Whether a beginning singer is 13 or 73, Caro mio ben seems to be every teacher’s go-to starter piece. I must confess that it is mine too. I feel that if a student is unaware of this song at some point during study someone will ask them if they know it. And every classical singer needs to know Caro mio ben. It’s definitely required knowledge. They would feel foolish not to know it!
And after Caro mio ben, teachers frequently or (perhaps generally) assign “Tu lo sai” or “Sebben Crudele”, then next two easiest pieces from the 24 Italian Songs and Arias book of the 17th and 18th Century. And then for the next while, all the songs from the book that I am sick to death of… Beautiful as they may be, I am so extremely bored with “Per la Gloria”, “Vittoria”, “Se Florinda” and most all of them except for perhaps Amarylli which I never seem to tire of. I must have heard every piece in this book ten thousand times. In fact, I expect most voice teachers have heard every song in the book ten thousand times.
A few years ago Alfred Publications brought out a new book. It is called “26 Italian Songs and Arias”. What is in that one? The SAME EXACT SONGS, except for two additional songs, almost as hackneyed. Worse, they redid very nice accompaniments from the first book, and now they sound boring and Spartan. I really don’t hear the versions from that book much. I have to mention that the song “Alma del core” has been cleverly transposed one half step to A flat. Alma is too high even for many sopranos in the key of A.
Every time I go to a recital of young singers some of the teachers assign their students nothing but songs from 24 Italian Songs and Arias. Basta! Basta! Where can one find fresh material? (I use this word “fresh” because pieces written in the 17th and 18th Centuries are not very new.)
I am here to assist all teachers and students with excellent recommendations and substitutions for the songs in that book. I can guarantee that if you send your students to recitals and competition the judges or teachers listening will sit up and notice. They will take notes and wonder where you got that great song!
The other day I asked one of my students who is also a voice teacher if she knew about the G. Shirmer editions called “Anthology of Italian Song of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries”. She said she had not. These two books (Volume 1 and 2) are songs by many of the same composers as in the 24 Songs and Arias book. In fact, all of the 24 appear in these volumes. But there are many, many less known songs by Scarlatti, Stradella, Carissimi, Caccini and other early Italian Composers. The arrangements are have lovely accompaniments, and in fact, are really just an extension of the 24 Songs and Arias. These all were edited by Allesandro Parisotti. His original collection of songs was entitled Arie antiche: ad una voce per canto e pianoforte”. These were Italian Songs and Arias in three volumes. Wikipedia erroneously states that they have been reduced to the single-volume 24 Italian Songs and Arias, but in fact, they are now the two volumes from the Anthology of Italian Song.
The key signatures in the Anthology of Italian Song mostly differ from the 24. They are neither Medium High, nor Medium Low, but rather, just Medium. A few of the songs are the same key.
The Anthology of Italian Song also has songs for more experienced and even advanced singers. It is particularly good for Mezzos and Baritones being in a very comfortable range, but Sopranos will be happy with much of the repertoire too.
Another interesting and seldom used publication is called “Old Masters of Belcanto”. I discovered these two volumes when searching for Alma del core in a different key than in the 24. These books are published by Masters Music Publications, Inc, of Boca Raton, Florida. I am guessing they are a reprint from an earlier edition printed in Germany, as the editor is Ludwig Landshoff, and the titles are in German for some reason. The songs and arias are in Italian. These pieces are written by 17th and 18th Century composers like Gluck, Paesiello, Legrenzi, Caldara, Cimarosa, Scarlatti, Bononcini and many others you have heard of and some you may not have heard of such as Leonardo Leo, Bernardo Pasquini and Domenico Mazzocchi, three composers whose names are unfamiliar to me. Some of these pieces are too difficult for beginning singers, but many are appropriate for singers one or two years into study.
Some years ago I discovered some Ricordi collections of very simple arias for young singers. These volumes are called “Grandi Operisti Per Giovani Cantanti” and come in two volumes for soprano, two for tenor, and one volume each for Mezzo, Baritone and Bass. They are wonderful little arias appropriate for even beginning singers. In the Soprano book, for example, Mozart is represented with Barbarina’s aria from Nozze di Figaro, of course, but also with “Una volta che Bastiano” from Bastien und Bastienne. This aria is in both German and Italian. “Marito vorrei” from La finta Semplice by Mozart is in the soprano volume. Other virtually unknown pieces include “Donne vaghe” from Paisielo’s La serva padrona (did you know he wrote one too?) and “Quando si trovano” from Il mondo della luna by Baldassarre Galuppi. (Believe it or not, he comes from the Island of Burano in the Venice lagoon. One summer I was wandering around Burano and came across a square with a statue in it. I went to see who it was, and it was Baldassarre himself. Apparently one of Burano’s most famous people.)
Some Italian songs seem to come and go out of fashion, and at the moment I think the Tosti songs and the Donaudy songs have been heard less often than perhaps 40 years ago. I remember in college when the Tosti songs went out of print, though I think they actually are back in print. These are later Italian songs, nineteenth and early twentieth century, and though many are difficult, quite a number are good for beginning and intermediate singers.
This last series of Italian Songs and Arias is my very favorite. I am almost hesitant to mention them, as they are out of print, and though they may be difficult to find, they are definitely worth looking for them. These volumes are called “Classic Italian Songs for School and Studio in three volumes. They were published by Oliver Ditson Company in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. The three volumes come in Medium High and Medium Low and were “edited” by Mabelle Glenn and Bernard U. Taylor. Though these two claim to be the editors, the arranger of all of these pieces is Pietro Floridia.
Pietro Floridia was born in 1860 in Modica, Italy and died in 1932 in New York City. He was an opera composer and teacher. His operas are not popular or even known now, but his arrangements of arias in these volumes is, in my opinion, brilliant. No, they are not historically accurate transcriptions of period pieces. Some of them sound a bit like Puccini. They were written generally around the same time Parisotti was arranging the 24 Italian Songs and Arias, and many have a Romantic feeling to them. The piano accompaniments are beautiful and very pianistic.
Each volume is progressively more challenging to singers, but there are still appropriate pieces for beginners in all three. “O bellissimi capelli”, “Star Vicino”, “Non vogl’io se non vederti.”. “Tanto sospirero”, “Che vuole inna morarsi”, “Selve voi che le speranza” and “Lungi dal caro bene” all make exceptional pieces for beginning singers.
I do hope teachers will do a bit of research and find some of these books. I am certain that everyone is as tired of the 24 as I am. I think I could sing them all in my sleep. I hope you enjoy discovering these “new” old gems as much as my students and I have.