sang it again.  In any case, I also like Price's version, but prefer Fleming.

http://www.lyricopera.org/about/cast_1950.aspx