The fine tact and the correct feeling with which in those old vocal compositions what nature directs was observed, show that they are the works of singers of the golden age of the art of singing, of artists who with an exact knowledge of the beauties and capabilities of the voice possessed, and in those days were compelled to possess, the most thorough culture in the theory of music.
In opposition to this old, classic Italian style of composing song, which considered and treated music for its own sake alone, and regarded the words only in so far as they aided the voice and the expression of the music, stands the classic style of Germany. In this latter the first attention is paid to the poetic meaning and expression of the text. Rightly to apprehend the sense of the words and to give it, by means of the music, a deeper, nobler expression--to transfigure it, as it were--is, according to this style, the purpose of the composer, who commonly has only the slightest reference to the peculiar qualities of the voice and the fitness of the composition to be sung. In the classic Italian style the form predominates--in the German, the inspiration or soul of the composition. In the Italian the music and the singing capability of the composition are attended to almost exclusively. In the German, the main thing is the poetical expression of the signification of the words. When we now sing the wonderful and exquisite compositions of _Schubert_, _Schumann_, _Mendelssohn_, etc., we soon feel the impossibility of giving one or another tone as beautifully as it should be given according to the quality of the voice, and as we are able to give it by itself. Or it is hard for us to strike this or that tone with perfect purity or with the requisite force, &c. These songs are _not_ adapted to the voice as the old Italian arias were, but composed without accurate knowledge of the voice, and therefore cannot develop the voice in its highest perfection. _Mendelssohn_ often lays the strongest expression in his soprano songs upon the f♯², the transition tone from the falsetto register to the head voice. For the expression of the highest passion, which requires strength, the head voice is not adapted, at least not in its transition tone. Accordingly, it is usually sought to sound this tone with the falsetto register, to which it is not natural, and is therefore hard to be sung, and also becomes sharp and offensive in the male voice especially, where this note is formed just upon the transition from the second chest register into the falsetto. _Schubert_, again, in his songs commonly so places the words that the favorable vowels seldom come upon the right tones. _Schumann_ also very often uses intervals which come upon the boundary tones of the register, and can hardly be struck with purity. Thus there are very many hindrances to a fine development of the voice, oftentimes in the most beautiful compositions of our times, hindrances, which many of our composers are more or less chargeable with putting in the way.