BALLAD SINGING

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 24, 30 January 1928, Page 4

BALLAD SINGING

LACK OF SYMPATHY "Carmencita, 1! in the "Australian Woman's Mirrbr," makes a number of helpful and pointed remarks about simple ballad singing. After expressing the opinion that there are more ballads sung badly than any'other type of song, the writer says: Naturally, untrained singers do not care to enter a drawing* room (let alone occupy the centre of a concert platform) and sing excerpts from Italian opera. A ballad, they think, ii the simplest and easiest kind of song —therefore they sing ballads. Alas! How often have dainty, fairylike »ir« been "murdered" by modest ladies and gentlemen who "don't sing a great deal, you know—just enough to amuse myself!" Unfortunately, it rarely amuses others unless (which is equally unfortunate) it causes amusement in the wrong place. For, to use an Irishism, the complexity of ballad singing lies in its simplicity. • To my mind, in singing ballads —by which I mean here the unobtrusivo, rather short song of to-day—simplicity of utterance, a clear carrying tone and a sympathetic understanding of the words are most important. A lack of sympathy with the w.brdsis, perhaps, the most noticeable fault in ballad singers of today— unless, of course, one takes into account singing "flat" or "sharp," but these are separate crimes. So many songs are so gracious and so beautiful that the really musical prefer to hear them Sung by the smallest, most timid voice, that yet possesses sympathy and "soul" rather than by the florid, selfconfident voice, whose owner has entirely missed the poignancy suggested in the lyric and further accentuated by the music. A lovely ballad by Robert Underwood Johnson and Liza Lehmann has a verse which runs thus— , "Thou half-unfolded flower, 'With fragrance-ladon heart, 'What ii the. secret power Thai doth thy petals part! What gave thee most thy hue— The sunshine, or the dew I Beautiful words, ' exquisite thought, and the music marvellously suited to the words t Yet I have actually heard "What is the secret power that doth . thy petals partf" Sung fortissimo 1 Not much "secret" any longer, surely I And who ever heard of petals parting with, so to speak, a triumphant bang! Similarly the singer brought forth the line "The sunshine, or the dewt" as softly as possible, though it appears to me that sunshine should be a blaze of glory. Of course, a singer of this type invariably imagines herself to be possessed of "taste" in singing, else she would never so far infringe the rules—the expression marks set down for Jier. To those with genuine Understanding of the words they are singing, however, "expression" goes a. good deal deeper than the following Of printed signs."