The Castrato: Reflections on Natures and Kinds
The Castrato is the first book to explore in depth why innumerable boys were castrated for singing between the mid sixteenth and late nineteenth centuries It shows that although the practice formed the foundation of Western classical singing, it was birthed from an unlikely and historically unique set of desires, public and private, aesthetic, economic, and political In Italy, castration for singing was understood through the lens of Catholic blood sacrifice as expressed in idioms of offering and renunciation and, paradoxically, in satires, verbal abuse, and even the symbolism of the castrato s comic cousin Pulcinella Sacrifice in Italy also encompassed a logics of reproduction, involving teachers, patrons, colleagues, and relatives Yet, what lured audiences and composers from Cavalli and Pergolesi to Handel, Mozart, and Rossini were the extraordinary capacities of castrato voices, a phenomenon ultimately unsettled by Enlightenment morality Although the castrati failed to survive, their musicality and vocality persisted long after their literal demise in traditions that extend to bel canto repertories and beyond. Read The Castrato: Reflections on Natures and Kinds – kino-fada.fr This is the first overview level book on the castrati to come out since Patrick Barbier s French Histoire des Castrats in 1989, which was translated into English in 1997, and that book is kinda a sweeping pop history fun bag of opera anecdotes, so they re not really comparable So, what this is, absolutely, is the first modern academic book about the castrati that is not a biography of a single castrato And that s pretty incredible, and completely testimony to how far musicology has come since This is the first overview level book on the castrati to come out since Patrick Barbier s French Histoire des Castrats in 1989, which was translated into English in 1997, and that book is kinda a sweepin...Impressive amount of research Sadly, I am not strong enough in music to be able to follow her examples of how the castrati probably sounded Lots of b w illustrations.
- 03 February 2019 Martha Feldman
- Hardcover
- 421 pages
- 0520279492
- Martha Feldman
- The Castrato: Reflections on Natures and Kinds