Mathilde Marchesi

Theoretical and Practical Vocal Method Mathilde Marchesi

2012 Reprint of 1900 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. Marchesi was born in Frankfurt-am-Main. In her adolescence her family fortunes failed, so she travelled at the age of 22 to Vienna to study voice. Thereafter she went to Paris and studied with Manuel García II, who was to have the foremost influence on her. She made her debut as a singer in 1844, and had a short career in opera and recital. Her voice, however, was only adequate, so she moved to teaching in 1849. It was in this field that she would become famous. She taught at conservatories in Cologne and Vienna and in 1881 opened her own school on the Rue Jouffroy in Paris, where she was to remain for most of her life. Ultimately, she was best known as the vocal teacher of a number of great singers. The most famous among them is perhaps Nellie Melba, but she also trained such illustrious singers as Emma Calvé, Frances Alda, Ellen Gulbranson, Selma Kurz and Emma Eames. Marchesi died in London in 1913. Today Marchesi is remembered not at all for her singing career. Rather, she is known first and foremost as the teacher of a surprising number of great singers, and also as the person who carried the bel canto technique into the 20th century. Her ideas are still studied, primarily by female singers, especially those with voices in the soprano range, in which Marchesi had specialized. This work on singing commences with the vocal alphabet, that is to say, elementary exercises, and contains also a series of elementary and progressive exercises for the formation of the mechanism of the voice.
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