The Second Symposium on Early Vocal Practices Case Western Reserve University 29-31 October, 1982

Abstract

n 29-31 October, 1982, Case Western Reserve University hosted its second Symposium on Early Vocal Practices. After a modest offering in October 1981, this year's meeting offered three concerts and two days of lectures by artists and scholars of international stature to about sixty registrants-twice number who had attended first symposium. growing interest in this field is indicated not only by increased number of participants this year, but also by organization at this meeting of International Society of Early Music Singers, which, quoting its by-laws, has as its purpose the promotion of public interest and education in vocal music written before 1800; to improve and maintain performance standards in field of early vocal music; and to provide an organization for benefit and edification of singers and others in field of early vocal symposium was organized by Ross W. Duffin, and Quentin W. Quereau was program chairman. Both are on Music Department faculty of Case Western Reserve University. All symposium events except one took place in wood-vaulted intimacy of Harkness Chapel on CWRU campus, a 1902 reinterpretation of English gothic architecture, with its chancel facade of gilded organ pipes, oak trim and Tiffany windows, whose acoustical warmth has shown it to be an ideal setting for performances of early music. three superb concerts, under separate title of A Festival of Early Song, supported in part by Ohio Arts Council and open to public, were by Nigel Rogers, tenor, and Paul O'Dette, lute, in virtuoso music from early seventeenth century; Paul Hillier, voice and medieval harp, assisted by Wendy Gillespie, vielle, in a program entitled Minstrels and Minnesingers; and Cleveland Baroque Soloists, featuring Julianne Baird, soprano, in French and Italian cantatas, as well as Ms. Gillespie in solo viol works. Besides singing, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Hillier and Ms. Baird also presented papers at symposium. fourth presenter was James A. Stark (Mount Allison University, New Brunswick), who opened symposium with a paper entitled The Emergence of Bel Canto Idiom. paper, controversial though it may have been among many singers in audience, provided a framework and vocabulary for much of discussion of other papers in ensuing two days. Dr. Stark began his paper with a working definition of bel canto idiom: those devices and qualities of finely stressed idiomatic singing voice first appearing about 1600 and associated primarily with Italian opera, which differentiate it from conversational or rhetorical voice, from 'vernacular' singing techniques, and from other musical instruments. Dr. Stark developed this definition with a detailed analysis in modern anatomical terminology of component parts of vocal apparatus: respiratory system, larynx, and vocal tract (the complex tube between glottis and lips). According to Dr. Stark bel canto idiom is dependent upon concept of vocal efficiency, certain sophisticated vocal maneuvers which allow greatest intensity of tone of optimum artistic quality from least flow of breath. Basic to this vocal efficiency are anterior phonation, in which arytenoid cartilages of larynx are clamped together and only front 3/5 of glottis vibrates (as opposed to full glottal phonation, in which entire length of S posium on Early Vocal Practices eserve University er, 1982 son