Opera on the Move in the Nordic Countries during the Long 19th ...

Formed to Perform
Vogler’s first exercise is a melody of limited vocal range to an Italian text.
The student should sing the melody, separating each note from the next,
and then try to join them using portamento. The melody could also be used
to train intonation and declamation. The second exercise is a scale of whole
notes from c1 to c2. These were to be joined using portamento. This is followed
by an exercise combining messa di voce and portamento, with a scale
ascending and descending from c1 to c2. Two notes are joined, starting with
a messa di voce. This was a standard practice in most eighteenth-century
vocal manuals. But, while most Italian teachers had by this time discarded
the solfeggio syllables and used single vowels instead, Vogler continued to
use the syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol.
The last exercise is in two parts, the first using half notes in sections of
six notes (c1 d1 c1 b c1 d1, the last note being a quarter note) continuing
up through the scale. The second part is an ornamented variant with dotted
notes. A bass part is also given presenting the harmonies. Although Vogler’s
manual is brief, it presents the essential aspects of Italian teaching.
If we combine this little manual with the ornamentation exercises presented
in his publication Gründe der kurpfälzische Tonschule in Beyspielen,
a larger picture of his vocal aesthetics emerges (Corneilson 1998, pp.
91–109). The small da capo aria is presented on five staves, including the
melody staff, a staff for ornamentation 1, another for ornamentation 2, and
two staves for the piano accompaniment. The aria consists of a longer adagio
and a short allegretto B part presented on one staff with ornamentation.
Both A parts are ornamented, showing how important improvised ornamentation
was at this time.
Vogler’s suggested ornamentations are highly conventional, showing
anticipatory notes, appoggiaturas, escape notes, diminutions (passing
tones and filled-in intervals), arpeggios, mordents (containing three or four
notes), shakes, tremolos and cadenzas – all part of standard vocal performance
practice. Vogler was very careful about using trills, which occur only
at fermatas, at the close of the B part (with no cadenza indicated) and at the
cadence in bars 21–22. On the long notes in these bars Vogler had called
for an arpeggio in the first part and syncopation in the second. In this he
deviates from Italian practice, where shakes could be placed in scales or on
long notes. The messa di voce seems to be excluded from the aria, something
that was exceptional for the time, as it was usually called for on all
long notes and at the beginning of the cadenza. The aria is a catalogue of
eighteenth-century ornamentation, clearly written to demonstrate how ornaments
were to be improvised in a given context. We can certainly count
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