“Observations on Flowery Song” by P.F. Tosi (1723)

“These were the teachings of the school of those teachers whom, with disdain, many mediocre singers now call ancient. Observe carefully their rules, strictly examine their precepts, and if you are not blinded by prejudice, you will see that this school teaches to sing in tune” . , projecting the voice, making the words understood, expressing, using the appropriate gesture, executing in tempo, improvising appropriate decorations, composing and studying delicate and sensitive singing, in which only good taste and judgment triumph. Compare this school with yours, and if you find any area lacking its precepts to instruct you, remove the rest from the Moderna. Pier Francesco Tosi, Observations on the flowery song, p. 78.

The foundations of the bel canto method and style were laid during the creation of opera and monodian solo singing in the late 16th century. As the new art form developed, virtuoso singers emerged on the international scene with almost inhuman agility, range, and beauty. Mostly castrati, but also of all voice types, these highly-skilled singers became the world’s first rock stars, with influence, income, and lifestyles to match.

The techniques of these bel canto singers (and most of the singers themselves) originated exclusively in Italy’s private conservatories and voice studios. The training and techniques they used were passed down orally from master to apprentice for generations and very little was recorded in writing. Pier Francesco Tosi was the first to publish (in 1723) a treatise on singing of considerable length and detail. It quickly became a foundational and stylistic model for generations of song treatises to come, from Mancini in 1777 to Richard Miller and Clifton Ware today. In 40 years, Tosi’s Opinioni de’ cantori antichi, e moderni, o sieno osservazioni sopra il canto figurato had been translated into English, German and French.

A castrato himself, in writing Opinioni, Tosi drew on his own bel canto musical training as a child in Italy (probably Milan), as well as his extensive experience as a professional singer and voice teacher. He also clearly developed his repertoire and taste in ornamentation for the many singers he observed throughout his career, including “Il Cortnoa”, “La Santini”, “Sifacio”, Rivani and especially Pistocchi. While his treatise is directed at and expresses a clear bias towards the castrated male voice, Tosi’s occasional mention of singers of other types shows that he believed all singers were shaped the same.

From Tosi’s writings we discover the surprising fact that bel canto training focused on aural aesthetics with almost no physiological instruction. Contrary to the many process-based singing methods developed since Garcia’s Treatise (1840) that have focused on breathing, abdominal support, throat and head resonance, and laryngeal and pharyngeal positioning, the “old Italian school” method was based on results, focusing on intonation, tone, and the successful and tasteful use of ornamentation. In fact, the extent of Tosi’s physical advice to the singer was: “never let the scholar hold the Musick-Paper, in song, in front of his face” (p. 29) “compos[e] [the mouth] in one way […] quite inclined to a Smile” (p. 12) and “the Voice of the Scholar […]it should always come out clean and clear, without going through the nose or choking down the throat; which are two of the most hideous Flaws in a Singer.” (pp. 10-11) It can be seen that even these instructions were given to specifically fix an oral or visual aesthetic, rather than as part of a technical method.

Opinioni is mainly addressed to the singing teacher, exposing what and how he should teach his students. It also includes a chapter and several passages for the would-be professional singer with advice on good taste, trappings, performance skills, and the life and craft of professional singing. Tosi stresses the need for a long period of training students in reading and musical composition, singing and ornamentation construction, as well as grammar, diction, social propriety and acting. All the standard embellishments of the time are painstakingly presented: appoggiatura, messa di voce, eight types of trills, passaggi (divisions), and portamento. Tosi also dedicates a chapter each to the recitative and the singing of arias, preaching the need to improvise one’s graces and divisions on the spot in performances.

There are some of Tosi’s teachings in his Opinioni that have been particularly interesting to singers and scholars over the years. Tosi clearly advocates joining and blending the chest and head registers, (p. 11) the first recorded vocal pedagogue to do so. While earlier writers such as Zacconi (Practica di Musica, 1592, ch. 2) and Caccini (Le nuove musiche, 1602, intro.) asserted that singers should only sing in their “natural voice”, Tosi went so far as to say “If [the chest and head register] do not unite perfectly, the Voice will be of various Registers and, consequently, must lose its Beauty.” (p. 11) Tosi’s is also the first recorded encouragement of the use of the rubato as an ornament. While he time and again criticizes singers who accidentally sing out of time or magnify their own notes like in the modern fermata, encourages”[t]he is stealing time […]whenever he makes a Restitution with Wit”; that is, whenever the singer recovers the accompaniment, allowing them to keep the tempo. (p. 67)

Another interesting element of Opinions are Tosi’s discussions of intonation and music theory. During a period when various methods of temperament were used by keyboards, strings, and even singers, Tosi laments that “except in a few teachers, that modern intonation is very bad.” (p. 9) he speaks of a different “major and minor semitone” (or a larger and a smaller semitone) whose “[d]The difference cannot be known by an organ or harpsichord, if the keys of the instrument are not divided.” (p. 9) Consequently, he warns that “if a soprano sang in D sharp, like E flat, a good ear will find this out of key, because the latter goes up.” (p. 10) Tosi’s remedy for bad intonation is to start the young singer with solfeggio, using the traditional range created by Guido. outdated at the time Tosi wrote his treatise , however, he insisted on its use.

Opinions it was indeed a turning point for much more than the theory and tuning of early Baroque music. Tosi spends a considerable amount of time in his treatise praising the “old” cantabile style (or “Pathetick”, as the original translator put it) of his generation, in the early 18th century. He can’t seem to understand why “the fashion” has moved to the fast and highly ornate “Allegro” style, popular at the time of writing, which he considers insufficient singer training, ignoring traditional Church fashions and “tacky” virtuoso displays as the great sin of the “modern” musical generation. Being a pragmaticist, however, he still encourages that “it will be of use to a prudent scholar, who wishes to be proficient in both manners” (p. 40).

Pier Francesco Tosi was born in Cesena, Italy, in 1653 or 1654. There is disagreement among sources as to whether he was the son of the composer Giuseppe Felice Tosi. He was castrated before puberty to preserve his high voice. While it is not known where he received his rudimentary musical training, he sang in a church in Rome from 1676 to 1677 and in the cathedral in Milan from 1681 to 1685, when he was dismissed for “misconduct”. Thereafter, he made the only recorded appearance of himself in opera at Reggio nell’Emilia in 1687 (in Varischino’s Odoacre) and was based for a time in Genoa. In 1693, Tosi moved to London, where he faced students of song and blood in weekly public concerts. In 1701 he entered the service of the Austrian Emperor Joseph I and Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, whom he served as musical agent and diplomat, traveling extensively until 1723. In 1724 he returned to London in flames with the works of Handel, where he again taught and He was a founding member of the Academy of Ancient Music. She took holy orders sometime before her death in Faenza, Italy in 1732. In addition to being a well-known soprano (of the cantabile style, singing mainly chamber music) and a voice teacher, Tosi was a composer of several arias and cantatas. (Biographical information taken from “Tosi, Pier Francsco”, New Grove Dictionary of Opera.)

John Ernest Galliard (1666-1747), English translator of Opinions, was a successful opera composer and oboist in London, playing an important role in the musical life of the city in the first half of the 18th century. He was a founding member of both the Royal Society of Musicians and the Academy of Ancient Music, the latter of which Tosi also sat. Due to the quality of the translation and his long personal relationship with the author, Galliard’s translation and annotation of Tosi’s Opinioni (published in 1742 as Observations on the Florid Song) has long been regarded as an authoritative interpretation and of high quality. (Biographical information from “Galliard, John Ernest,” New Grove Dictionary of Opera.)