Singing
The human voice is a biological given, but can be trained in different ways. For example, singers in historically informed performances may aim at a less loud tone, with less vibrato and different use of dynamics, to match the use of different accompanying instruments. A few of the singers who have contributed to the historically informed performance movement are Emma Kirkby, Max van Egmond, Julianne Baird, Nigel Rogers, and David Thomas.
Modern countertenor singing was pioneered by Alfred Deller, and leading contemporary performers include David Daniels, Derek Lee Ragin, Andreas Scholl, Michael Chance, Drew Minter, Daniel Taylor, Brian Asawa, Philippe Jaroussky.
Compositions intended to be sung by castrati present a problem. The 1994 movie Farinelli: Il Castrato, about an 18th-century castrato, used digital effects to create the voice by mixing the sound of a countertenor with that of a soprano singer.
Read more about this topic: Historically Informed Performance
Famous quotes containing the word singing:
“O you singers solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me,
O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating you
Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,
Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,
Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what
there in the night,
By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon,
The messenger there aroused, the fire, the sweet hell within,
The unknown want, the destiny of me.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“I held a bayonet
that was for the earth of your stomach.
The belly button singing its puzzle.
The intestines winding like the alpine roads.
It was made to enter you
as you have entered me....”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)
“Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Song of Solomon 2:10-13.