Singing is a collaborative practice. Aside from the occasional unaccompanied solo song,

everything we do as performers is a collaboration. We work with pianists, conductors,

orchestras, other singers, coaches, teachers, and instrumentalists to produce quality

performances. Unfortunately, in teaching singing, we often neglect opportunities to develop a

collaborative mindset among our students. This omission could be easily remedied with a greater

inclusion of duets in studio teaching. There is a varied and interesting repertoire of duets that

would be appropriate for students of many levels, however, they are rarely if ever practiced and

performed. This is a great loss because duets offer a variety of advantages to both students and

teachers of singing.

For students, duets offer three areas for development beyond those found in traditional

song repertoire. First, duets help students hone their skills at collaboration. While it can be

argued that the accompanist offers students that same opportunity, much of the voice lesson is

focused on the student, not on the ensemble. In addition, there is frequently a skill gap between

the voice student and the accompanist, at least in the early stages of voice training, which makes

a true collaborative relationship of equals difficult if not impossible. A real collaboration with a

pianist is a more difficult and refined skill.

Contrast that difficulty with two students of similar skill levels singing a duet. They

might each have ideas of how a piece should go, but neither can fully execute those ideas without

discussion. This encourages a thoughtful approach to the piece and the text. Dynamics, phrasing,

entrances, style, pronunciation, and character must all be dissected and worked out ahead of

time. Rather than staring at their music books, students singing a duet must be taught to look at

each other, to communicate with the eyes and body what their intentions are, and then react to

the ideas and intentions of their partner. All of these skills are invaluable in larger settings,

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particularly when working with a conductor. How much better would it be to develop and hone

these skills in a relatively safe setting than to be thrown into the refiner’s fire with your first

opera role? Teachers miss out on a great opportunity when they neglect duet repertoire

throughout their regular teaching.

The second thing that students gain from singing a duet is another role model and

exemplar of singing technique. For example, you might have one student who has a natural grasp

of style, while another has excellent diction. By having the two students sing together, they can

each learn from the other’s strength. If students are equally matched in their abilities, a duet in

which both sing at the same time might be appropriate, so that they will be constantly listening

and adjusting to each other. On the other hand, if you pair a more advanced student with a newer

student, you might appropriately pick a duet that is highly imitative, so that the weaker student is

constantly imitating the model of the stronger student. Tremendous growth can be achieved with

very little explicit instruction using these models. Jones discusses this concept when talking

about “mixed-ability” language classes, though the same principles apply here:

In many ways, every class is a mixed-ability class. Even students who have studied together all the time will have varied mastery of the language or remember different things. Some will be better at different skills: reading, writing, listening, or speaking. They bring their own personalities, strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles to the class. We don’t want our better students to be held up by the weaker ones, or the weaker ones to feel intimidated by the better ones. We may need to arrange pairs and groups differently for different kinds of activities, sometimes putting weaker and stronger students in different groups, sometimes mixing weaker and stronger students (in the hope the stronger ones will encourage and help the weaker ones), and sometimes giving students different tasks according to their strengths and weaknesses.1

We should take advantage of our students’ abilities to teach one another. Often lessons

learned from a peer can be much more memorable than lessons from a teacher. Duets also allow

students to meet others who don’t fit into their specific social group. With the extreme social

1 Leo Jones, The Student-Centered Classroom (Cambridge University Press, 2007), 5.

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stratification we often see in high schools and colleges, these opportunities are all too rare.

Students can gain insights from others with whom they might not otherwise associate. “…

educational settings that provide and promote opportunities for movement between close-knit

groups create conditions for more powerful learning.”2 By providing that opportunity, you go

beyond helping students learn to sing. You help them integrate more easily into adult society.

The third way that students benefit from singing duets is a process that Jorgensen calls

“socialization.” It is related to the idea of students teaching each other, but is much broader in its

application. She defines socialization as “…the process whereby a group or institution inculcates

its beliefs, values, and mores in its membership and ensures that its members continue to act in

certain approved ways and hold particular shared beliefs.”3 In other words, socialization through

duet singing allows students to more quickly absorb the values and ideas that are important to

your studio.

An example of socialization can be demonstrated by a performance of Thoman Tallis’

Spem in alium in which I participated in a few years ago. The piece is a motet for forty voices,

divided into eight choirs of five. Our performance took place in the art museum on the IU

campus. The beautiful, resonant space seemed to be the perfect place to enjoy the antiphonal

character of the piece. The eight choirs were distributed around the large, central hall. I was

down on the lowest level of the floor, while some of the other choirs were several stories above.

The concept that the director had in mind was that people would wander around the space

and experience a unique version of the changing sonic landscape. If they wanted to come right

up to the performers and hear mainly what one choir was singing, they could do that. However, if

2 Brian Carolan and Gary Natriello, “Strong Ties, Weak Ties: Relational Dimensions of Learning Settings” (in Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Montreal, Quebec, 2005), 6.

3 Estelle Ruth Jorgensen, In Search of Music Education (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 18.

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they wanted to hear a good mix of all the music together, they could walk to another area of the

room and experience the piece that way. It’s an interesting concept, but the conductor

underestimated the power that socialization has played in shaping our expectations about concert

behavior.

At a normal concert, the audience is expected to sit quietly. Excessive talking during the

playing is discouraged. Food is generally not allowed, or at least frowned on. The audience sits

in a confined area, while the performers work in a separate space. There is no mingling between

the two. The audience claps politely at specific places, which is encouraged, while clapping in

the wrong place will be met with distain and distaste. All of these things are not essential to the

musical performance. Why do we behave this way? A lengthy investigation into this

phenomenon is beyond the scope of this paper, but the simplest answer might be “because

everyone else does.” We’ve been socialized to expect and conform to this behavior, and when

someone unfamiliar with these practices comes to a concert, they either adopt the practices of the

group at large, or they stop going to classical concerts and avoid the group.

During the Tallis performance, there were a few chairs set up for the elderly or those

unable to stand for longer periods of time. Seeing the chairs, the audience naturally assumed that

that area was the “designated” area for audience members and clustered around the chairs.

Seeing so many people uncomfortable standing, the staff put out more chairs for the audience.

This in turn led to even more clustering, more chairs, and the cycle repeating until the audience

was stuffed into a cramped corner of the floor. Not one person wandered around the performers

while we sang. The socialization of expected concert behavior was too strong.

Socialization is such a strong force that we should jump at a chance to use it to our

advantage. In our case, the institution with which we are concerned is our studio. We have

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certain expectations of behavior, specific ways of explaining things, and ideas about how we

want our students to prepare and practice for a lesson. Students will quickly pick up on how

prepared their counterparts are, and how much practice they put in. One lesson during which an

underprepared student shows up to rehearse not knowing the music while a more experienced

partner is ready to go can be a more forceful demonstration of the need for regular practice than

dozens of admonitions from a teacher in private lessons.

Socialization of the students is also a benefit to the teacher. When students have

connections to others in the studio, they tend to value their membership in the group more

highly, thus encouraging them to conform more readily to its standards. Rather than a single

point of connection to the studio (the teacher), students who have sung duets with various other

members of the studio (as well as participated in recitals and master classes) will be more closely

tied to the studio culture and more invested in succeeding in that social group. The students with

these types of connections will be less likely to lose interest and more likely to continue their

study of voice. For a private studio teacher these connections might be the difference between

thriving studio and one where you must constantly work to recruit mediocre students.

Beyond helping recruit and retain students, singing duets has another practical

consideration: it saves time. I don’t know anyone who would turn down an idea that would save

them time and give equivalent or better results, but duets have the potential to do exactly that. By

having students with similar problems work on a duet together, you can address the same

concerns one time. Each student will get the help they need, and the principle will be further

reinforced by seeing the change it brings to a colleague’s voice.

For the remainder of this essay, I will explore some duets that could be profitably used

with students. In the limited space that I have, I can only scratch the surface on the available

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repertoire, but there are quality duets from most major composers readily available in print and

online. Obviously the teacher’s own judgment will be a major factor in decided what pieces to

assign, but I am hopeful that these works will serve as a jumping off point.

Gaetano Donizetti – I Bevitori4

Text

Mesci! Mesci! Pour out! Pour out!Mesci e sperda il vento Pour out and the wind dispersesogni cura, ogni lamento, every care, every complaint,solo il canto del piacere only the song of pleasurerisuonar fra noi s'udrà; resounding among us will be heard;nell'ebbrezza del bicchiere in the intoxication of the glasssta la vera ilarità. Is true hilarity.

Mesci, mesci, Pour out, pour out,Lunga è l'ora degli affanni, Long is the hour of trouble,ha il piacer fugaci i vanni, it is appealing for us to dispel and go,il momento del godere brilla the moment of pleasure shinese rapido sen va, sen va. And quickly goes, it goes.

This duet is a happy drinking song. The composer even subtitles it “brindisi a due voci.”

The text describes how wine will make cares and sorrows disappear: only pleasure will remain.

While the “hour of trouble” is long, we have a moment of respite to enjoy ourselves. It’s only

two stanzas long, the rhyme scheme is simple, and most of the words are easy to say and

remember. While the vocal challenges might be too much for some young singers, the text won’t

offer too many difficulties.

Range

High:

4 Gaetano Donizetti, Nuits D'été à Pausilippe: 6 Ariette a Una Voce, 6 Notturni a Due Voci, Per Canto e Pianoforte. Edited by Riccardo Allorto. Milano: Ricordi, 1987.

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Low:

Music

Fig. 1

The music is light and fun, exactly what you’d expect from a drinking song. The piano

opens with an imitation of the tinkling sound of clinking glasses and wine being poured (Fig. 1),

followed by a strong entrance from the lower voice. This begins the first statement of the theme.

When the higher voice picks up the theme, the lower voice continues to sing in counterpoint.

Much of the duet involves both singers singing in thirds, though there are several sections

where one serves as a rhythmic or harmonic accompaniment to the other. The quick triple meter

is dancelike, though it offers many opportunities for extreme rubato.

Voice Types

Happily, the voice types in this song are not spelled out explicitly, and the ranges, while

not small, are not so large as to restrict the choice of singer over much. Thus, this song could

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work with two women, two men, or one of each (though to my ear it sounds a little odd when

done that way). The song doesn’t even demand a particular vocal weight. All but the lightest

voices would sound just fine in this piece.

Pedagogical Opportunities

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Fig. 2

The initial note, Eb5 (or Eb4 if a male is singing) can sit in the passaggio for some

people, but the first word is “mesci,” which allows the singer to phonate on [m] before the

entrance, as well as reasonably easy vowel to sing (Fig. 2). The higher voice opens on G5 (or

G4) which is above the passaggio for both tenors and sopranos, making their entrance less

problematic than that of the lower voice. In addition, the high voice isn’t called to sing any

particular word, so there is ample opportunity for vowel modification to something that will be

comfortable for the particular singer (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3

There are a few tuning challenges in the piece. After the first sixteen bar phrase, there are

a few chromatic notes that can be unexpected. Similar chromatic challenges occur in

corresponding sections throughout the piece.

This is an excellent piece for shy singers who need to relax and just let their voices go. It

gives ample opportunity to get into character, and is a guaranteed crowd pleaser at a recital. This

song makes you smile, and students will fall in love with it.

Ciro Pinsuti – Sovvenir5

5“Schirmer's Soprano and Tenor Duet Collection,” imslp.org, last modified July 4, 2013, accessed October 19, 2013, http://imslp.org/wiki/Schirmer's_Soprano_and_Tenor_Duet_Collection_(Various).

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Text

Dimmi ricordi tu, Tell me you remember,Com’ io ricordo ognor Like I always rememberI bei di gioventù The beautiful, youthfulGiorni d’amor? Days of Love?

Ed obliarli più And still wanting morePotria volendo il cor, Could the heart forget,I bei di gioventù The beautiful, youthfulGiorni d’amor! Days of love!

Sol questo sovvenir So this memoryLa vita mia nutrì, That fed my life,Fra l’ansie, fra i sospir Amid worries, amid sighsDe tristi dî. Of sad days.

Dunque rammenti ancor So you still rememberQuel tempo dell’ amor? That time of love?Scordarlo non potrò I cannot forget itFinchè vivrò. As long as I live.

Oh questo sovvenir Oh this memorySempre con me starà Will always stay with meNell’ ora del morir Until the hour of deathMeco morà. It will die with me.

This text is a beautiful tribute to a relationship that didn’t work out. The speakers could

be seeing one another for the first time after many years apart, or it could describe their thoughts

constantly returning to the “one that got away.” It could also refer to a summer fling that ended

too soon. The beauty of this text is that it doesn’t wallow in self-pity. Perhaps the view of the

past is overly saccharine, but I find the text to be very attractive. It represents the way that we

really do tend to remember our past relationships, especially when it comes to that one special

person.

The structure of the poem is a bit of an enigma to me because the fourth stanza breaks the

rhyme scheme when it’s written out on the page, however in the context of the song it works just

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fine because you have each singer delivering one of those lines just slightly offset by each other.

The effect creates a stanza that would look more like this:

Dunque rammenti ancor So you still rememberScordarlo non potrò I cannot forget itQuel tempo dell’ amor? That time of love?Finchè vivrò. As long as I live.

Organized this way, you would lose some comprehensibility in a purely written format,

but the rhyme would be preserved. Happily with a musical composition we can have our cake

and eat it too by preserving the rhyme scheme and retaining a clear meaning in each line. I think

students will connect with this text, particularly older students who have had some life

experience. It could be very appropriate for an advanced undergraduate or graduate student.

Range

High:

Low:

Music

This duet is in the same tradition as the great Neapolitan songs. You’ll find yourself

humming it after a single hearing. The piano is rarely featured in the piece, almost exclusively

presenting a canvas on which the voices paint a beautiful melody. Rapid dynamic shifts are

abundantly marked into the music, as well as lengthy tenuto markings on all of the high notes.

There is one place in the music where an alternate, higher version of the melody is written in for

the soprano voice, though several other places seem to beg for the tenor (in particular) to

interpolate some thrilling high notes to bring us to a cadence.

The piece should also have a looseness to the tempo and the singers should feel free to

stretch the lines as they are inspired to do so. There is hardly a single ritardando marking in the

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score, but the several a tempo markings demonstrate how ingrained in the style that sense of

stretching and pulling was and still is today.

Voice Types

This is listed generically as a duet for a soprano and a tenor. While it could probably

work with any number of voices, it probably leans toward a middle weight voice. The age and

experience that seem to be implied in the text would be lost with too light a singer. However, a

heavy voice with insufficient flexibility might have a very hard time with this, even though it

doesn’t have significant coloratura passages. The song demands a passionate performance, so a

lighter voice may lack the appropriate color.

Pedagogical Opportunities

Fig. 4

Several difficulties present themselves for singers. First, both voices have a lot of large,

ascending leaps, even up to an octave (Fig. 4). This could present a challenge for younger

singers, though it also offers an excellent opportunity to get the voice working and then use an

easy portamento up to the high note. Many exercises employ similar techniques to extend the

range, so those skills might serve as a litmus test to determine readiness for this duet.

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Fig. 5

The soprano also has a particular individual challenge. There is a section of several

measures where she is singing in and around the primo passaggio, while the tenor sings in his

middle voice (Fig. 5). Therefore, it’s important that the soprano have reasonable ability to project

and be comfortable moving and singing in that range. Even this challenge can be very useful in

developing the skills to be a good collaborator. The tenor absolutely must listen for the soprano

in these sections or he’ll completely drown her out.

This duet is one of the more advanced ones that I have chosen to include. Because it is

such a fun and attractive piece, it serves as a particularly effective piece for fostering the social

benefits which were discussed earlier.

Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel - Aus meinen Tränen sprießen6

Text

6 Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Duette: Gesamtausgabe In 5 Bänden, Band 2. Edited by Willi Gundlach (Kassel: Furore, 1999), 7.

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Aus meinen Tränen sprießen From my tears Viel blühende Blumen hervor, Many blooming flowers sprout forth,Und meine Seufzer werden And my sighs will beEin Nachtigallenchor. A choir of nightingales.

Und wenn du mich lieb hast, Kindchen, And if you will love me, dear one,Schenk' ich dir die Blumen all', I will give you all the flowers,Und vor deinem Fenster soll klingen And outside your window will soundDas Lied der Nachtigall. The song of the nightingale.

This poem has inspired dozens of settings from major and minor Lied composers. It is

probably most familiar to modern listeners because of Schumann’s inclusion of the poem in his

cycle Dichterliebe. Like much of Heine’s poetry, it is tinged with irony and sadness. A younger

singer might not grasp the nuances of meaning in the text, but that will not necessarily ruin the

piece. The imagery is typically German, with tears, flowers, and nightingales. The nightingale

traditionally represents love, while the flowers that grow from tears imply the beauty of suffering

and pain.

Range

High:

Low:

Music

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Fig. 6

The piano and voices make ample use of a dotted eighth, sixteenth note motive. It occurs

frequently enough to be seen as underpinning the piece (Fig. 6). The motive transforms

throughout the piece. At times it is an insistent, frustrated sound when it is played on a single

repeating note, while in other sections it gives a wonderful grace and beauty to the word

Nachtigall. Tonally, the piece is mostly in Bb minor, though it often moves to the relative major

to emphasize particular lines.

The voices each have interesting character. They start in close harmony, but then diverge

and move quite a bit in contrary motion. There are both parallel and imitative sections, and each

voice has passages where it can shine. Sometimes in duets of this sort, the lower voice mostly

acts as tonal color, while the upper voice really shines. This duet is much more balanced, so that

neither singer will feel slighted.

Voice Types

The voices should be light and effortless. Each part sticks more or less to the middle

register, so many different voices would be able to sing this. The only major restriction for

singers is that they shouldn’t be too weighty. The piece requires a lighter touch.

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Pedagogical Opportunities

The range for the upper voice is only an octave, which makes this ideal for young singers.

In fact, the writing around the passaggio will assist inexperienced vocalists with the difficulties

of navigating that part of the voice. With only one real exception, the upper voice leaps over the

passaggio on ascending lines and then moves down through it in stepwise motion (Fig. 7). It’s

really very friendly to younger voices in that way. The minor tonality might also be something

that attracts light, young sopranos because so many of their songs are in major keys.

Fig. 7

For the lower voice, the range is slightly larger, but you would expect, for instance, a

young mezzo to have more comfort with her chest voice, so the middle c shouldn’t be too much

of a challenge. Here too, the opportunity to work the passaggio presents itself (albeit the primo

passaggio in this case). The lower voice is frequently asked to sing from an F4 or a G4 down to a

D4 in an easy stepwise motion. This would be a terrific piece to work on smoothing out that

transition. Most of the figures are even sung on an [a] vowel, which should help ease that

transition into chest voice (Fig. 8).

Fig. 8

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Brahms – Vor der Tür, Op. 28/2 7

Text

Tritt auf den Riegel von der Tür, Pull back the bolt from the door,Wie gern käm ich herein, how gladly I would come in,Um dich zu küssen. To kiss you."Ich laß dich nicht herein. “I won’t let you in.Schleich immer heim ganz sacht Slink away quietly home Auf deinen Füssen." On your feet.”

Wohl kann ich schleichen sacht Well can I slink awayWie Mondenschein, Like a moonbeam,Steh nur auf, laß mich ein: Only arise, let me in:Das will ich von dir haben. That I will have of thee.O Mägdlein, dein'n Knaben O Maiden, let yourLaß ein! Young man in.

The text is an example of folk poetry. In the same tradition as Vergebliches Ständchen, it

tells a story of a young man trying to get his sweetheart to open the door to him some evening.

The text is unevenly divided with the boy singing the bulk of the words, while the girl only has

three lines.

The characters in the piece are rather flat in a literary sense. Because there is no

progression within the poem, we are left to speculate about what happens after the poem ends.

Does she let him in or not? Looking just at the text, her silence after the initial pronouncement

might be because she was convinced to open up the door, and is now too busy to be talking.

However, in the Brahms setting, the constant repetition of the same refusal by the girl makes the

boy’s case seem less hopeful. An argument could be made either way, and that one decision will

lead a performance of the song in two completely different directions.

Range

High:

7 “4 Duets, Op.28 (Brahms, Johannes),” imslp.org, last modified June 11, 2012, accessed October 19, 2013, http://imslp.org/wiki/4_Duets,_Op.28_(Brahms,_Johannes).

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Low:

Music

Fig. 9

The initial motive for each voice reminds us that it’s night and that something clandestine

is happening. The boy sings, ”Tritt auf, tritt auf” in short staccato notes, as if calling out quickly

and quietly to his lover, hoping no one else will hear. The marked sotto voce strengthens this

mood. After a moment he breaks into a more sustained, expressive line as he describes coming in

to kiss his sweetheart (Fig. 9).

For the girl, her nervousness is apparent in her reply. The piano plays fluttering motive as

she breathlessly tells him to go away, all in a minor tonality (Fig. 10). Her line also gets

progressively more insistent throughout. Even as the voices mingle together, they each retain

their own character and identity. It’s still a duet, but there is less emphasis on the voices singing

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in beautiful harmony and more of a focus on each voice telling its own story through the words

and style. The disconnect between the vocal lines serves to emphasize the disconnect between

the characters.

Fig. 10

Voice Types

For the mezzo, the singer should be able to reasonably pass for a younger person. A

“mother-superior” type voice would be inappropriate, but most younger mezzo-sopranos, just by

virtue of their actual age, should have little trouble with this.

For the lower voice, the range implies that a bass-baritone could sing it, even though the

tessitura is a bit high. If the piece is taken as a stand-alone work, that’s probably true, however

the other thee duets in the opus all have equally high tessituras, and some have a slightly higher

range. Taken in aggregate, that implies that Brahms intended this for a baritone voice, rather than

a true bass or bass-baritone. Vocally I imagine someone who might (currently or in the future)

sing the father in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel doing very well with this duet, as well as the

others in the set.

Pedagogical Opportunities

Because this piece is somewhat character driven, there are a lot of opportunities to help

students with acting and interpretation. As mentioned before, Brahms wrote many musical

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gestures and ideas which help reinforce the characters in the piece. Often simply helping students

to be observant of the markings on the page will go a long way toward helping them act the piece

effectively. It’s much easier for performers to act as if they’re sneaking about on a dark night

when singing sotto voce than when singing a loud forte.

The piece also allows the teacher to put two singers of varying skills in the German

language together. An instructor could, for instance, pair a male singer who is comfortable with

German with a female singer who is not as good in the language, so that she has less text to

memorize. That would allow her to really focus on mastering her lines. On the other hand, if

there is a baritone who needs work on German diction, the teacher might pair him with a mezzo-

soprano who needs to work on some aspect of vocal technique, such as strengthening her middle

voice. Having a few duets with unequal text allotments allows the voice teacher some flexibility

in assigning repertoire and choosing which skills to focus on with each singer.

Saint-Saëns – Pastorale8

Text

Ici les tendres oiseaux Here tender birdsGoûtent cent douceurs secrètes, Taste a hundred secret sweets,Et l'on entend ces côteaux And we hear these hillsRetentir des chansonnettes Sounding little songsQu'ils apprennent aux échos. That they teach to the echos.

Sur ce gazon les ruisseaux, On the grass, the streamsMurmurent leurs amourettes, Murmur their love affairs,Et l'on voit jusqu'aux ormeaux, And we see the elms,Pour embrasser les fleurettes, In order to embrace the small flowers,Pencher leurs jeunes rameaux. Lean their young branches down.

8 Evelyn Lear, compiler, and Thomas Stewart compiler. Romantic Duets. New York: G. Schirmer, 1985, 70.

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As you can see from the title, this is a simple pastoral duet. The singers sing about the

birds and the trees. Everything is happy and at peace in this piece. The text has a whimsical

quality to it with the hills talking to the echoes and the trees embracing the flowers. It also offers

ample opportunity for musical settings. Lines such as “murmurent leurs amourettes” are pleasant

to say or sing, and are onomatopoetic. Most of the sounds in the line are near to [u], which gives

it a soft, intimate quality.

Range

High:

Low:

Music

Matching the text, the music is light and airy. There is only a bar of introduction, just

enough to set a tempo. The voices spend much of the time in close harmony. Vocally, this piece

is not particularly challenging. It moves along nicely, but it doesn’t feel like it’s running away.

Neither voice should really be stretched to the limits of their range, with the possible exception

that some baritones might struggle to project the sustained low C3 (Fig. 11).

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Fig. 11

There are several charming little touches that make this an attractive piece for more

advanced singers as well as intermediate students. The text setting of words like murmurent and

échos (to cite two examples) is fun to sing, and is expressive of the meaning of the words (Fig.

12).

Fig. 12

This is also a good French song for two singers who haven’t performed an extensive

amount of French repertoire. It’s only two stanzas long, which is relatively short compared to

most songs in the popular anthologies. In addition, because both singers sing the same text, any

diction work with one student will apply directly to the other.

Voice Types

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It’s written for baritone and soprano, and the voices should be light and free. As

mentioned before, neither voice should be pushed to the edges of its range. The singers spend the

bulk of their time in middle voice, with occasional forays outward.

Pedagogical Opportunities

Because much of the singing is in the middle voice for the soprano, this duet could be

approached in two different ways: either wait and assign it to her once her middle voice is

secure, or use it as an exercise to focus her attention there. In fact, this song might even be more

appropriate for a high mezzo than a typical soprano.

The lower voice is also a little strange. Similar to the soprano, it spends much of its time

in the middle voice. Without the C3 on the bottom, it would be totally appropriate for a young

tenor. On the other hand, if it didn’t have the F4 on the top, a young bass or bass-baritone would

be able to handle it. Because of the particulars of the range the number of male singers who can

sing this is reduced.

For both singers, this song does present stylistic challenges. It’s easy to over-accent the

high notes, especially when they are approached by a leap. This is a good piece for students to

practice the equalization of syllables in the French language. The piano part, while supportive in

outlining the tonality, is rarely outlining the melody that the singers are singing, so this is

definitely not a duet for a true beginner. While it’s not extremely complex musically, a certain

degree of comfort in singing your own part without doubling is required.

Fauré – Puisqu'ici-bas toute âme 9

Text

9 Gabriel Fauré, Mélodies Et Duos. Volume 1, Premières Mélodies, 1861-1875. Edited by Mimi S Daitz and Jean-Michel Nectoux. (Paris: J. Hamelle & Cie., 2010), 94.

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Puisqu'ici-bas toute âme As here below every soulDonne à quelqu'un Gives to someoneSa musique, sa flamme, Its music, its love,Ou son parfum; Or its perfume;

Puisqu'ici-bas chaque chose As here below every thingDonne toujours Always givesSon épine ou sa rose Its thorn or its roseA ses amours; To its love;

Puisqu'avril donne aux chênes As April gives to the oaksUn bruit charmant; A delightful sound;Que la nuit donne aux peines That night gives our painsL'oubli dormant. The forgetfulness of sleep.

Puisque, lorsqu'elle arrive As when it arrivesS'y reposer, to rest,L'onde amère à la rive The bitter waveDonne un baiser; Gives the shore kiss.

Je te donne, à cette heure, I give you, at this hour,Penché sur toi, Leaning on you,La chose la meilleure. The best thingQue j'ai en moi! I have in me.

Reçois donc ma pensée, So receive my thoughts,Triste d'ailleurs, Sad though they are,Qui, comme une rosée, Which, like dew,T'arrive en pleurs! Come to you in tears.

Reçois mes voeux sans nombre, Receive my vows without number.O mes amours! O my love!Reçois la flamme ou l'ombre Receive flame or shadowDe tous mes jours! Of all my days!

Mes transports pleins d'ivresses, My intoxicated journeys,Pur de soupçons, Free of suspicion,Et toutes les caresses And all the caresses,De mes chansons! Of my songs.Ma muse, que les heures My muse, lulled by the hours,Bercent rêvant dreams in its cradle,Qui, pleurant quand tu pleures, Which, crying when you cry,Pleure souvent! Cries often!

Reçois, mon bien céleste, Receive the good, my heaven,O ma beauté, O my beauty,

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Mon coeur, dont rien ne reste, My heart, of which nothing remains,L'amour ôté! That has not been taken by love.

This text by Victor Hugo includes two additional stanzas, which Fauré chose to omit.

Even without those two stanzas, the sheer amount of text can be intimidating to a younger singer,

particularly because it is in French. It is somewhat mitigated by the fact that neither singer sings

all the words in the duet, so there is less to memorize than first appears. It is also helped by the

fact that the song, while strophic, has only one repetition of the melody, which covers multiple

stanzas. This is really a duet for more experienced singers. Very talented upperclassmen would

do well singing this piece, but it might be best reserved as something for graduate students.

The text is a passionate declaration of love, which is appealing emotionally for the

students to sing. Being French, the approach and aesthetic are somewhat different than a similar

duet in Italian or German would be. The French appreciate a certain reservation and elegance in

their music and poetry. Working on a text like this could help students grasp some of the

nuanced differences between the different languages and musical cultures.

Range

High:

Low:

Music

As with many Fauré songs, the accompaniment consists almost exclusively of running

sixteenth notes. The voice parts sound relatively simple and easy much of the time, but there are

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some unexpected tonality shifts (also very characteristic of Fauré) which will take the

underprepared singer by surprise. This is not a piece that students can just sight-read and fake

their way through.

I mentioned earlier that the piece is strophic, but on the second repetition, the lines that

the upper and lower voices sing are reversed. This structure means that with the exception of

lines sung together, each singer will only have to learn one line of text for each musical phrase.

This simple structural form serves the singer well in trying to memorize a piece with as many

words as this. Another obvious option would be to simply perform the piece with music.

Voice Types

This is one of the more versatile duets that I have discussed. It’s marked as a duet for

either two sopranos or for soprano and tenor. As long as the voices are well matched to each

other, they should be fine. The ranges are not extreme for either singer, and neither line spends a

lot of time in the more difficult areas of the voice.

Pedagogical Opportunities

Beyond the linguistic challenges already discussed, this song offers many opportunities

for developing musicianship and style. The romantic nature of the duet gives students a chance to

practice that sort of passionate acting in the relatively safe space of a studio or master class. The

near-constant arpeggiated sixteenth notes give the piece a sense of flow and can really give the

feel of the French obfuscation of the bar lines. The short lines and the way the text is set almost

forces students to learn how to move the stress to the end of each line.

Tuning is another major challenge in this piece. The tonal shifts can leave the unwary

singer very out of tune (Fig. 13). The fact that it’s a duet can be both a blessing and a curse in

this case. On the one hand, it can be easier to tune correctly when working with another voice.

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On the other hand, having two voices singing in harmony makes it painfully clear when one of

them is out of tune. There is a little more leeway for imperfections when it’s just a single person

and a piano.

Fig. 13

Conclusion

I have offered here a very small sampling of the possible duet repertoire available to the

enterprising teacher. There are hundreds and thousands more works that could be successfully

used to teach any number of vocal techniques and skills. Many of these works are available free

of charge online, as well as in some of the print sources I have mentioned.

Duets are efficient and effective as a teaching tool, and they are fun and engaging to

learn. It is my hope that they will be more widely integrated into the standard teaching model. To

do so will benefit voice teachers, students, and audiences.

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Bibliography

“4 Duets, Op. 28 (Brahms, Johannes).” imslp.org. Last modified June 11, 2012. Accessed

October 19, 2013. http://imslp.org/wiki/4_Duets,_Op.28_(Brahms,_Johannes).

Carolan, B., and G. Natriello. "Strong ties, weak ties: Relational dimensions of learning

settings." In Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association,

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Daitz and Jean-Michel Nectoux. Paris: J. Hamelle & Cie., 2010.

Hensel, Fanny Mendelssohn, Duette: Gesamtausgabe In 5 Bänden. Edited by Willi Gundlach.

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October 19, 2013,

http://imslp.org/wiki/Schirmer's_Soprano_and_Tenor_Duet_Collection_(Various).

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Additional Sources

Berry, Corre. Vocal Chamber Duets: An Annotated Bibliography. [S.l.]: National Association of

Teachers of Singing, 1981.

Brahms, Johannes, C Eschig, and Natalia Macfarren. 3 Duets: Soprano and Alto with Piano

Accompaniment, Op. 20 : [aus Herders Stimmen Der Völker]. [U.S.]: Boosey & Hawkes,

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Brahms, Johannes, 5 [i.e. Fünf] Duette Für Sopran Und Alt Mit Klavierbegleitung, Op. 66.

Hamburg: N. Simrock, 2003.

Cornelius, Peter, and Max Hasse.Mehrstimmige Lieder Und Gesänge: Duette, Männerchöre,

Gemischte Chöre.1. Gesamtausg. Westmead, Farnborough, Hants., England: Gregg

International, 1971.

Fauré, Gabriel, Religious Music: For 1 Or More Voices. New York: E. F. Kalmus, 19.

Massenet, Jules, Songs. For high voice. [United States]: Kalmus, 1998.

Schubert, Franz, and Richard Franko Goldman. Five Little Duets. Bryn Mawr, PA.: Mercury

Music Corporation, 1946.

Stark, Lucien, Brahms's Vocal Duets and Quartets with Piano: A Guide with Full Texts and

Translations. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.