About 15 years ago, I was listening to a somg by an industrial/neo-folk band that featured an unearthly sample. It was obviously incredibly old, and consisted of an eerie, high-pitched voice singing in latin. Being fascinated by it, I tracked down the source of the sample and discovered it was a 1902 recording of Alessando Moreschi, the last Vatican Castrato.
The Castrati were an ingenious solution for tackling that inconvenient issue arising when promising young choirboys get all pubescent and start getting wobbly, multi-octave voices. Thse days, we'd just put it down to experience and move on, but in 17th-18th century Europe a different approach was used. They were castrated.
Incidentally, if you've just eaten, you might want to skip the next paragraph.
This was achieved through drugging the lad with opium, then putting him in a hot bath until he passed out. Then the testes would be kneaded and crushed by hand until their structure started the break down. Then the spermatic cords would be cut with a knife. Ow. Quite a few of them died as a result, unsurprisingly.
Deprived of testosterone, the Castrati developed in weird ways. They tended to have unusually long arms, barrel chests and heads that looked small in comparison to their bodies. They tended to be tall, but sporting underdeveloped genitals and bouncing boy-boobs. However, some of them had staggering voices. They were able to reach the higher ranges usually accessible to female sopranos, but with much greater power thanks to those barrel chests and big lungs. The most celebrated of all was Farinelli (1705- 1782) a handsome Castrato who was reputed to be the greatest singer of all time.
The practice dragged on for far too long. The Vatican finally banned Castrati from the Papal Choir in 1878, but gave special dispensation to Moreschi allowing him to remain. At the time he was recorded in 1902 and 1904, he was many years past his best, but his voice still sounds like a broadcast from another galaxy. Moreschi died in 1922, and while I remain curious as to what a Castrato in his prime would sound like, I'm relieved that I'll probably never find out.
The Castrati were an ingenious solution for tackling that inconvenient issue arising when promising young choirboys get all pubescent and start getting wobbly, multi-octave voices. Thse days, we'd just put it down to experience and move on, but in 17th-18th century Europe a different approach was used. They were castrated.
Incidentally, if you've just eaten, you might want to skip the next paragraph.
This was achieved through drugging the lad with opium, then putting him in a hot bath until he passed out. Then the testes would be kneaded and crushed by hand until their structure started the break down. Then the spermatic cords would be cut with a knife. Ow. Quite a few of them died as a result, unsurprisingly.
Deprived of testosterone, the Castrati developed in weird ways. They tended to have unusually long arms, barrel chests and heads that looked small in comparison to their bodies. They tended to be tall, but sporting underdeveloped genitals and bouncing boy-boobs. However, some of them had staggering voices. They were able to reach the higher ranges usually accessible to female sopranos, but with much greater power thanks to those barrel chests and big lungs. The most celebrated of all was Farinelli (1705- 1782) a handsome Castrato who was reputed to be the greatest singer of all time.
The practice dragged on for far too long. The Vatican finally banned Castrati from the Papal Choir in 1878, but gave special dispensation to Moreschi allowing him to remain. At the time he was recorded in 1902 and 1904, he was many years past his best, but his voice still sounds like a broadcast from another galaxy. Moreschi died in 1922, and while I remain curious as to what a Castrato in his prime would sound like, I'm relieved that I'll probably never find out.
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