When I asked a student if she had worked on such-and-such-a-piece yet, and her answer was “No, I haven’t found a CD yet,” I was profoundly shocked. Yet, her response made me aware of how many young singers are listening to CDs as examples to “copy,” and the tempo is one of the elements they tend to “copy” most.
Why? Because so many CDs are now available (and heavily marketed, in the case of recent releases of the best-known current recording artists); therefore, it’s easy, even “hip,” to listen and to “copy.” Doing so, however, can never lead to a successful personal artistic result. Recorded performances are a result of a process, and one cannot copy a result. Art is a process which culminates in an individual result.
To determine your own tempo for a song or aria, study the clues given on the music page:
The verbal indication at the beginning of the piece, provided by the composer—often, a general expressive or tempo indication such as “etwas lebhaft” (somewhat fast). More specific musical indications of tempo, such as “Andante,” are subject to interpretation according to available musicological research.
The piano writing style of the accompaniment: in song literature, for example, the “water” music of Schubert’s “Wohin” can only be moving and bubbling, and the “spring breezes” of the same composer’s “Frühlingsnacht” can only be moving and wafting in a passionate manner.
The metronome marking at the beginning of the piece, if provided by the composer. Warning: take these markings as a start, but only as a start. Note, for instance, Pierre Bernac’s alternate suggestions for various French composers’ songs (in Pierre Bernac, The Interpretation of French Song; New York: Norton, 1978), Robert Gartside’s occasional alternate suggestions for Fauré songs (in Robert Gartside, Interpreting the Songs of Gabriel Fauré; Genesco, NY: Leyerle Publications, 1996), and Luigi Ricci’s specific suggestions (in Puccini Interprete di se stesso; Milano: G. Ricordi & C., 1954) about the music of the most popular operas of Puccini.
The metronome is best utilized to record the tempo you decide upon after experimentation. It should not be used to predetermine your performance tempo. (On the other hand, it will be helpful in your private practice sessions, especially with certain styles of music such as Handel “rage arias,” to keep you moving when practicing!)
Your tempo is your own artistic choice (exception: in opera, the conductor will ultimately be the one who determines the tempo, hopefully after careful coaching and discussion with you). Your tempo will be different from another singer’s tempo for the same piece.
Carol Kimball’s article “Jane Bathori’s Interpretive Legacy” (in the NATS Journal of Singing, January/February 2001) compared the tempi of three French songs as recorded by various artists other than Bathori, revealing extremely interesting (and considerable) differences in performance timings for “Les Ingénus”: Bathori (1:55), DeGaetani (2:30), and Souzay in 1980 (2:17), and for “Colloque sentimental”: Bathori (3:42), Souzay in 1961 (4:10), and Maggie Teyte (3:17).
The noted pianist Warren Jones (in an interview by Marienne Uszler published in Piano and Keyboard magazine, November/ December 1997, copies of which I regularly include in the curriculum for my “Techniques of Vocal Accompanying” class), writes: “If you get on to the vibrato speed—every singer has a different speed—you will have the right tempo all the time. You cannot be wrong. It’s something that I show my [pianist] students, and they’re amazed. And the singers are amazed, also, because when they’re allowed to sing at their tempo giusto, the voice will do practically anything. But they cannot cram their voices into a tempo that someone else decides for them.”
In an interview with the composer Ned Rorem by Leslie Holmes (“A Conversation with Ned Rorem, Part I,” in the NATS Journal of Singing, Volume 58, No.5, May/June 2002), Rorem is quoted as saying “When I do these masterclasses and they say, ‘How fast should the song go?’ I quote Fauré: ‘If the singer is not good, very fast!’”
In sum: practice and experiment with your coaches and accompanists to find your own tempo. Listen to CDs after you’ve learned and memorized a song or aria from the musical score, at which point you’ll be in the position to compare tempi on recordings with your own, and then perhaps be open to re-assessment of your choices. Listen to several CDs of the same song or aria for the color of orchestrations in arias and to study the different interpretative choices (and tempi) by different recording artists.
By the way, do realize that the use of pre-recorded tapes or CDs of accompaniments without voice (including Karaoke CDs) do not substitute for learning a song or aria correctly—i.e., in the “right” tempo for you!
And a “practical P.S.”—When you rehearse an aria or song with your coach or accompanist, and the tempo which the coach or accompanist sets at the beginning is not “your” tempo, do not wait until the end of the piece to tell him or her so! Set your tempo, communicating it by your breathing and vibrato, from the start.
