FOR FOLK SONG STUDENTS

Evening Star, Issue 12943, 5 May 1908, Page 8

FOR FOLK SONG STUDENTS

“Naturally,” writes Miss Eileen Russell, the charming Irish soprano, in the ‘ Musical Home Journal,’ “the true art of singing folk songs lies in a thorough understanding and following out of the traditions of the country concerned. It is absolutely essential that the student should first of all make herself acquainted with the life of the people for which the songs were written. By this means only can she understand the varying emotions portrayed in the songs, and thus enter into their true inwardness. My experience has taught me tliat it is absolutely useless to attempt to sing Irish folk songs in wliat I may call the approved style of singing. In fact, I fear tiat an artist who persisted in trying to do so would very soon

pain her_ voice. The peculiar arrangement of the music demands a distinct stylo, and, to bring out all their true meaning, the words have, ns it were, to be spoken. There are such wide intervals encountered in some of the songs that to render them by the usual method cf vocal production is practically impossible. Perhaps it is for this reason that so many singing masters fight shy of folk songs.”