The beauty of belcanto September 15, 2012

Bel canto (Bel-Canto) (Italian, “beautiful singing“) is an Italian opera term.

The earliest use of the term “bel canto” occurred in late 17th-century Italy, when it was applied to a sophisticated model of singing that was evolving there among practitioners of operatic and sacred music. In the mid-19th century, bel canto gained a more specific meaning when it was employed to distinguish what by now had developed into the traditional Italian vocal model from more forceful, less ingratiating styles of singing. These newer styles of singing had arisen as a result of 19th-century operas growing increasingly dramatic, pitting performers against louder and denser orchestral accompaniments in bigger theatres. Nonetheless, “neither musical nor general dictionaries saw fit to attempt [a] definition [of bel canto] until after 1900”. The term remains vague and ambiguous in the 21st century and is often used nostalgically to evoke a lost singing tradition.

• Those who regard the art of singing as anything more than a means to an end, do not comprehend the true purpose of that art, much less can they hope ever to fulfil that purpose. The true purpose of singing is to give utterance to certain hidden depths in our nature which can be adequately expressed in no other way. The voice is the only vehicle perfectly adapted to this purpose; it alone can reveal to us our inmost feelings, because it is our only direct means of expression. If the voice, more than any language, more than any other instrument of expression, can reveal to us our own hidden depths, and convey those depths to other souls of men, it is because voice vibrates directly to the feeling itself, when it fulfils its natural mission. – Clara Kathleen Rogers: The Philosophy Of Singing (1893)

I  am proud to post here the new slideshow with Bellini aria by my sister, Tatiana Samoylova who is a talented Belcanto singer. All images taken by me, music mixed by her talented husband.

Now see for yourself:

Aria of Elvira, I Puritani, Bellini

love,

axinia

When a voice gets tuned by the spirit… December 29, 2011

Enjoy the highlights of one amazing Christmas concert in Vienna last week.

Item Nr. 1 is my sister Tatiana Samylova singing Belcanto aria.

The birthday of an angel: a fascinating life story! November 18, 2010

In this life I am extremely lucky with my close relatives and friends – they all are amazingly beautiful human beings and at some point I can’t keep myself from paying them my tribute (see my earlier posts on my mother, father, husband, best friend).

Today is my beloved sister’s birthday and I would love to use this opportunity to tell you the story of her life.

You may ask me what is so remarkable in the life of a young woman? Has she suffered a lot, got into “stories”, changes 10 husbands, got from poor to rich and then back like in a bad novel? No, no. From the narrative point of view – nothing, there are stories of people who are much more captivating than any novel. It’s not the case here. The fascination of Tatiana’s story for me is in its evidence for a living transformation which is possible through the light of the Spirit.

As a child Tatiana was a rather mediocre girl with no special talents and qualities, sometimes greedy, sometimes even mean. In this photo of her as a child you can see that she was not that open and even somehow mistrustful…Really not an angel.

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Being an ordinary girl, she was not interested in anything special, and not at all in spirituality.

However having a seeker like me in the family, it was  probably logcal for her to get attracted to spiritual seeking and when one day I came and told her: “Tanya, I think I HAVE FOUND IT!” she immediately wanted to join me. That’s the way we came to the fascinating Sahaja Yoga practice 15 years back. We were young and had lots of fun about doing meditation and discovering new opportunities, new sensations, new awareness and gradually the new life dimension.

 By this time she went for musical studies and had rather a boring voice and no evidence for it improvement. All of a sudden Tatiana’s voice opened up and she started singing like never before!After several months of Sahaja mediation practise her voice has dramatically improved. Even her teachers were wondering what happened… And that was just a beginning!