published by Alfred
Medium Low
Medium High
I love this edition of the classic Italian songs and arias. These songs have been used for hundreds of years and have been recognized by voice teachers over the ages as songs that are particularly helpful for the developing voice. Unfortunately, over time the songs were revised and set in ways that met with the stylistic ideals of the Romantic era rather than the Baroque. Using the earliest sources of information available, this edition restores the vocal lines and accompaniments for each song to their original baroque style and beauty.
Another great feature of this edition is the amount of information given to help the singer in their preparation of the song. Each song is printed with three translations: a word by word literal translation, a singable translation and an idiomatic translation. In my experience, all three of these are very useful. The pronunciation of each word in the song is shown by IPA and some background information is given. The suggested ornamentation for each song is also really helpful and true to the Baroque style.
On the last two pages of the book is a discussion of proper Italian pronunciation and a key to the IPA symbols used in the book. This is a great reference for the student to help them remember what we discussed about pronunciation in the lessons.
