Ernst Toch

Von Schönberg bis Rihm

Today, young singers (and not least their teachers too) are increasingly confronted with the task to include contemporary songs in their repertoire. Trained in classical or Romantic works, they now face the challenge to have to learn unfamiliar tone sequences which are bristling with 'uncomfortable' intervals, without any support of the accompanying instrument, and, in addition, even with unexpected rhythms and changes of time. Blessed is he/she who has a sense of perfect pitch, but that alone probably will not save him/her either. This is where the present textbook comes into play, containing a selection of 20 songs of the 20th century, each accompanied by detailed analyses of how to train physical awareness and the sound memory with the help of so-called musical kinesthesia in order to pave the way to melodies and rhythms that seem to be annoying at first glance.