Contributions of Richard Miller to the teaching of bel canto

Abstract

Classical singing is generally perceived as a vocal style that was the result of a centuries-long process in traditional Western music, which reached a higher degree of stylistic development in the late eighteenth century and was formalized in the mid-nineteenth century. This paper argues that classical singing is prone to reconfigure itself -over the course of several years-, based on two main processes: the way it is taught and the way it is recreated/performed. Consequently, the aim of this article is to analyze the contributions that, in the context of the twentieth century, Richard Miller makes to the characterization and teaching of classical
singing, from three main axes: 1) the characterization that the author makes of the formal features of this style of singing in articulation with research in physiology and anatomy, 2) the “dialectal” adaptations of this canon to other socio-cultural contexts and 3) the teaching practice in the implementation of the aesthetic-technical principles of this canon.