Recordings made by the singers of the beginning of this century disclose some 'specimens' appreciably divergent from the vocal standard of today's musical culture. One recognises the above-mentioned 'firm' or even vibrato-less sounds, but these are disposed in occasional episodes, as dictated by the circumstances of actual performance. If the voice is without vibrato for reasons connected with expressive needs or the pronunciation of the text (one might listen for instance to the Lamentationes Jeremiae as declaimed/sung by Alessandro Moreschi (8), or to the other recordings of the same singer), the sound nonetheless remains soft, and the notes without vibrato are never fixed. Such vocalisation differs from what is usual in operatic singing in our own day, but it is also far distant from the hard voices presented by many northern European performers.

In the 16th century, almost all the music produced took the form of vocal polyphony. Performance 'a cappella' normally took no account of the notes' absolute pitch; the only advice was "avere riguardo a quelli che hanno da cantare, che stiano commodi di tuono, né troppo alto, né troppo basso" ("to have regard for those who are to sing, that they be at ease with the pitch, neither too high, nor too low"). (9) With the passing of the centuries, these suggestions were to remain valid; see for example Scola di Canto Fermo (10) of 1715, or the preface by Raffaelle Casimiri to the 'opera omnia' of Palestrina, as cited in note 15 below. The classical typology of roles in polyphony assigned the 'bassus' part to a bass voice, the 'tenor' to a mid-range male voice, the 'altus' to a high tenor exploiting the resonance of the head voice in a very high tessitura, and finally the 'cantus' to a 'puer' or a falsettist. Polyphonic compositions are often to be encountered which seem to lie very high in relation to such a disposition of voices. But the melodic ranges in these cases are not to be taken to correspond to the actual pitches in performance; the fact is that where the so-called 'chiavette' or 'chiavi trasportate' ('transposed clefs') were present, the vocal performance (11) was customarily a fourth or a fifth lower (12).

The singers did not always confine themselves strictly to the vocal roles assigned to them:

Or dico dunque, che queste voci nascono dalla propria materia della canna; et intendo per la canna tutte le parti sopradette, che concorrono a far la voce, si che, se quella sarà molle, farà la voce flessibile, pieghevole, e variabile. Ma se per sorte sarà dura, farà la voce riggida, e dura. Percioche essendo duro l'istromento, non puo (come bisognaria) piegarsi; si come essendo molle, aggevolmente piegandosi, puo formare, e fingere ogni sorte di voce. E di qui nasce, che molti sono i quali non ponno altra voce ch'il basso cantare. E molti anchora se ne veggono che non sono, se non ad una delle voci del conserto inchinati, e quella con grandissimo fastidio dell'orecchia, appena cantano. E per il contrario, poi se ne trovano alcuni, ch'il basso, il tenore, et ogni altra voce, con molta facilità cantano; e fiorendo, e diminuendo con la gorga, fanno passaggi, hora nel basso, hora nel mezzo, et ora nell'alto, ad intendere bellissimi.

(I say, then, that these sounds originate from the actual material of the windpipe, that is, of all the parts mentioned above which together produce the voice, in such a way that if that is soft, it will produce a voice that is flexible, pliable and variable. But if it happens to be hard, it will produce a rigid and hard voice. For if the instrument is hard, it cannot bend itself as required; just as, if it is soft, and bends itself readily, it can form and shape every sort of voice. This is why there are many who are unable to sing any voice but the bass. And there are many others who turn out unsuited to any of the voices of the consort save one, and that with a very great irritation of the ear as soon as they sing. There are also some to be found who, by contrast, sing the bass, the tenor, and every other voice with great ease; and making ornaments and diminutions with the throat, they execute passaggios now low down, now in the middle, now high, that are most beautiful to hear.) (13)

In secular music the higher part could be sung by women too (14), but towards the end of the 16th century there appeared on the Italian musical scene the 'castrato' singers of the 'third sex', to whom were entrusted the roles of soprano and contralto (15). The majority of the arias composed in the 17th and 18th centuries - and many of those contained in the present collection - were intended for these singers. An examination of the vocal characteristics of these legendary performers will undoubtedly prove to be of value in determining a correct line of interpretation. 'Castrato' singers could take the place of children and falsettists with excellent results. The 'puer' in particular represented a poor investment, in that the breaking of the voice at puberty cut off irreversibly the career of soprano that had been initiated only a few years previously.

The castrati, as Rodolfo Celletti (16) has written, plied their art with total dedication, "giacché l'altro punto di forza dei castrati fu che l'orchiotomia, precludendo certi rapporti, certi obiettivi dell'uomo normale - uno per tutti: la famiglia - fatalmente li destinava ad assumere, nel mondo dell'opera, una funzione che potremmo quasi definire sacerdotale. Di qui studi ed esercitazioni di particolare rigore che assorbivano praticamente tutta la giornata del neofita" ("given that the other strong point of the castrati was that orchiotomy, by precluding certain relations, certain goals of the normal man - the family, for one thing - made it his settled destiny to assume, in the world of opera, a function that one could almost describe as priestly. Hence the especially rigorous studies and exercises which took up virtually the whole of the neophyte's day"). Bontempi, in Historia Musica (17), writes: (>>>Next) (<<<Previous)