Monday, January 24
Farinelli: Still Pretty Ballsy
Welcome to those who just now catching Trrill from Catchdubs!
How to explain the most recent abscence: our editor has been busy redesigning somebody's web site.
Of course nothing can excuse not posting today, for on this day we celebrate the 300th birthday of Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli (1705-1782). Farinelli was the undisputed operatic god of his time and arguably the greatest singer in the history of music. He was, to some degree, like a rock star; he got paid assloads of money, was sexualized by many of his audience, was accorded critical and public praise, and befriended the most popular personalities of his day, including monarchs.
Did I mention that dude was totally missing his nads and was a soprano? It seems that he had been kicked by a horse as a boy and had to have his testes removed for medical reasons. This was a fairly common story told to mask the truth about many boys during his time. Poor families, often from rural areas had the surgery performed on their son in hopes of bringing him good fortune later in life, through singing.
Farinelli was only one of the famed castrati from the Baroque era, but what extant information we have on his life and career says that he was unrivaled for not only his virtuosic vocal capabilities but for his attention to musicality. Perhaps the most inspired words on Farinelli's singing come from the great teacher of singing, Giambattista Mancini:
The castrati, and Farinelli especially, made fascinating singers because while the lack of testosterone introduction (pubescence) kept the child-size larynx intact, the rest of the body continued to grow. By the time he was a teenager, Farinelli would have still had a small vocal mechanism that would have allowed rapid passages and ornaments at great velocity and trills of perfect accuracy and evenness. This would have been coupled with the lung capacity at least the size of a grown man. This allowed the singer, according to writers from the period, to sing for more than one minute without taking a breath. Today, this is simply unheard of [we won't count Kenny G's Guinness Book record, since he used instrumental circular breathing].
In the modern era, there is little evidence as to exactly how a castrato would have sounded, least of all Farinelli, who sang music so difficult that much of it cannot be performed today without some severe editing. Much has been made of the 1994 Corbiau film Farinelli: il castrato, especially with regard to the timely use of new digital technology to recreate the singer's voice by melding that of a modern soprano and countertenor. The film itself is somewhat exploitative in its storytelling and on a large scale inaccurate about Farinelli's appearance and voice. The soundtrack features the digi-voice in several blockbusters of his repertoire, including works by Handel and by Farinelli's own brother. The composite voice lacks, however, the technical and tonal characteristics that are consistently described in the writings of the day.
Still, there have been several performers who have taken up Farinelli's repertoire in order to revive the furious splendour of the music and re-master the technique necessary to perform it. The result is singing that outdoes the film soundtrack at almost every turn [Pun intended? You decide.]. One early proponent of this literature was Cecilia Bartoli. Already known for her stunning vocal fireworks, she took some of the Farinelli to the concert stage. Here's a live recording of her performing an aria that was added by Riccardo Broschi to Hasse's Artaserse. Listen for the pitch she holds for sixteen seconds (starting at 4:49), allowing it to pulsate in intensity. From all the audience shifting and unrest at the end of it, it's easy to get a sense of 18th century craze over Farinelli's singing:
Of course, even that can't beat what is, for my money, the best Farinelli disc out there. The singing is impeccable; the production is exquisite; the scholastic work is committed. Vivica Genaux's Arias for Farinelli was released in 2002 to great acclaim, including a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Vocal Performance. What a shame it didn't win [damn Renée Fleming]. Every track is a marvel, epecially Broschi's brilliant "Qual guerriero in campo armato" with its machine-gun-fire tremolos, and Giacomelli's "Quell'usignolo", a tune that was an integral part of Farinelli's daily life.
As Farinelli's fees rose, so did the public pressures to appear, perform, and sustain perfection. So, like the equally androgynous White Gloved One, at the height of this glory, the thirty-two year old star decided to retire from public performance to sing for King Philip V of Spain, whose Queen apparently employed Farinelli to sing the same four arias to the King each evening for ten years to relieve his melancholy madness. One of these arias was purported to be the Giacomelli "Quell'usignolo che innamorato" (The nightingale in love). In the aria, Farinelli (and here, Vivica Genaux) duets with and mimics the nightingale-song of a piccolo. It's in this aria that Genaux steps completely over Bartoli. Beginning at 11:41, she too sings for twenty seconds without breathing, but unlike in Bartoli's selection, it is not a single pitch that she sings, but a long, florid passage full of leaps and trills. It doesn't get better than this, folks:
The rest of this week, we'll be taking short looks at the legacy of the castrati, with recordings that range from the silly to the sublime, Porpora to pop. Related links:
Of course nothing can excuse not posting today, for on this day we celebrate the 300th birthday of Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli (1705-1782). Farinelli was the undisputed operatic god of his time and arguably the greatest singer in the history of music. He was, to some degree, like a rock star; he got paid assloads of money, was sexualized by many of his audience, was accorded critical and public praise, and befriended the most popular personalities of his day, including monarchs.
Did I mention that dude was totally missing his nads and was a soprano? It seems that he had been kicked by a horse as a boy and had to have his testes removed for medical reasons. This was a fairly common story told to mask the truth about many boys during his time. Poor families, often from rural areas had the surgery performed on their son in hopes of bringing him good fortune later in life, through singing.
Farinelli was only one of the famed castrati from the Baroque era, but what extant information we have on his life and career says that he was unrivaled for not only his virtuosic vocal capabilities but for his attention to musicality. Perhaps the most inspired words on Farinelli's singing come from the great teacher of singing, Giambattista Mancini:
"His voice was thought a marvel, because it was so perfect, so powerful, so sonorous, and so rich in its extent, both in the high and the low parts of the register, that its equal has never been heard in our times. He was, moreover, endowed with a creative genius which inspired him with embellishments so new and so astonishing that no one was able to imitate them. The art of taking and keeping the breath, so softly and easily that no one could perceive it, began and died with him. The qualities in which he excelled were the evenness of his voice, the art of swelling its sound, the portamento, the union of the registers, a surprising agility, a graceful and pathetic style, and a shake as admirable as it was rare. There was no branch of the art which he did not carry to the highest pitch of perfection… The successes which he obtained in his youth did not prevent him from continuing to study; and this great artist applied himself with so much perseverance that he contrived to change in some measure his style and to acquire another and superior method, when his name was already famous and his fortune brilliant."
The castrati, and Farinelli especially, made fascinating singers because while the lack of testosterone introduction (pubescence) kept the child-size larynx intact, the rest of the body continued to grow. By the time he was a teenager, Farinelli would have still had a small vocal mechanism that would have allowed rapid passages and ornaments at great velocity and trills of perfect accuracy and evenness. This would have been coupled with the lung capacity at least the size of a grown man. This allowed the singer, according to writers from the period, to sing for more than one minute without taking a breath. Today, this is simply unheard of [we won't count Kenny G's Guinness Book record, since he used instrumental circular breathing].
In the modern era, there is little evidence as to exactly how a castrato would have sounded, least of all Farinelli, who sang music so difficult that much of it cannot be performed today without some severe editing. Much has been made of the 1994 Corbiau film Farinelli: il castrato, especially with regard to the timely use of new digital technology to recreate the singer's voice by melding that of a modern soprano and countertenor. The film itself is somewhat exploitative in its storytelling and on a large scale inaccurate about Farinelli's appearance and voice. The soundtrack features the digi-voice in several blockbusters of his repertoire, including works by Handel and by Farinelli's own brother. The composite voice lacks, however, the technical and tonal characteristics that are consistently described in the writings of the day.
Still, there have been several performers who have taken up Farinelli's repertoire in order to revive the furious splendour of the music and re-master the technique necessary to perform it. The result is singing that outdoes the film soundtrack at almost every turn [Pun intended? You decide.]. One early proponent of this literature was Cecilia Bartoli. Already known for her stunning vocal fireworks, she took some of the Farinelli to the concert stage. Here's a live recording of her performing an aria that was added by Riccardo Broschi to Hasse's Artaserse. Listen for the pitch she holds for sixteen seconds (starting at 4:49), allowing it to pulsate in intensity. From all the audience shifting and unrest at the end of it, it's easy to get a sense of 18th century craze over Farinelli's singing:
- Download Cecilia Bartoli - Son qual nave.
MP3 [96 kbps] | 5.6 MB
Of course, even that can't beat what is, for my money, the best Farinelli disc out there. The singing is impeccable; the production is exquisite; the scholastic work is committed. Vivica Genaux's Arias for Farinelli was released in 2002 to great acclaim, including a Grammy nomination for Best Classical Vocal Performance. What a shame it didn't win [damn Renée Fleming]. Every track is a marvel, epecially Broschi's brilliant "Qual guerriero in campo armato" with its machine-gun-fire tremolos, and Giacomelli's "Quell'usignolo", a tune that was an integral part of Farinelli's daily life.
As Farinelli's fees rose, so did the public pressures to appear, perform, and sustain perfection. So, like the equally androgynous White Gloved One, at the height of this glory, the thirty-two year old star decided to retire from public performance to sing for King Philip V of Spain, whose Queen apparently employed Farinelli to sing the same four arias to the King each evening for ten years to relieve his melancholy madness. One of these arias was purported to be the Giacomelli "Quell'usignolo che innamorato" (The nightingale in love). In the aria, Farinelli (and here, Vivica Genaux) duets with and mimics the nightingale-song of a piccolo. It's in this aria that Genaux steps completely over Bartoli. Beginning at 11:41, she too sings for twenty seconds without breathing, but unlike in Bartoli's selection, it is not a single pitch that she sings, but a long, florid passage full of leaps and trills. It doesn't get better than this, folks:
- Download Vivica Genaux - Quell'usignolo [from Merope].
MP3 [192 kbps] | 19.4 MB
Quell' usignolo che innamoratoAs the King's psyche fell further away from his duties, Farinelli became his Private Counsellor, received foreign guests, reorganised the Madrid Opera, and directed music at the royal chapel. What Farinelli had intended to be a short stay in Spain turned out to be over twenty years, at the end of which time he had attained the power, if not the name, of a prime minister. In 1750, he was knighted in the order of Calatrava. Afterward, he retired to Bologna, having amassed a tremendous fortune from his singing career and in the service of Spain.
Se canta solo tra fronda e fronda
Spiega del fato la crudeltà.
S'ode pietoso nel bosco ombroso
Che gli risponde con lieto core
Di ramo in ramo cantando va.
The rest of this week, we'll be taking short looks at the legacy of the castrati, with recordings that range from the silly to the sublime, Porpora to pop. Related links:
- The Last Castrato. My next post on post-Farinelli castrati and the only audio recordings of a castrato, the very last—Alessandro Moreschi.
- All the surviving portraits of Farinelli. Everyone seems to agree on his pronounced but precious overbite.
- A bio page of decent length. Originally published in the early 1900's.
- Radio Netherlands broadcast special on the castrato voice. Unfortunately, no one says the word "roulade."