National Singing Styles - England (I)

We have few English sources on singing from the seventeenth century, though there is a considerable body of material on oratory, rhetoric, and acting. The evolution from the lute songs of John Dowland to the continuo songs of the Lawes family (Henry and William) to the late songs of Henry Purcell shows remarkable developments in both declamatory style and vocal technique. Part of this evolution, of course, involved a synthesis of an indigenous English style with Italian and, to a lesser extent, French influences, in addition to the gradual development of professional singing. The migration of Italian music and musicians to England in the early decades of the century involved the madrigal more than monody.

Before about 1625, English solo singing largely perpetuated sixteenth-century practice. Only two court musicians arrived from Italy in the years between 1603 and 1618. A very few English musicians, notably Dowland, Nicholas Lanier, and possibly John Coprario, traveled to Italy. Robert Dowland published a lute-song version of Caccini’s “Amarilli, mia bella” in 1610, and other versions of this song (some quite florid) were circulated in manuscripts, but relatively few Italian monodies were exported to England.


The English Renaissance style of singing is outlined in William Bathe’s Briefe Introduction to the Skill of Song (ca. 1587). Bathe stressed the importance of (1) singing the vowels and consonants distinctly, according to local pronunciation; (2) having a breath technique to sing long phrases and a tongue capable of clear enunciation at a fast tempo; (3) a knowledge of musical notation and the proper proportion of note values; and (4) maintaining a clear voice for proper intonation.

Lanier introduced the Italian stylo recitativo to England ca. 1613 in Thomas Campion’s Squires’ Masque (1613). Lanier’s Hero and Leander (ca. 1628) is a direct imitation of Claudio Monteverdi’s recitative-lament style, though it is hampered a bit by the greater profusion of consonants and the different accentual patterns of the English language.

Charles Butler’s Principles of Musick (1636) is one of the earliest seventeenthcentury sources to discuss singing in detail. He called attention to the importance of the text as the element that sets singing apart: “Good voices alone, sounding onely the notes, are sufficient, by their Melodi and Harmoni, to delight the ear: but beeing furnished with soom laudable Ditti they becoom yet more excellent.”

Butler further indicated that the punctuation of the text should provide the punctuation for the music. A singer’s observation of textual and musical punctuation is important in shaping the rhetorical and dramatic structure of any vocal piece. Early seventeenth-century English composers often amplified the text through different rhetorical means of word repetition. Declaiming the text, both for diction and rhetorical emphasis, is extremely important in this repertory. Pronouncing the words distinctly was an important consideration for an English singer, particularly in an age in which the quality of the poetry often exceeded that of the music. Butler
understood the importance of proper posture when singing and seems to describe the use of speech mode in advocating that singers sing “as plainly as they would speak”:

Concerning the Singers, their first care shcolde bee to sit with a decent erect posture of the Bodi, without all ridiculous and uncoomly gesticulations, of Hed, or Hands, or any other Parte: then ((that the Ditti (which is half the grace of the Song) may bee known and understood)) to sing as plainly as they woolde speak: pronouncing every Syllable and letter (specially the Vouels) distinctly and treatably. And in their great varieti of Tones, to keepe stil an equal Sound: (except in a Point) that one voice droun not an other.

One possible interpretation of “equal” in the passage above is that the English in the first third of the century did not use “pyramid” registration (at least in a polyphonic context) and favored an equal balance of all the voices. However, this interpretation is possibly contradicted by Butler’s observation, again in a polyphonic
context, that “The Bass is so called, becaus it is the basis or foundation of the Song, unto which all other Parts bee set: and it is to be sung with a deepe, ful, and pleasing Voice. . . . The Treble . . . is to bee sung with a high cleere sweete voice.” Butler’s concept of “equality” in this case might have meant equal within the parameters of the pyramid—a balance different from the modern norm.

to be continued
(by A Performer's Guide to Seveteenth-Century Music)