How to sing [Meine Gesangskunst]

by Lilli Lehmann

How to Sing is the English version of Meine Gesangskunst, the treatise on vocal technique published in 1902 by the German soprano Lilli Lehmann, translated by the New York music critic Richard Aldrich. Lehmann, who sang Isolde, Brünnhilde and Norma at the Metropolitan Opera and taught for decades afterward, sets out her method in detail: the control of the breath, the placing of the tone and the sensations the singer should feel in the head and throat, the vowels and consonants, the registers and their blending, the trill, the portamento and the practice of scales. She describes her own daily exercises and warns against the shortcuts of fashionable teachers. The book is addressed to serious students rather than amateurs. The full text is available to read online in your browser on Vinteuil, and the first chapter is free.