A classical singer in this day and age is, thankfully, spoiled for music resources. We have the internet and its many gargantuan booksellers, the maze of music publishers and editors, the tangled web of community and university libraries, and my personal favorite, other singers’ recital programs and word of mouth. There are innumerable choices for every possible Fach, every possible timbre, every possible personality. And yet, try to find a copy of Zelter’s “Geheimnis,” or seek out a recording of Pasatieri’s “The Women,” and you might give up before you have any luck. Commercial entities are motivated to give us what we have already shown an interest in buying – over and over and over again. It is simply too risky to record Buxtehude when they know we want Bach.
The singer, too, must often think commercially when choosing literature. The most delightful aria on paper becomes one’s worst nightmare if the audition accompanist has never seen it before. While we might think it terribly boring, it is much easier to compare 10 versions “Musetta’s Waltz” to something completely out of the norm. But keeping something innovative on your optional selections list is not a bad idea, as it demonstrates your desire to push the envelope a bit. Think of rare literature as cayenne pepper: a little adds spice to a dish, a lot sends your guests running for the door in tears.
Two musical periods, the Baroque and the 20th Century, offer an especially rich lode of rarely performed quality music. The first is blessed with a very lengthy laundry list of composers who produced vocal music of a very high quality, most of which is audience- friendly and highly singable. On the negative side, only in the last 10 or 15 years have musicologists buried their collective heads in the deep closets of Baroque music, and as a result, much of it remains unpublished, except in collected works. In the 20th century, changes in the publishing market, home computers, and old-fashioned networking skills have made it much easier for composers to get their works to a larger audience. While these works might be easier to find, they are often an acquired taste for a very specialized audience, and they have yet to endure the test of time. Let’s face it, some literature is lost for a very good reason! But, finding quality music is not a difficult charge with implementation of a few simple tools.
Start with your own list of things that fascinate you in any new piece of music: melody, harmony, composer, poetry, interesting story, language, and so on. Keep recital programs, always take a pencil with you to performances, and take notes on things you might want to look at. Get a good dictionary of composers, and just browse, skimming through the listings of people you don’t know. Research the contemporaries of your favorite composer. Spend an hour in the library getting to know the song rep of your favorite opera composer. Look into composers not normally associated with vocal literature. A good melody in a popular piano selection may have found its way into a less known vocal work by the same individual. Read poetry, enjoy art, and find music from the same period. Start a music exchange with your peers, and resolve to bring something you think your friends have never heard of to the table. And never, ever, act like you know a piece of music when you don’t. A desire to save face robs you of the opportunity for an honest exchange and, more importantly, a chance to learn something.
It’s easy to sit back and have literature “assigned” to you, and there exists more than a career full of songs and roles within the standard repertoire. Additionally, it requires solid technique and discipline to try out a piece and decide it isn’t right for you. Everything you lay your hands on simply will not fit, and you might have to chalk up your efforts as experience and give the fruits of your labor to someone else. If you treat your studies as an adventure and a journey, however, someone else on the journey just might have a gift for you.
