properties, the contempt for the true, the grand, and the beautiful, and the cynicism and decrepitude of art in certain countries."[1]
So, even if, as the ponderous criticasters are continually pointing out, the age of bel canto is really passing, there is no actual occasion for grief. All fashions in art pass and what is known as bel canto is just as much a fashion as the bombastic style of acting that prevailed in Victor Hugo's time or the "realistic" style of acting we prefer today. All interpretative art is based primarily on the material with which it deals and on contemporary public taste. Florid singing is a direct derivative of a certain school of opera and, as that school of opera is fading, more expressive methods of singing are coming to the fore. The very first principal of bel canto, an equalized scale, is a false one. With an equalized scale a singer can produce a perfectly ordered series of notes, a charming string of matched tonal pearls, but nothing more. It is worthy of attention that it is impossible to sing
- ↑ "The influence exerted by the prima donna on the evolution of music has nearly always been reactionary. Even so great an opportunist as Handel was driven to threats of personal violence in order to secure her submission, and the greatest and most original composers have been precisely those who treated her with the least consideration." C. L. Graves in Post-Victorian Music; page 283.
