Henry Holbrook Curtis

Henry Holbrook Curtis (born December 15, 1856 in New York City , † May 14, 1920 in Wyoming, New York ) was an American ENT doctor. Among other things, he became known as a long-time voice therapist at the Metropolitan Opera and the inventor of the tonograph .

Life

Henry Holbrook Curtis was the second of seven children of judge William Edmond Curtis and singer Mary Ann Curtis, b. Scovill. After graduating from Yale University with a Bachelor of Philosophy (Ph.B.) degree in 1877 , he attended the medical school of this university and successfully completed his studies after three years. He then went through postgraduate studies in Europe, including at clinics in Vienna and Paris, where he specialized as an ENT doctor.

He married Josephine Annie Emeline Allen on June 19, 1884, the Brooklyn-born daughter of Hugh Allen, who was born on December 24, 1856, and had three children with her, Marjorie (born November 11, 1888), William Edmond (born 4. January 1890; † August 13, 1890) and Henry Holbrook Curtis the Elder. Younger (April 6, 1885 - January 25, 1888). The American writer and Pulitzer Prize winner Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945) is said to have had one of her extramarital affairs with him (the identification is unclear, however, since the lover of her later referred to her only with the pseudonym "Gerald B." has been).

power

Telefunken tonograph

Holbrook Curtis was a specialist in diseases of the pharynx and larynx and became particularly important in voice therapy for singers. In this position he worked for 25 years at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York.

His book publication Voice Building and Tone Placing: Showing a New Method of Relieving Injured Vocal Cords by Tone Exercises ( voice training : was and Tonsetzung presentation of a new method for the relief of affected vocal cords by Tonübungen) a standard work and live up to the 21st century, many new editions.

Building on the findings of Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni about the Chladnian sound figures named after him and the eidophone invented a few years later (1885) by Margaret Watts Hughes , Holbrook Curtis constructed the so-called tonograph as an improvement , with which these sound patterns could be recorded photographically. The apparatus consisted of a metal tube that was bent upwards like a horn and carried a bell at the top on which a membrane was stretched. A fine mixture of salt and emery was applied to this and spread out evenly in the size of a piece of crown. When sounds were sung into the tube, the powdery mixture formed the well-known chladnian figures, which were captured using the latest photographic technology. In a series of tests with various then renowned singers, Holbrook Curtis was able to show that the figures created with identical pitches (i.e. identical vibrations) always produced the same typical figure, but underwent an infinite variety of modifications through individual expression. In a broadcast from the J. Fischer patent office in Vienna in 1897, it was stated: "The images can serve as models for singing exercises which the student who sings in a similarly designed apparatus must strive to achieve by bringing the same tone."

Holbrook Curtis was one of the sharpest opponents of the method of his contemporary Manuel Patricio Rodríguez García , who used a healthy (gentle) vocal cord closure ("coup de glotte"; vocal cords that closed gently immediately after inhalation) as a means to give the singer a perfect tone To have the voice seat begin on each pitch (perfect use). In Holbrook Curtis' opinion, this method is "fatal to the voice" and "a crime". (" The shock, or coup de glotte [sic], is death to the voice; it is born of ignorance, and to teach or allow its continuance is a crime. We have no words strong enough to condemn it " (Voice Building and Tone Placing, 3rd ed. 1909, p. 159)). However, Holbrook Curtis may have mistaken this method for a glottic stroke (in which the vocal cords are initially held tightly together with excessive pressure in the glottis, only to be explosively pushed apart by breath pressure).

He was also critical of the vibrato technique in singing: "the vibrato is popular among the Latin races, while the Anglo-Saxons will not tolerate it [...] no great singer has ever succeeded in securing recognition in the US [...]" who has attempted to secure his effects with a vibrato quality. ” (Vibrato is popular with the Latinos , the Anglo-Saxons don't tolerate it […] no great singer has ever succeeded in gaining recognition in the USA […] who did this Attempted an effect with a vibrato quality).

Publications

• Voice Building and Tone Placing: Showing a New Method of Relieving Injured Vocal Cords by Tone Exercises . New York and London: D. Appleton and Company, first edition 1896, numerous subsequent editions up into the 1920s; OCLC 1443096. Reprint around 1973: Champaign, Ill .: Pro Musica Press (with foreword by Oren L. Brown ); Reprint 2007: Eastbourne: Gardners Books (Paperback: ISBN 978-1-4304-5403-8 , Hardcover: ISBN 978-0-548-15885-2 )
• Thirty years' experience with singers , New York, 1918, OCLC 38561327; 2nd edition in the same year
• Holbrook Curtis' nasal and adenoid rongeur . Cleveland: EM Hessler, 1880 (images; no linguistic content), OCLC 31347039
• The effects on the vocal cords of improper methods of voice production and their remedy . New York, Edgar S. Werner, 1894, OCLC 31092254
• H. Holbrook Curtis (ed.), EP Friedrich (author.): Rhinology laryngology and otology: and their significance in general medicine . London and Philadelphia: WB Saunders & Co., around 1900

literature

• Elizabeth Curtis: Letters and journals: Judge William Edmond, 1755–1838, Judge Holbrook Curtis, 1787–1858, Judge William Edmond Curtis, 1823–1880, William Edmond Curtis, 1855–1923, and Dr. Holbrook Curtis, 1856-1920 . Hartford, CT: The Case, Lockwood & Brainard Co., 1926 and 1931, OCLC 20773283

Web links

• Portrait print by Henry Holbrook Curtis , from the collection of The New York Public Library , Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; Library Division: Humanities and Social Sciences Library / Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs
• Digitized of Voice Building and Tone Placing: Showing a New Method of Relieving Injured Vocal Cords by Tone Exercises (1914 edition)
• Obituary in the New York Times , May 15, 1920

Individual evidence

1. ^ Sources: Mary Ann (Scovill) Curtis. An Appreciation by her Daughter, Elizabeth Curtis , Descendants of John Hall , 47.
2. ↑ Source: R. Bain, Joseph M. Flora, Jr. Louis D. Rubin (eds.): Southern Writers: A Biographical Dictionary , Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State University Press, p. 181, ISBN 0-8071-0390 -X
3. ↑ An apparatus that transmitted the vibrations of a held tone to an elastic membrane coated with liquid glycerine or Lycopodium powder, so that she could capture Chladnian figures with her voice.
4. ↑ Pictures of this were published in Scientific American , May 29, 1897 issue.
5. ^ Voice Building and Tone Placing (London: D. Appleton & Co., 1909), quoted in Geoffrey Burgess: Vibrato Awareness . In: International Double Reed Society (Ed.): The Double Reed , Vol. 24, No. 4, 2001, p. 127, after Robert Rushmore: The Singing Voice . London: H. Hamilton, 1974, p. 158 ( PDF ( Memento of the original dated November 3, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. )