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Abstract
Madeleine Marshall Simon (1899-1993), a pianist turned vocal coach, enjoyed wide acclaim as an expert in English diction through her teaching career at The Juilliard School (1935-1986) and particularly after publication of her book, The Singer's Manual of English Diction (first published in 1953). By means of primary source materials, including an early version of her textbook containing her handwritten notes, personal correspondence from her time at Juilliard, and a handwritten phonetic transcription for Lily Pons, this historical investigation explores Marshall's life and career with specific attention to the cultural and professional contexts that informed her work. The argument advanced is that The Singer's Manual of English Diction endured due to Marshall's social and professional connections coupled with her comprehensive knowledge of the subject of diction.
Keywords
Madeleine Marshall, English diction, diction textbook, The Juilliard School of Music
The capacity audience at the Metropolitan Opera's Performance on May 24, 1936, "roared approval" of a new English translation of F. Smetana's The Bartered Bride by Graham Jones. Jones, librettist, replaced Kecal's line "I have a honey with lots of money" with "I know a honey with lots of money, I have a tootsie, sweet tootsie, wootsie." The singers had also been coached to enunciate the new libretto with clarity and intelligibility.1
"Graham Jones" was Madeleine Marshall (1899-1993), a pianist, vocal coach and recently hired diction teacher at the Juilliard School of Music (see figure 1). Marshall chose the pseudonym after staring at a box of crackers. In 1951 she authored one of the most enduring books ever published on English diction.
This historical investigation tells the story of the genesis of Marshall's book, the Singer's Manual of English Diction by examining the historical, cultural and professional factors that contributed to Marshall's career, and two other English diction books, English Diction for Song and Speech by Clara Kathleen Rogers and English Diction for Singers and Speakers by Louis Arthur Russell, both in use when Marshall's book was published. By so doing, this investigation advances the argument that while Marshall's social and professional connections assisted in making the publication of the Singer's Manual of English Diction possible, the textbook has endured due to Marshall's expertise and ability to present a set of guidelines that "[produced]...