“The promethean fire of eloquent expression”: Vocal delivery in Handel's oratorios in the early nineteenth century

Abstract

Singers regularly performed airs and recitatives from Handel's oratorios in early 19th‐century England, and many teachers of singing explained their art in relation to these works. This essay examines how Thomas Welsh's celebrated student, Mary Anne Wilson, applied the principles of expressive singing to ‘O worse than death indeed/Angels ever bright and fair’ (Theodora). Unfortunately, very little information on the manner of delivery was ever included in most published scores, but discussions of this recitative and air in treatises on singing by Welsh, Domenico Corri, and William Wordsworth (d. 1846), when coupled with anonymous annotations in scores of the period, teach us a great deal about how singers sang notes with eloquent expression; that is, we learn where singers employed vibrato, legato, staccato, portamento, messa di voce, dynamics, ornaments, and so on, as well as how singers articulated the sense of the text through their breathing.