Coup de Glotte - A Historical Debate

A Historical Debate

A very resounding condemnation of the coup de glotte as a singing technique was given by Victor Maurel, in a public lecture at the Lyceum Theatre in July 1892. The debate at that time was strong, and is reported lucidly in several phrases by George Bernard Shaw. The technique was then being advocated by the teacher Charles Lunn (who trained the baritone Frederic Austin) and to an even greater extent by Dr J.W. Bernhardt, in lectures and pamphlets or books on singing method. Shaw noticed the tendency of the technique to produce coarseness in the middle register, and attributed the fault to the Garcia method, and to the teaching of the Royal Academy of Music.

In 1892-93 Shaw and Lunn clashed publicly over the impact of the technique on such singers as Thérèse Tietjens, Mathilde Marchesi, Nellie Melba and Charles Santley. Lunn claimed that the attack on a vowel was impossible without the coup de glotte: Shaw used the example of the organ pipe, or of whistling, to assert the opposite. In the cases of Melba and Santley, at least, the living example left no doubt that this was not an integral part of their vocal method.