Farinelli's voice

I was reading somewhere that Farinelli started off as a soprano and in his later life was an alto or mezzo. Has anyone else heard this?

chris

I am not sure if his voice deepened but I read that his range widened as he aged and spanned perhaps 3.5 octaves at its best. I'm not sure if a mezzo-soprano or a contralto can have such a wide usable range so I'd guess he remained a soprano throughout his life. Caffarelli on the other hand may have been a mezzo-soprano or even a soprano whose voice later deepened to contralto. Carestini was a soprano but his voice seems to have deepened slightly as he got older.

Perhaps you're mistaking Farinelli for Caffarelli or Carestini?

I am sure I was told Farinelli. But my source could have been wrong.

c.

I knoe that Frarinelli had a range from c'-d''', but it widened at the ground later without loosing the high notes (In the aria Qual guerriero is the Range from g-h" but from other arias i know that hey got to c''' ( but never to d''' cause he always wanted to hav at least some space for his ornaments: most oft the arias didn't evenm reach c''' so that he could show his vistuosity in his Cadences up to his highest notes.). But because of his technique he could not have gotten higher. He was educated with the powerfull voice even in the high range (you have to imagine it like mixing the power of the chest voice with the highness of the head voice). Later Castratos like Manzuoli reached even f''' or even g''', because they exchanged the power in the high range for a lighter style of singing, with that they could sing faster and higher

I don't understand the "tick" notation on the notes. And which note is h''?

What is middle C in that convention?

chris

I already explained this to you in another thread, Chris .

Just kidding . C2 is C, C3 is c, C4 ( middle C ) is c', C5 ( tenor high C ) is c'' and C6 ( soprano high C ) is c'''.

In Europe, B is H and Bb is B. This was most likely originally an error and thanks to it, Bach could write his name in many of his pieces.

I realized that I had this discussion before and I thought I had saved a link to it. I went on wiki and found a good table so now that I have it saved, I won't be asking again!

Lets see if I can the following right... :-) I thought I read that Farinelli could get into tenor range so that would be c (or C3). I do want to comment that I can see the strength of chest voice in head tones. I have been working exclusively in my head voice and I can achieve the same effect now. It is cool as it has a lot of ping and projection!

c.

sorry i alwqays forget that you have another system

I read with interest the above information about Farinelli's voice range. I am aware of one soprano castrato whose voice later changed clearly to alto, and one alto whose voice changed to soprano; however, neither one was Farinelli. In his youth, Farinelli did have a range of approximately 3 /12 octaves, and it actually expanded by a few notes later on. Most impressively was the fact that his voice was even and of high quality throughout his entire range.

I have heard and have read on occasion that the low end of his voice was middle C, yet the foundation note of Riccardo's aria (written for Farinelli) "Ombra fedele anch'io" was two notes lower than C. He may have been able to sing somewhat lower and certainly could sing much higher than he normally did for the reasons stated above as well as the fact that he was not so prone to show off as some castrati were. Mind you, my favorite female soprano Gundula Janowitz sings 4 notes lower than C in one of the Mozart concert arias that I have posted.

Keep in mind that, throughout Europe and throughout the ages, instrumental tunings varies, sometimes as much as one or two notes. We, therefore, can not be clear as to the exact notes of his range and how they compare to today's European and American tunings.

Farinelli never strained his voice and, therefore, was still able to sing up to three hours per day, primarily for himself, even in his retirement in his 70s. Of course, age may have diminished his range somewhat.

the lowest known tuning was french with about 380 Hertz. I don't think that he normally sang in that one. the italian tunings were (that's what I know, sorry if it's wrong) between 415 ( in the chamber in Rome) and about 460 (in the church in Venice). So even if he sang a few notes lower the range still thrills me.

C3 sounds more like it. G3 would not have given him a very strong bottom. Also, I'm pretty sure it's common for boy sopranos to be able to comfortably reach as low as E3 ( which could be strengthened and extended with correct training ) although they are usually not required sink lower than C4.

Does anyone know if Farinelli's singing techniques were ever written down?

chris

I am not aware of Farinelli himself setting to paper any discussion as to his vocal technique; however, much can be discerned from several sources of information about the opera-castrato. To name a few:

Some has been written about his teacher Porpora's training methods and also castrato training methods in general. There are written records describing the vocal sound they attempted to achieve: purity of tone (voci bianche), precise and accurate technique without exaggerated vibrato or scooping to higher notes, longer connected vocal lines with fewer breaks than one hears today along with avoidance of audible breath intake (which also permitted them to employ greater dynamics such as long crescendi or diminuendi), clean trills ("shakes"), and an emphasis upon the most beautiful vocal sound and musical presentation possible, with all other aspects of opera only secondary.

There were differences, of course, between groups such as opera-castrato vs. church singer, and also between opera stars. Caffarelli, for instance, liked to "push the envelope" to excite and astonish the audience, even to the extent that he strained his voice in later years and retired from the stage. In contrast, Farinelli, who could wow audiences in his younger years with his unsurpassed technical agility and unmatched trills, never strained his voice, even concentrating more upon the more emotional "pathetic" arias in his later stage career. He still was able to sing well at age 70, although he rarely did so for others.

In the early and mid-19th century, the quality of vocal instruction deteriorated greatly for various reasons: loss of public and sponsor interest, financial corruption by those persons in charge, warfare from the French, deterioration of the Italian social structure, closure of many conservatories, the gain in popularity of opera buffa, and a more casual approach to singing technique that is still with us today with occasional exceptions like soprano Gundula Janowitz (until 1990) and countertenor Andreas Scholl.

The Society for the Study of Farinelli (English translation) recently has been publishing some results from their investigations of Farinelli; however, they so far have not published in English.

To name some sources:Opinioni de’ cantori antichi, e moderni o sieno osservazioni sopra il canto figurato by Pier Francesco Tosi (castrato; here he gives advice how to sing correctly (the "old school of Farinelli, Bernacchi, Caffarelli and so on"), but he also shows the differnces to "modern" singers like Manzuoli, del Prato, Ceccarelli and so on.
Another "instruction" is by Giovanni Battista Mancini:Pensieri e riflessioni pratiche sopra il canto figurato
he was also a castrato, but at the end ( he lived till 1800).

the general differences between the "old school"
and "modern" school was, that Farinelli and Bernacchi and so on tried to have a full voice with a big sound. They also sang their coloraturas by using thir chest. (In former times, at the beginning of the opera with the "florentina camerata" and so on, the first opera singers were mainly church singers. In the church they had to sing a bit acute so that their tone could be heard clear everywhere in the church) after this "golden period" the singers (and especially the castarti) neglected this basic in order to be able to sing coloraturas even more faster and to be able to reach higher notes (for example in Mozarts opera "Ascanio in alba" there were two castrato parts: Ascanio (Alto) and fauno (soprano), and fauno had to reach E6, two times I think. Later on with Rossini and the last Castarto opera by Meyerbeer, the orchestra, as you know, got bigger and the last two opera castarti (Crescentini and Vellutti) had again to use the chest in order to be heard by the audience. As you see it was always going up and down.

But of course there were also other "Singing schools" beginning at the Renaissance and also until the Baroque. But these are two most important ones.

But also Garcias book should be mentioned: it was the last pur "Bel canto" school. And the Bel canto is the the manner of singing of the castarti.

Thank you for your posting. This information should be very useful to the members. I am looking forward to further, similarly informative postings.