Jürgen Kesting’s death marks the end of an analytical era

Jürgen Kesting, the critic who transformed vocal appreciation into a rigorous musicological discipline, has died at 85. His definitive study Die Großen Sänger provided the aesthetic vocabulary required to analyze the transition from the distinct national schools of the early 20th century to the homogenized globalism of the present. Kesting evaluated singers not on celebrity, but on their mastery of appoggio (the physiological coordination of breath pressure against the larynx) and their fidelity to the score. His work served as a necessary corrective to the sentimentalism of vocal fandom, insisting that the 'Pope of singers' must first be a master of mechanics. His death removes the last major voice holding the industry to the technical standards of the historical bel canto (the vocal technique emphasizing beauty of tone and technical agility) tradition.