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...on old vinyl. An acquaintance of mine played for me an old, old recording on vinyl. He claims it was the only recording of it's kind made of the last living remnants of an Italian castratto choir. The label was scratched off of the record, however. I must admit that the tonal-quality was quite weird and ethereal - "out of this world". The best modern countertenors of today have not quite ascended to such lofty heights! Does anyone have any information about this early recording?
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Hi-Choir, I think not. Castrati were soloists. The last one was Moreschi, and Boris Goldovsky, whom I knew, when I was young and he was old, had heard him. Said Mr. Goldovsky (who with his mother walked out of Russia to Berlin after the October Revolution): "He sounded like a chicken."
Castration was usually involuntary. The earlier posts about making a decision were pretty off base as far as my long-ago studies indicate.
And let us not pat ourselves on the back too hard. Cassius Clay is a functional vegetable, yet his daughter to great media attention wishes to follow his example. Justify that.
Or even soccer players who die early deaths from years of heading practice. Lyle Azedo and countless American football players, the list goes on. Look around 360 degrees before we put ourselves on a higher moral plane than Roman Emperors.
on THAT team!
...than the ancient romans or anyone else? Obviously not. What fascinates me about the minds of those times is how they simply "gave themselves away." If they really wanted to do something in their own society then they did it more or less openly, and if it was about the castration of boys for music's sake or whatever, it somehow got done openly. In more puritanical societies badness goes on but it is simply more hushed. My opinion is that a certain type of liberty exists in an open society and that this sort of openness will always allow for the ample flourishing of ideas in public - both good and bad ideas. It is part of the monstrously unselfconscious rendering of the self that characterizes men when expressive powers are the least constricted. In the West's most open periods, Mozarts and Beethovens and Handels flourished right along with slavery and castration, but not because they were more hypocritical than us, for example. This enigma is what has drawn my interest in this post toward the castrati. I am fascinated with anything that those societies might have considered a worthwhile pursuit. I do not think that all of these "flourishes" were good. But, looking back it is interesting to compare them to our own more covert manifestations.
r
...I don't mean to downplay the overall tragedy of the matter. Quite the opposite, in fact...
Just about any retired NFL lineman. Many of these guys are virtual cripples by the time they're 50.
I have been glued to it for weeks. Vivica Genaux sings. Very good CD. Of course she is a woman and you can tell but the recording is a 10, the singing is a 10, the music selection is a 10.
Thanks, I do think I'll be grabbing that CD soon. I love a lot of those Harmonia Mundi recordings...
"the unkindest cut of all";-)}
and I was a cathedral chorister, until my voice broke!takes longer if you sing a lot, voice range not in synch. with anything else including one's interests!
;-)}
Here's a link to several CD's on Amazon. The only one I've heard is the Moreschi. "Last Castrato" was recorded shortly after turn of last century. Very poor recording quality, but you get the drift of what he sounded like. Can't say I know which recording your friend has on LP, very possibly the Moreschi.It is a very strange sound that I find very creepy, but then I'm no fan of counter tenors either. I like singers to look somewhat the way they sound. It's odd watching opera that had a Castrati lead. The parts are now sung by women, so you often end up with a woman playing a part where she is romantically pursuing another woman. This often works well in porno films, but not so much so in opera.
I'm certainly glad the practice of mutilating boys ended. The truely tragic part is that sometimes it didn't work, despite being castrated the boys voice didn't hold it's youthful pure quality and the kid was doomed to a freakish life without even getting work as a singer.
Regards
Steve
...yet, I too am glad the barbaric practice of male castration has ended. I am no proponent of the art of castration, and I do think the demand for these things stemmed from an excessively narcissistic devotion to music on the part of some. But I do have an historical interest. Thanks for the info, SR.
Click here for More Info
...although I do appreciate the links (whew!). Obviously, the record that I had listened to must not have been true castrati (probably a choir of boys)? According to the history, only one "tweaked" male made it to the recording studio at the turn of the century, thank God. Anyway, it is a source of speculation to me as to whether the acceptance of the idea of the castration was due in fact more to the liberty or the insolence of those days when such great music was produced?
But think: if you were a peasant boy in the 18th century whose sole asset was your voice, and if you had a choice between a lifetime of secure employment with the possibility of fame and fortune (but no balls) and one of grinding poverty leading to an early death from exhaustion (but keeping your body intact)... wouldn't you be tempted?Having been a Head Chorister, I know that the prospect of keeping my voice and the celebrity that came with it might (in another era) have made me seriously consider the op.
...one can't help but flinch a little. But, it was probably like you say - with 2 desperate parents and 10 hungry siblings staring you down night after night, the feeling of guilt and responsibility must have made ones balls shrivel up anyway. Why not actualize ones inner-feelings?
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