Now we can
scarcely play on the violin or wind instrument a love melody which does
not rise two or three octaves above the normal.
The standard Italian song-composers of the first half of the last
century were especially fond of using the middle register for tones
expressive of peculiarly dramatic pathos, as well as for powerful final
passages of arias. Our differently tuned ear demands that these tones of
passion shall, as a rule, be as high as possible. The alto voice as a
solo voice has almost entirely disappeared from the operas in which it
formerly played so conspicuous a part. The elevated tone of our whole
inner man has deprived us of any ear for the alto.
In any case we have here reached an extreme which is contrary to the
very construction of the human vocal organs. Scarcely is moderate and
natural compass of tone still permitted, even in a song. In every age
the song-composer had been allowed to construct his melodies out of the
fewest possible tones. While the elder Bach in his arias often chases
the human voice in the most ruthless manner from one extreme to the
other, his sons and pupils in their little German songs confine
themselves to the most modest compass. Most of the later composers
proceeded in the same way up to the time of the Romanticists; then the
bonds were snapped, even in this respect. Schubert, on the one hand,
could compose the most moderate songs, on the other, the most
immoderate.
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