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Updated: June 16, 2025
Just when the precepts were first formulated it is impossible to say. Tosi and Mancini do not mention them. Perhaps they were held by the old masters as a sort of esoteric mystery; this idea is occasionally put forward. At any rate, by the time the traditional precepts were given to the world in published works on the voice, their valuable meaning had been completely lost.
Once the real nature of vocal training is understood, both Tosi and Mancini are seen to describe a well worked out system of Voice Culture.
But of late there had been much unruliness among the younger members of the traghetti, and a growing inability among their officers to cope with increasing difficulties, because of these barcarioli tosi, who lived in open rebellion against this goodly system of law, poaching upon the dearly bought rights of the traghetto gondoliers, yet escaping all taxes.
One question regarding the old method remains to be answered. This has to do with the use of the empirical precepts in practical instruction. So far as the written record goes we have no means of answering this question. Neither Tosi nor Mancini mentions the old precepts in any way. The answer can therefore be only conjectural.
All that can be found by such an investigator in the works of Tosi and Mancini is an outline of an elaborate system of coloratura singing. Much more is seen when the meaning of imitative Voice Culture is understood. Let us consider first the "Observations" of Tosi.
Caccini, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, broke away from the contrapuntal music of the church because it made the words unintelligible. Tosi, who published a vocal method in 1723, a little less than a century and a quarter after Caccini's declaration, still insisted on the importance of clear diction.
"When the teacher observes that the pupil is sufficiently free in delivering the voice, in intonation, and in naming the notes, let him waste no time, but have the pupil vocalize without delay." Regarding the registers, Mancini disagrees with Tosi and names only two. "Voices ordinarily divide themselves into two registers which are called, one of the chest, the other of the head, or falsetto."
His Riflessioni pratiche sul Canto figurato was published in Milan in 1776. Mancini's book has never been translated into English. Reference will therefore be made to the third Italian edition, brought out in Milan, 1777. Tosi and Mancini undoubtedly intended to give complete accounts of the methods of instruction in singing in vogue in their day.
But modern vocal theorists generally believe that the most important materials of instruction were for some reason not mentioned. Three registers are mentioned by Tosi, while Mancini speaks of only two. Both touch on the necessity of equalizing the registers, but give no specific directions for this purpose.
The bancali are 'like asses who carry wine and drink water, for the good of the clouts, in days like these." "I heard them talking to-day, Piero. The barcarioli tosi are worse than Turks; one must pay, to suit their whim, in the middle of the Canal Grande, or one may wait long for the landing!
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