Vocal Master Class with Sanford Sylvan
by
Lyn Bronson
Mezzo Katherine Growdon & Sanford Sylvan
How did the institution of the master class originate?
That’s easy. Franz Liszt, after his retirement from the concert stage in the
late 1840s, began attracting gifted young piano students to his classes in
Weimar from all over the world – one of these was a young girl, Amy Fay, from
Bayou Goula, Louisiana, who left us an interesting account of the experience.
Very little about piano technique was spoken in these classes, for applicants
were expected to have a well grounded technique or not bother to apply. These
classes were more about making music, and about developing an approach to music
full of imagery and imagination. Occasionally, of course, he did talk about
technique, and, for example, when asked how to play the repeated rapid octaves
in Der Erlkőnig, Liszt said with a
smile “You shake them out of your sleeve.” Although this may sound simplistic,
actually it is a clever and vivid image of impulses not generated by motions
from the elbow, but from a rapidly vibrating wrist. For the most part, Liszt was
a kindly teacher, and, as always, he had an eye for the young ladies, for his
classes usually contained three times as many women as men.
The next great master class teacher was pianist Theodor
Leschetitzky in Vienna in the late 19th century. Not as kindly as
Liszt, he was a stern taskmaster − borderline cruel and sadistic, some would
later say. The reputations of these two great master teachers set the stage for
many generations of distinguished European teachers coming to the United States
and establishing themselves as ruthless dictators making the lives of young
music students quite miserable. Pianist Leon Fleischer reported about his
lessons during his teen years in the 1930s with a great European teacher
residing in San Francisco, “This teacher felt the lesson was a failure unless he
made me cry.”
Well, as anyone observing the Adams Vocal Master Classes
can testify, we have come a long way since then, and the institution of the
master class has morphed from a private gathering of students and teacher into a
public demonstration of advanced coaching on a high artistic level. The drill is
quite straightforward. The young artist performs, the teacher works on various
aspects that could lead to improvement, and passages are repeated with new
approaches so that the audience observes the progress right in front of their
eyes (or, more properly, ears).
One of the most important aspects of the modern master
class is the respect tended by the teacher to the young artist. There is a
collegial relationship between teacher and student, and this constantly reminds
the audience that the teacher remembers well what it was like to be an emerging
talent on the threshold of a career. And, it is all the experience that master
teachers have acquired over the years that they are sharing with these young
musicians.
During the Adams Vocal Master Classes, several musicians
from the Carmel Bach Festival take turns working with distinguished young
singers here for the program. On Monday, July 23, we had an opportunity to
observe baritone Sanford Sylvan presiding over the class.
Participating in this session was mezzo-soprano Katherine Growdon
in
Tief gebűckt und voller Reue from
Cantata BWV. 199, soprano Angela Cadelago in
Quia respexit from Bach’s
Magnificat, tenor Dana Wilson in
Sanfte soll mein Todeskummer from
Bach’s Easter Oratorio, and baritone Nikolas Nackley in
Schlummert ein, ihr matten Augen from
Cantata BWV 82. This was music making on a high level. After each performance
Sylvan, sounding a bit like a psychiatrist, asked a lot of questions, “what
would you like to change, how do you feel about your nerves, etc.?” These
questions acknowledged that the singers we were hearing were already young
artists, and Sylvan was probing to determine how acute was their perception of
what needed to be changed in their performance to make it even better.
A Leitmotif ran
through this afternoon’s session: when we are singing scripture, don’t emote,
don’t move unnecessarily, don’t become artful – “Talk to us, don’t ‘art’ us,” he
emphasized Anyone who has observed
Sylvan during the Carmel Bach Festival knows that he practices whereof he
speaks, for when he is on stage, he is motionless. All the emotion and
expression in his singing comes from the natural way he uses his voice so that
he constantly delivers the message to us through the music, not in external
acting. We assume that if Sylvan
were singing a role in “The Marriage of Figaro,” it would be a different more
dramatic Sylvan we would see on stage.
Another Leitmotif we heard constantly “was about the
instrument inside us always needing to be ready and tall.” He said, “We can’t
change the instrument God gave us, but what we can change is our ability to get
the message across more clearly.” Posture is another important aspect of our
presence on stage, and we have to be stand tall but not to elevate our heads
(“There’s nothing up there,” he said). He chastised Katherine Growdon, in a very
friendly way, for wearing a shawl during her performance and creating for the
audience a guessing game as to which shoulder it would slip off next.
We always have to admire the quick response from these
singers to adopt a suggestion and make it their own. It was impressive.
On August 4 at 2:30 PM, in Sunset Center, we will have an opportunity to
hear once again these marvelous young artists in the Master Class Showcase
concert. Don’t miss it!
