Singing without vibrato

[Fred Blumenthal <xd2fabl...>]

Thank you to Cantor Sam Weiss for his response on singing without vibrato.
This isn't the first time he's answered questions or concerns that I've
brought up.

The choral director in my experience who stressed singing without vibrato
was Gregg Smith - a famous choral director, but one of several I've
experienced who weren't singers.  The motivations were A) blend, and B)
intonation.  Smith had - and I'm sure still has - a careful ear for
intonation, but he would tell those singing sharp to darken the tone to
correct it, and those singing flat to smile in order to brighten the tone
to correct it.  I've long felt that this was like taking one medicine for a
variety of ills, and that intonation problems could have more than just two
origins.  I suppose to Mr. Smith hearing singing with vibrato was like
seeing a variety of colors when one wished to see just one.

And in my training in early music it was at first stressed that singing
should be done with no vibrato, but then later that was deemed to be an
extreme position, and some vibrato was allowed, particularly in the music
of Claudio Monteverdi.  As Adrianne Greenbaum and I have been discussing
off-list, there's an explanation that vibrato has roots in embellishment,
so that, at the turn of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, Monteverdi
would be appropriate as a beginning point for vibrato.

To tie it all together: at about the time I knew Mr. Smith, 35 years ago,
he was recording Gabrieli's music in St. Mark's.

Fred Blumenthal
xd2fabl (at) us(dot)ibm(dot)com

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