Ive learnt so much just from the video and from reading the comments, wow. His voice is so so beautiful. Such a lovely case of turning something many would deem "imperfect" into an advantage, incredibly admirable.
Thanks, yes that's very true. You can only imagine how difficult it was for historical castrati when there was a real social stigma around them (yet people also couldn't get enough of them on stage). Especially the ones who didn't turn out to be great singers, who didn't even have the star career as some degree of compensation.
@@Quatrapuntal ¿Por qué mentir de esa manera? Si la persona que canta ahí tiene alguna alteración hormonal o endocrinóloga es una cosa, pero el único castrato de la historia cuya voz está registrada es Antonio Moreschi, fuera de él no existe nadie más.
@@Quatrapuntal yes, it is always difficult to capture the full ambience of a live performance, as I know from my own experience of recording bands live on tape. I would love the chance to hear him live.
I think my vocal range is castrato too. I'm more comfortable singing female songs like the songs of Whitney. I only use my chest voice and not falsetto.
I see why they did such a practice now, the voice quality is unlike anything else that I've heard before. It's just sad the amount of boys who were castrated annually for this.
Yes and most sad of all all those that had it done that didn't develop great voices, and were stigmatised their whole life without even getting the rewards of money and fame.
There's currently a much higher number of castrated boys and girls than there ever has been in recorded history and its being done under the guise of "gender affirming care"
This is amazing. I was just wondering what they may have sounded like and found your video with this recording. It was great hearing the voice from someone who didn't have a surgery but was naturally this way. Thank you.
There are a few others around, like Samuel Marino, but it's certainly very rare overall for the voice not to break, and rarer still that the person has trained as a singer.
Yes the recording doesn't really put across how powerful and full his voice sounded live, I don't think he is singing any more this was over 20 years ago.
@@Quatrapuntal That's a shame, I don't know anything about opera or classical music, I only know when something moves me and this certainly does. Thank you for sharing it :D
I am not sure if the voice of Chinese singer Zhou Shen can be classified as a castrato, but anyone who is interested can listen to him performing "Time to Say Goodbye". His voice is really angelic-like and if Farinelli sounded like that (or even better) I have no trouble understanding why people were so crazy about him.
Interesting I hadn't heard him before. I found an interview with him speaking, he has a naturally high voice but not unbroken. When he sings he is using more of his chest voice which we think many castrato singers did. There are a few, but not many, singers who sing in the alto range without using much falsetto - Russell Oberlin is one example. Michael Jackson could probably be put into that category as well. Zhou Shen certainly has a nice tone to his voice.
@@Quatrapuntal I am so glad you uploaded this, his voice is beautiful, thank you. Also, I've heard suggestions that Michael Jackson was chemically castrated by his parents. Does that explanation fit with how his voice sounds to you?
@@goldenslumber4047 there is an interesting parallel with MJ, the 18th century castrati were the biggest stars of the time, and obviously MJ was the biggest figure in pop music for many years. He certainly had a voice at a higher pitch than a 'normal' broken voice, but not the child-like sound of an unbroken adult male voice. There are also recordings when you can hear him speaking a bit lower. So I think he had a naturally high tenor voice, and exaggerated that by speaking and singing in the higher part of his register. A classical soprano voice is also quite a bit higher in pitch than he sang.
@@Quatrapuntal Thank you so much. That sounds much more likely, the lore around MJ spins into fantasy and it's nice to have an expert debunk it. I'm obsessed with your channel btw.
Thank you for this wonderful recording! I hope Mr. Santos reappears and makes more recordings. Also, I'm glad to read that he isn't technically a castrato but instead has the physiological condition you mention in your introduction. [BTW, as you may know, the polite term for a castrato during the 18th century was "musico."]
I think that's pretty unlikely, he must be going on 65 now. There were various terms, mostly not too polite (there are reports of audiences chanting "long live the knife") but then again the boys mostly came from very poor rural backgrounds so had an easier life and far more wealth as singers than they would have otherwise had.
I think it would probably be better to refer to people who have experienced this endocrinological phenomenon as something like unbroken voice male singer rather than castrato because of the connotation. But yes, very interesting recording. He does sound kind of like a Countertenor but even a female singer who is undertrained can kind of sound like that too. I bet he would have been incredible with extensive training, especially with the lower range. When I was in college for voice pretty much all the sopranos came in with no chest voice coordination.
Yes it did sound different to a countertenor heard live, you lose something in the recording. I think people have unrealistic expectations of what the castrato voice sounded like in terms of tone based on hearing Moreschi who had a very particular and slightly odd technique, not to mention the effect of the poor recording quality. I think it's pretty unlikely that Farinelli sounded like that. Of the small number of modern singers with unbroken voices, it is different to a female sound but not so utterly different, it's still in the same range. A couple of male sopranos sound so much like female singers that you would struggle to tell if you didn't know.
@@Quatrapuntal absolutely, I totally agree. I don't really care for those recordings of Moreschi. They're cool but I don't think they're a good representation of the true castrato sound. The way he carried his chest voice up in that kind of "crying" sound like an Italian pop singer or something was a bit odd. I've heard the recordings of actual male sopranos like Radu Marian and it's definitely a different sound. Very similar to a female like you said. For the sake of comparison to this video here I just meant that undertrained female singers, especially lower voiced ones, can sound similar to countertenors sometimes.
Good Comment...... However he is not doing what you said ..... He is doing what someone does when they sing fake Bass only the focus is at the back of his mouth....... I CAN SING UNBROKEN OPERA VOICE ,,,, AND IT DOES SOUND LIKE THE CASTRATO RECORDING .. ONLY SMOOTHER AND NOT AS TINY..
Endocrinological? You mean castrated? castrato kă-strä′tō, kə- noun A male singer castrated before puberty so as to retain a soprano or alto voice. A male person emasculated during childhood for the purpose of preventing the change of voice which naturally occurs at puberty; an artificial or male soprano. A male person castrated for the purpose of improving his voice for singing; an artificial, or male, soprano. Castrato is not a figure of speech. Read about it. Another psychopathic practice of the “elite”.
@@lodenco691 no I meant endocrinological. I know what a castrato is, it's been something of interest to me since my teens as I'm passionate about baroque opera. By endocrinological what I am referring to is men who for some reason, usually a hormonal issue with the pituitary gland, do not experience the normal male voice change so they retain their natural soprano, mezzo, or contralto voice. It is rare but it does happen. Two notable singers would be Michael Maniaci and Radu Marian. These are not men that just have a very high falsetto register, these are men who's voice did not change because of the aforementioned reason.
Sou da mesma cidade desse que antes,aqui, conheci como César. Era um rapaz franzino,muito delicado e gentil.Sua voz era gigante... Mas aqui como em outros centros “culturais “ do país, o contratenor não é valorizado e muitas vezes desprezado. A última vez que vi o Sr.Cesare,faz mais de vinte anos.Nunca fomos amigos,mas sabia do pontencial vocal dele.
Você é de Recife? Cesare estava definitivamente em Londres 1999-2002. Depois disso, não sei se ele voltou ao Brasil ou ficou mais tempo em Londres. Quando foi que você conheceu esse cara? Estou tentando descobrir se é a mesma pessoa
Wow - a rare gem. I now see what all the fuss and effort was about castrati in the past; I always suspected they must have been very special as it would have taken a huge sacrifice to produce such an incredible sound. I have never been a fan of falsetto singing, preferring the female voice, but this is delightfully different, as described in history as a softer tone than a woman's but with potentially greater power.
I think this is quite far off from what Farinelli sounded like as this singer had quite inappropriate training and that was a big part of the virtuosity of castrati in the 18th century. It's also difficult to get a true idea from a recording, but he did have a very powerful voice and definitely sounded different to a countertenor live.
@@Quatrapuntal yes this singer likely does not compare to the great castrati but his natural voice gives us some idea of their texture as this is one of the few modern examples we have.
In a YT recording of Ave Maria by Moreschi you can hear him singing in both falsetto and in chest voice. Here, Santos' voice sounds mostly like falsetto, even though he may not be singing falsetto.
The Moreschi recordings are problematic for several reasons, and only give a glimpse of the castrato sound. Firstly the aesthetics of the early 20th century were very different than those of the 18th century, secondly he was past his prime which you can hear in the lack of transition between registers, and thirdly the very poor quality and subsequent degradation of the wax cylinder recordings. We don't know for sure whether the great castrati sang mainly in chest voice like that, historical descriptions are mixed and not clear. Santos is singing in his head voice as a female singer does, even Moreschi's head voice is not so different to falsetto sound, one of his pupils Mancini (a falsettist) imitated him so well that everyone though he was a castrato.
@@Quatrapuntal Agreed, the range of technical prowess in the available Moreschi recordings is wide. Perhaps it is his later recordings that show a difficulty in making the transition from Chest to Head (falsetto) singing, and back; still it is some amazing singing.
Do you know if it was just his vocal chords, or did puberty have no effects on the rest of him? I ask because the castrati had no puberty at all which lead to exceptionally large bones, rib cages and lung capacity and a large oral cavity. If he had those features too then he is probably a perfect example of what they sounded like!
It certainly had a lesser effect, he was quite slight with a boyish figure and features. He was going bald though so must have had some effect from testosterone. The historical descriptions are all talking about the very best singers, who as you say developed incredible lung capacity and breath control. A good part of this was also as a result of the very intensive training as well of course. We do know however that there were also lots of castrati who didn't develop great voices, and these men must have had a particularly difficult life with the strong prejudices of the time - they didn't even have the singing career. I think these physiological changes of growing tall etc. weren't always the case, true of the very best singers but not of all. Moreschi for example was fairly short. Perhaps those expectational singers would have been tall anyway and the castration and rigorous training from a young age exaggerated the height and size of rib cage etc.
@@Quatrapuntal Thanks for replying. Medical science does tell us why it is that not going through puberty at all causes the increased height, barrel chest, huge ribs and long limbs, especially arms of not just castrati but any adult who went through no puberty at all. Not all castrati had the magic formula physiological features due to not all getting castrated at the same time in their development, some having started early puberty and some not. It's not clear if a certain degree of puberty was actually beneficial to singing ability, versus no puberty at all, but it's possible that not letting them have any puberty at all might not have made the best singers, because there is a developmental sweet spot in terms of singing anatomy when boys' vocal quality is better than a girl or totally prepubescent boy, but before the voice breaks, a sweet spot that boys' choirs wait for before letting a boy perform. Interesting to ponder but as you say, nowadays we can't find out for sure. What scientists do know is the hormonal chain of events that causes the bones to grow for longer than usual, especially the arms and ribs, leading to a tall, disproportionately long-armed, barrel-chested physique that makes the head look too small for the body. There is a living example of this on TH-cam called Brandon Westfall, who has the complete set of features depicted in paintings and written records of the castrati, in his case due to Kalman's Disease. He has happily since gotten treatment and gone through puberty but you can see and hear him (speaking only, he's not a singer as far I know, else I would imagine he'd have mentioned it) before treatment in a few clips if you search for "The Doctors" "Brandon Westfall" on TH-cam. This subject is endlessly fascinating to me as a hobbiest singer and a biology nerd, I'm incredibly curious to know what the best castrati sounded like, especially when performing their so-far unmatched feats of single-breath stamina and agility. Thanks for sharing a related rarity in the form of your friend's beautiful performance here.
I'm certainly no medical expert but I would have thought that surely castrated or not, some people are short and others are tall due to inherited genetics? I wonder if as you say the 'magic formula' needed for an exceptional castrato voice which is the unusual height and large rib cage developed in those who would have been genetically fairly tall anyway, and the more average voices were of those that were naturally smaller. The castration maybe made them taller than they would have been, but not perhaps enough. Again Moreschi wasn't tall, the average height in southern Italy today is not that tall. For the closest in physiological terms to a castrato today who is a singer, check out Javier Medina. He was chemically castrated at the age of 11 due to botched leukaemia treatment so he basically is a castrato. He unfortunately wasn't trained well so is hardly Farinelli, but he does sound and even look a little like Moreschi - no facial hair, boyish features and hairline, tendency to put on weight that we see in the majority of the last Sistine castrati. You can hear his speaking voice here although there are better clips of him singing elsewhere, including Preghiera that Moreschi also recorded: th-cam.com/video/iVnuYcTFW_U/w-d-xo.html
By the way, in this fascinating photo there are 7 castrati, the most in any existing photo I believe. Notice that only 3 of them could be described as tall (Mustafa is seated but looks like he would be tall). Moreschi and Sebastianelli look rather short, and the final two average: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Castrati_della_cappella_sistina.jpg
I knew a young man in high school with a high voice like that. I never asked him why. It didn't really matter. He was17, a thin guy and already had a mustache, so it wasn't like puberty hadn't set in yet, lol.
@@sr14225 ah shame! It must be difficult for them at that age to be different and accept it, when many want to fit in with the crowd. We all know how nasty teenagers can be to each other sometimes.
I have a friend who's 19~20 and he has a really feminine voice. The first time I heard him talking it surprised me, but now I'm used to it and it doesn't take anything away from his masculinity
Beautiful. The true castrato had a very even sound from top to bottom though. The registers were blended and even the low notes were powerful. Like Moreschi....
Moreschi gives us only clues about the 18th century castrato sound, firstly because the limitations of wax cylinder recording (look up Howard Goodhall's episode on the history of recording, he records something on wax cylinder then with modern microphones to show the difference) and secondly because he is far removed from the technique and aesthetics of the 18th century. Moreschi's sound is far from even, almost like yodelling at times! But yes they would certainly have had a stronger lower register, unfortunately this singer was trained badly so he is trying to sing like a female singer, not so successfully in the lower parts.
Only one other, which we recorded at the same time as this, but there are a couple of mistakes on it which is why I used this one. I did have a live recording of a concert we did on cassette somewhere but I don't even have a cassette player now!
@@Quatrapuntal hmmm. Let me 🤔 think. Maybe on eBay or Amazon they may sell vintage stuff such as cassette players. Also I tried finding this singer on Google but to no avail.
I know he seemed to completely drop off the radar. Shame there are very few recordings and even less videos of him. Have you seen Samuel Marino? He is a soprano with an unbroken voice and a rising star in the baroque world.
Is the singer missing some parts or is he just able to his the high notes? I'm not detecting the resonance that I hear on recordings by Alesandro Moreschi
I don't really know what you mean, but Moreschi is problematic as a reference. The poor quality of the recording equipment changes the tone considerably, and he had a technique very particular to his time, quite different to the great 18th castrati. It is a fascinating glimpse, but probably a long way from the sound of Farinelli.
Well there are the recordings of the last castrato Alessandro Moreschi, but they are problematic for a number of reasons and only really give a glimpse of what the voice sounded like.
@@Quatrapuntal yeah I listened to his recordings but due to the inferior recording technology of the time and the fact that he was past his prime being 40 I believe when those recordings were made and his technique being quite different to that of the castratos of the baroque period it really is truly a small glimpse of what they must’ve sounded like
I don't know Joan Sutherland's voice, but yes he has the same registers etc. as a female mezzo but a different tone, that was more evident hearing him sing live.
The singer sings wonderfully and I enjoyed it very much. I know it is stated that the singer is not singing falsetto in this recording. However, there's a quality in the singing that sounds like falsetto to me. Just my opinion.
He is singing in his head voice, which can sound a bit like falsetto just as some countertenors sound similar to female altos (some obviously don't as individual voices are different). Even on the recordings of the last castrato Moreschi, when he sings the high parts in head voice it's not a million miles from falsetto in sound. One of his pupils, a falsettist, was supposed to be able to imitate Moreschi so well that everyone thought he was a castrato.
Sehr interessante Stimme. Ob der Titel Recht hat kann ich nicht sagen, da die Stimme auch wie ein Countertenor klingt. Ich empfehle sich einmal den österreichischen Kastraten Arno Raunig anzuhören, der (höflich) als Countertenor bezeichnet wird, sich selbst aber einen Kastraten nennt ,was nur er selbst genau wissen kann. Traurig aber wahr.
If the person has a "normal" male broken speaking voice they are a countertenor and singing in falsetto. Arno Raunig speaks with a broken voice so he is a high countertenor/sopranist. The singer on this recording had an unbroken adult voice so spoke like a child, which is the closest modern equivalent to a castrato. Look up Samuel Marino, he also has an unbroken voice it is extremely rare.
@@Quatrapuntal Ich möchte mich sehr herzlich für den Hinweis zu Samuel Marino bedanken. Marino hat auch ein ausgeprägtes schauspielerisches Talent, was nicht jedem Sänger eigen ist. Was halten Sie von Radu Marian als Sänger. In welche Kathegorie würden Sie ihn einordnen? Er ist für mich ein aussergewöhnlicher Sänger, leider mit einer schwachen Bühnenpräsenz , was er natürlich nicht zu verantworten hat. Alles Gute für Sie.
he's more of a falsessist. This kind of thing might happen, for example, when a boy sings as a soprano treble for a long time and also during the mutation and as a result the boy's method of phonation is preserved instead of the new adult one being developed. So for some reason this particular guy had something similar: after the mutation he could not find his new voice. It's still a countertenor voice. As we can hear he has absolutely no voice in the lower register. He is singing with his head register only which proves the point - the adult chest voice phonation is missing. We could call him a castrato if something had happened to him before puberty that prevented him from developing into an adult male - voice only being one of the things that become abnormal.
I lived with him for a year, his voice never broke in puberty he had numerous medical investigations when he was a teenager. His vocal cords didn't develop in the usual way, they think due to a hormone issue. What you are hearing as falsetto is his head voice, just like female singers have a head voice. Infact Moreschi's head voice sounded fairly like falsetto, and falsettists at the time were said to imitate it so well that people couldn't tell they weren't castrati. Unfortunately this singer was trained by people who didn't understand his voice, so he was taught to sing in head voice and he is weak in the lower range because of this.
Someone mentioned him before, I looked up an interview (an easy way to tell is by hearing the speaking voice) and he has a higher voice but not so high to be unbroken. I would guess that his voice deepened a little but not fully at puberty, which would make it easier for him to get the higher notes. I imagine he is mixing the registers to an extent like female singers do.
The algorithm is very mysterious, you can have a high click and watch rate and it's still not recommended. Yet other things get suggested massively which are very similar. I have come to the conclusion that YT decides that if you haven't had a 'big' video by a certain point, then your channel is consigned to low views whatever you put out as it's not going to be suggested. But I may be wrong!
@@Quatrapuntal extremely ironic, considering you need youtube to push you forward to even hope of having a video blow up... Anyway, I wish your channel grows. It's frustrating when you're working hard on content and putting work into it but feeling like you aren't getting more views. Good luck!
Yes absolutely. Having the right platform is essential, no matter how good the content is if nobody sees it it won't go anywhere. As an example, this video of mine ( th-cam.com/video/qVk8VS-Ad2c/w-d-xo.html ) has about 33k views here on YT, it was shared by ClassicFM and got 3.6 million! It's easy for creators to get disheartened, but we have to remember that it's not always that people don't appreciate it, but that they aren't getting to see it in the first place. Also there is an unbelievable amount of stuff on YT now, so you are doing OK if anyone watches it!
When I was twelve (12) in 1948 and in the school choir I could sing like that and the boys next to me looked at me in surprise. I did it by sort of pushing my toung down and backward,
@@Quatrapuntal Shure but what I was getting at was that I managed to sound some thing different to PITCH, like the sound of what of what I hear from the CASTRATA ?
@@QuatrapuntalNot necessarily. My voice changed when I was 12 in 1993. My vocal range had been sliding down for about six months. I was quite a good Alto, for a while with a good broad sound in my chest voice. Once my voice ‘broke’ I became a bass-baritone. It did mean that I had a falsetto though. I essentially had two voices as I had a treble range from F4 up to top A5, as well as a bass voice from Great F2 up to Middle C5 and It sounded quite natural as I had the chest and throat of a young lad, but I had very little dynamic range up there. I could only really sing loudly when singing falsetto and the higher I went the louder I got this meant that the top notes could sound forced. It required a lot more ‘support’ to sing up there. So holding a quiet top G5 would have been impossible. I remember the next year for the School Carol Service in the Cathedral. singing bass for the verses of the carols and then singing the descants for the final verses. I got shocked looks from the smaller boys standing in front. Because all this was new to me, I couldn’t transition smoothly from my ‘true’ voice to my falsetto voice, and there was a gap of notes between the two ranges which I couldn’t reach from either direction. One thing I do regret from those days was not developing my falsetto range as I likely would have kept it. Alas it was gone by the time I was 16. I wasn’t singing regularly in a church choir, and the new sound of my chest voice was just too interesting so I practiced that instead
I'm a natural castrato. My larynx did not drop and I don't have an Adam's apple. I'm 41 years old and my height is 1,80 cm (5'11'') I chose a female gender identity (legally) because of being more accurate socially in these times. So, my name is Vera Arianna. Greetings!!!
Various very rare occurrences, hormone differences, side effects from medical treatment etc. The details of this case are explained on the video description.
He is trying, and not entirely successfully, to blend his head voice in the lower register which is why it sound a bit weak. His training wasn't the best unfortunately, so he had picked up some bad habits. I lived with him for over a year and performed with him many times, his voice is unbroken, all the info is in the video description.
Excellent video and voice but not castrati, even when he does have a beautiful voice and the voice was not fully developed still sound very airy even when is not falsette because sounds still connected, sounds more like a soprano or contratenor, not less talented for this! Has an amazing sounds 🥰
People often have unrealistic expectations of the sound of an unbroken male voice from listening to Moreschi with all the issues around those recordings. If you listen to the small number of other modern singers with unbroken voices, with the exception perhaps of Radu Marian, they don't sound so utterly different to female singers, e.g. Michael Maniaci. Also in Moreschi's time, his student Mancini was said to copy him so well that everyone that was used to hearing real castrati all the time though he was one. Mancini was a falsettist, so it's not so simple.
@@Quatrapuntal Can we really say that? How do we regard these modern male singers as unbroken voices? And can you really compare Moreschi to the modern ones? He is quite clearly far from countertenos as clear in his use of chest voice like a female singer. And the commenter is right that castrati voices had color without sounding hairy as we know from historical reports.
Yes exactly, and Moreschi was also singing with a technique very particular to that era, I think it's pretty unlikely Farinelli sounded much like that. Samuel Marino who also has an unbroken voice sounds nothing like Moreschi either.
Ah qui se souvient dans ces jardins des fêtes d'antan ? Vous pensiez que cette mémoire à jamais c'était éteinte...c'était sans compter à la mémoire d'éternité...
All of the information about this singer and his voice is in the video description. I hope you are not basing that statement on Moreschi, who had a very different technique to the 18th century castrati. The descriptions from that time are open to interpretation, there are many references to castrati blending the registers perfectly so there was no obvious change (this was said of Farinelli) also Tosi, himself a castrato, said this should be done in his treatise. So we don't know for sure if they used pure chest voice for the lower notes or blended it as modern female singers do, as the singer in this recording is also trying to do albeit not 100% successfully.
@@Quatrapuntal no I'm referring to my PhD in the reconstruction of historical vocal technique from the Royal College of Music in London. Giovanni BattistaManicini (1714-castrato) even stated clearly that a castrato covering their entire range in chest was a "gift". I found no historical evidence to suggest they sang their low notes in head voice they way they do today. In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite, that they sang higher in chest than sopranos do today. The singer is not in any way reconstructing a historical technique. Instead he seems to be singing in a modern counter tenor way which is absolutely historically inaccurate.
At no point does this video claim to be singing using a reconstruction of 18th century technique, in fact I can't think of any singer who does that. The title is referring to the fact that his voice is unbroken, so he and the handful of others like him are the closest modern equivalent. This singer unfortunately was poorly trained in Brazil where he was something of an oddity, so they just treated him like he was a female mezzo. However, I have not come across any 18th century evidence that categorically proves they used pure chest voice without some blending or mix. If you have I would be interested to see it. For example, Tosi (a castrato) writes " If the chest and head register do not perfectly unite, the Voice will be of divers Registers, and must consequently lose its Beauty". That would surely suggest a mixture of head and chest in the middle. Similar comments were made about other castrati having a seamless transition. As always, words alone are rarely definitive when describing sound, especially considering the differences in taste and aesthetics from 300 years ago. I am not disagreeing with you, I think that it is likely that they did use chest voice more extensively, perhaps this explains the clear difference between a castrato and female voice which was often mentioned. Maybe female sopranos sang more like they do today, but if you hear Samuel Marino or Michael Maniaci it isn't so massively different in sound to a woman. But it's difficult to put things as black and white, history is more complex than that, the same is true of historical instrumental technique.
I have read that the boy was meant to agree to it, but I don't know how true that is and anyway they can't really give meaningful consent to something life changing at that age. It's difficult to say looking back hundreds of years later without putting our 21st century interpretations on it. We will never know what a fully trained castrato sounded like, written descriptions of sound are always inadequate. Many of the boys came from very poor families and if they were good could become very wealthy and a star, a life they would never have had otherwise. I feel sorry for those that had the op but ended up with mediocre voices which also happened, then they get the stigma but none of the rewards.
Did he have a very feminine voice when speaking or did he sound like a kid? I ask because I used to work with a guy who had what can only be described as a woman's voice, it was extremely off-putting, kind of creepy to be honest. I never asked him but I used to think maybe the guy was trans (female to male type of thing) but now I'm thinking maybe his voice never changed, like Mr. Santos?
The sound is not like a woman or a child, but perhaps closer to a boy. This video shows what a castrato speaking voice is like, in an interview with a woman so you can hear the difference. It's in Spanish, but you can hear the tone. The short clip of singing is unfortunate as he can sing a lot better! th-cam.com/video/iVnuYcTFW_U/w-d-xo.html
@@Quatrapuntal Wow, what a fascinating video, thank you so much! After hearing him, I think my ex coworker had a different condition because his voice did not sound like that of a boy, maybe he just had a very feminine voice naturally, who knows!
@@zarius6363 no worries, did you understand the Spanish? I thought maybe with a name like Carlos! I can get bits from speaking Portuguese but it would be interesting to know more about what he is saying.
If you read the video description, it explains that I lived with this singer for over a year and performed with him many times. His voice is unbroken, but this does not mean that his voice sounds totally different to other voices in the same range. The couple of other modern singers with unbroken voices sound different to falsettists, but not completely different. You are also hearing a recording which can't really reproduce the effect of the voice heard live. A good part of what made the 18th century castrati so incredible was their extensive training and technical ability. The actual tone of the voice was different, but probably not so utterly different as people now expect.
If you like him. You may like Vitas and ZhouShen they also have the Micky mouse voices as Chris Colfer singer from Glee series described himself, when he got excited he would sound like Mickey Mouse. Yep, all 3 also never crack their voices during their puberty. 😂
Not true that they have unbroken voices, they are singing using falsetto. You can easily find spoken interviews with those people you mention where you can clearly hear they have a normal broken male speaking voice. An adult male with an unbroken voice (that sounds like a child when speaking) is incredibly rare.
@@jiaunmew878 if you hear the speaking voice you can tell straight away, it is more difficult just listening to singing. If they have a speaking voice at normal male pitch, like the singers you mentioned, then they are using falsetto. Watch an interview with Javier Medina who has an unbroken voice and you will hear the difference immediately.
Yes, all naturally occurring. Contrary to popular belief, many castrati didn't actually have the testicles removed, either the cords cut (like a vasectomy) or caused to wither which has the same hormonal effect.
I think castrati could sing ALL the notes in the score including the low notes. They had a well developed and strong voice including chest voice for the middle and low notes. This is not the case here. You know, composers wrote low notes because singers were able to sing them then and they were as important as any other notes.
I never said that he was the equivalent of Farinelli, unfortunately he had inappropriate training as nobody where he grew up understood his voice or link to historical singing. They tried to train him like a female, using modern technique for power and vibrato etc. rather than the baroque qualities of a lighter and very flexible voice. So by the time that I met him, he was already in his mid-30s (if I remember correctly) and had never really been taught to use the natural characteristics of his voice very well. He tries to extend the head voice lower as female singers do but as you can hear, not so successfully. He and the handful of others with unbroken voices are the closest we have to a castrato (hence the title) now, but nobody is going to undertake such rigorous training from a young age today so it is only a glimpse. People judge the castrato sound very often from Moreschi, that is likely very far from Farinelli and was in an age with very different aesthetics and technique.
Existem termos diferentes, para mim sopranista sugere um contra-tenor agudo que canta em falsete (como Robert Crowe). Isso é raro, mas alguém com uma voz adulta inalterada é extremamente raro - o mais perto que podemos chegar agora da voz castrato. A castração mecânica causa alterações hormonais para que a voz não mude, nestes casos raros o mesmo efeito pode acontecer naturalmente. Ele não é realmente castrado, é claro, mas o efeito hormonal na voz é semelhante, por isso o termo 'castrato natural' ou 'castrato moderno' foi usado.
@@Quatrapuntal Nice story. (True or not). I still stand by my comment on it being 100% falsetto. It’s not just falsetto but one of them comical sounding falsetto’s. Without trying to sound too disrespectful. I’ve known of someone (on tv) who used to speak in their head-voice and thought they had an underdeveloped voice box, then it turned out to be a speaking habit through the voice brake. They also sounded like this when singing. This is coming from someone (that’s me) that does has a child size voice box that didn’t grow. I sing from C3 way into the soprano range C6 and have a very light timber (like Michael Jackson) to my voice. A true falsetto sound (like in this recording) is VERY hard for me to recreate, because my vocal folds are too small. That’s how I can tell falsetto vs true full-voice. So regardless of what you and your friend believe, I have to be honest and stand by my own ear, intuition & experience. Considering I do have a small voice box that didn’t grow and my voice never broke in my teens like it should have. My voice did get lower at the age of around 30‘ish, but I never lost my light timber or my vocal range. Even tilting my head right back now, there’s still no visible Adam’s apple, (larynx) it’s smaller than 90% of ladies. So this is why I believe I’m right on this regardless of the background story in the description. But this is just my opinion, hope you don’t take offence, as none is intended.
@@jazznotes3802 every single internet music “critic” has to turn everything they say into a story about their “super unique and rare” vocal qualities and why they are such good singers lol.
I wish people would read the notes in the description - it's all explained in there. Moreschi is featured in the latter part of the video so clearly I have heard that. He uses a very particular technique of singing in full chest voice as high as he can then a very noticeable switch to head voice. Apparently older castrati lost the ability to blend the registers, he is almost yodeling at times. We don't know whether the great 18th century castrati sang like this, or what seems more likely from descriptions, blended the registers like a modern female singer. This is what the singer on this recording is doing - I lived with him for over a year and heard him speak every day, his voice is unbroken. Look up Samuel Marino, his speaking voice is very similar and clearly unbroken there are videos of him on TH-cam. Does he sound like Moreschi? No, nothing like it. So just like there is quite a bit of difference between female singers, not all unbroken male voices sound the same. The handful of other male singers with unbroken voices all sound quite different to each other. Moreschi is a fascinating and invaluable historical source, but represents a very particular style and technique of the time and therefore not all castrato voices. If you listen to his head voice, it isn't massively different in sound to falsetto, in fact one of his pupils Domenico Mancini was so good at imitating Moreschi that everyone (that was used to hearing real castrati all the time) thought he was a castrato. Mancini was a falsettist with a normal broken voice.
@@Quatrapuntal thank you for your thorough answer and for sharing. That’s fascinating and intriguing! So how did Samuel get castrated? I thought that was a practice now condemned and abolished, to do that to innocent boys
@@Quatrapuntal I just learned of him and heard him speak as well. It’s true he is a soprano. He’s not a castrato even though he sounds like one. He says he’s not castrated, he’s a whole man. His voice is just his gift because it never deepened when he hit puberty.
I think the most important thing to focus on here is the voice, rather than the contents of these men's trousers! Mechanical castration was done for the effects it had on the voice. The point of the castration after all is to deny the body those hormones at puberty, in rare cases such as these this same effect can happen naturally due to hormonal or other anomalies. That is why I used the term 'modern castrato', as clearly nobody is going to castrate children for singing in the 21st century. These rare singers are the closest modern equivalent, their voices have not changed at puberty which is the key point affecting what they, and those mechanically castrated in the past, sound like. There is also the rigorous training the 18th century castrati received which I think also made a big difference, again nobody is going to inflict that on a young singer these days. But I think someone like Samuel Marino is going to be pretty close, or certainly as close as we can get now.
@@Quatrapuntal But you’re implying that castration is the standard for the high pitch voice, which is actually a body modification and barbarism. The end did not justify the means. He’s not a modern day castrato, he’s a soprano man with a naturally gifted voice, he grew a beard which means he’s got testosterone working fine. What didn’t change was the voice and I’ll find out why that happens ins pite of testosterone
Good question, but no. A castrato is created by removing the hormones that lead to puberty before it happens, it was typically done around the age of 9. Someone transitioning from male to female would already have the voice change, and would be given female hormones, so if anything creating a voice more like a woman's. A castrato did not sound like a female voice as they did not have female hormones like an adult woman, just no male ones so creating something unique. Nobody these days is going to allow reassignment surgery on a boy of 9 (thankfully!) and even if they did they would be given female hormones. The closest we can get today is the very rare cases like this singer where the voice did not break naturally because of some hormonal abnormality.
@@Quatrapuntal , where have you been lately??? Kids are now receiving "puberty blockers" at ages 9 or 10 BEFORE puberty so they never develop secondary sex characteristics, followed by cross-sex hormones at about age 11 or 12. The most visible example is "Jazz Jennings" (Jaron Bloshinsky) who has been in the public eye since about age 6 and now, at age 22, still has a reality TV show on TLC. So it's precisely a male never experiencing puberty, exactly like the young castrato. Of course this renders them infertile, hovering between male and female, and somewhat childlike. Jazz is also, unfortunately, obese, anxious, depressed, and confused after "bottom surgery." But Jazz DOES have an amazing singing voice!
@@skeptigal2785 yes but going from male to female they are given female hormones, which makes their voice like a woman not a castrato. Castrati didn’t have female hormones, they just didn’t have male ones so remained neither, a third sex as they were described. I hadn't heard of Jazz, but she has a voice just like a girl because of the female hormones, this is not like a castrato. The nearest thing I know of is Javier Medina, who actually is a castrato by some bodged treatment as a child. There is an interview where you can hear the difference between his speaking voice and that of the woman interviewer, very different.
@@Quatrapuntal , then it's interesting that David Reimer - who was also castrated, puberty blocked, and given female hormones after a botched circumcism - ended up with a deep male voice after he chose to detransition. It doesn't seem just adding testosterone after puberty would change the larynx. I don't think we have all the answers yet.
@@Quatrapuntal Ok sounded like falsetto. But it is not. I take it back. I just learned about this magnificent singer. However, he’s not a castrato, he’s a whole man, he just never developed his voice.
TIf you think he is a castrato then you don’t understand the word. Whether his voice broke or not has nothing to do with being castrato. Due to the physical removal of the testicles castrat were void of testosterone and when singing in chest voice they sounded like female singers with rich and powerful bottom registers. This singer here avoids any chest voice and the lower middle and bottom notes are virtually non existent
Historical castrati didn't always have the testicles removed, anyway what is important (and why it was done) is how that affected the voice, and stopping it from breaking. A modern singer who has a similar voice through a natural anomaly is the closest equivalent we can have now, so hence the term "modern castrato". And your statement "when singing in chest voice they sounded like female singers" is incorrect, historical sources were very clear that the castrato voice was different and did not sound like a female voice at all. This may have been partly because they favoured more use of pure chest voice although this is unclear, Tosi for example who was a singing teacher and himself a castrato said that there should be a seamless transition between chest and head voice, Farinelli was also praised for this. The singer on this recording was unfortunately trained by people who had no clue how to deal with his voice, he is trying to carry his upper voice down and blend it for the low notes as female singers do, but as you can hear not so successfully.
Please point to evidence that proves Castrati were not castrated. Whether this singer went through a voice break or not in adolescence, doesnt change the fact he is now singing in falsetto - like all counter tenors.
Sorry that’s not a real/full voice. That’s FALSETTO. No chest voice. A real castrato would have a “female” chest voice. Sorry to disappoint. Good try!!
Clearly you haven't read the description, I lived with this singer for over a year and heard him speaking every day with an unbroken voice. He is singing in his head voice, as female sopranos do, because he was trained inappropriately as they didn't know what to do with him. 18th century castrati didn't use chest voice across the range, read Tosi who was a castrato.
@@Quatrapuntal my dear friend, you may have lived with a person for 100 years, but that voice is not a full voice. I am a singer in singing teacher and believe me, I can identify a real voice from a falsetto voice. I am sorry you are confused and you have believed, the tale that your friend has told you.
@@alexgomez2 yes of course I will disregard all of my experiences of living and performing with him over several years, and everything that the doctors told him, based on the opinion of a random person on the internet listening to 10 seconds of one recording. I never said he was singing in chest voice, if you read my previous reply I said he is singing in head voice, hence the weakness in the lower range. What is your reference as to what an unbroken adult male voice sounds like anyway? Please don't say Moreschi, although he sang in head voice above about C or D. In fact, one of his pupils who was a falsettist could imitate Moreschi so well that everyone though he was a castrato. And this is people who heard castrati singing all the time in person, not from an ancient gramophone recording.
This i quiet obviously a countertenor.There are beautiful countertenors of course,listen to Russel Oberlin where it is even less obvious that one listens to a counter,and nowadays of course Franco Fagioli.
You say 'quite obviously', but what is your reference of what an unbroken male voice sounds like? His voice was unbroken at a child's pitch, I lived with him for over a year and did many rehearsals and concerts with him so I should know!
Ive learnt so much just from the video and from reading the comments, wow. His voice is so so beautiful.
Such a lovely case of turning something many would deem "imperfect" into an advantage, incredibly admirable.
Thanks, yes that's very true. You can only imagine how difficult it was for historical castrati when there was a real social stigma around them (yet people also couldn't get enough of them on stage). Especially the ones who didn't turn out to be great singers, who didn't even have the star career as some degree of compensation.
You are onto something here which almost nobody will believe but as for "admirable" I tend to differ
Many castrati were highly popular among women since they could "perform" but not cause a woman to get pregnant.
@@Quatrapuntal ¿Por qué mentir de esa manera? Si la persona que canta ahí tiene alguna alteración hormonal o endocrinóloga es una cosa, pero el único castrato de la historia cuya voz está registrada es Antonio Moreschi, fuera de él no existe nadie más.
What an outstanding and amazing voice, certainly the closest to a pure castrati that I've ever heard. Wonderful.
Yes and it sounded more powerful heard live, it's always difficult to capture a performance on a recording precisely.
@@Quatrapuntal yes, it is always difficult to capture the full ambience of a live performance, as I know from my own experience of recording bands live on tape.
I would love the chance to hear him live.
How do you know what a pure castrati sounds like?
@@jalapenobusinesss Search Moreschi and hear his voice. He’s a real castrati
I think my vocal range is castrato too. I'm more comfortable singing female songs like the songs of Whitney. I only use my chest voice and not falsetto.
I see why they did such a practice now, the voice quality is unlike anything else that I've heard before. It's just sad the amount of boys who were castrated annually for this.
Yes and most sad of all all those that had it done that didn't develop great voices, and were stigmatised their whole life without even getting the rewards of money and fame.
There's currently a much higher number of castrated boys and girls than there ever has been in recorded history and its being done under the guise of "gender affirming care"
Thank you for sharing, he has such a beautiful and rich voice.
Yes it's a shame that he didn't do that much with his singing, especially with such a rare voice type
@@Quatrapuntal he had no balls. No motivation
This is amazing. I was just wondering what they may have sounded like and found your video with this recording. It was great hearing the voice from someone who didn't have a surgery but was naturally this way. Thank you.
There are a few others around, like Samuel Marino, but it's certainly very rare overall for the voice not to break, and rarer still that the person has trained as a singer.
@@Quatrapuntal Truly amazing.
Thanks! This is a really interesting recording!
Yes I think so, wish I knew what happened to him
What a lovely voice and music, I would liked to have seen him sing.
Yes the recording doesn't really put across how powerful and full his voice sounded live, I don't think he is singing any more this was over 20 years ago.
@@Quatrapuntal That's a shame, I don't know anything about opera or classical music, I only know when something moves me and this certainly does. Thank you for sharing it :D
I am not sure if the voice of Chinese singer Zhou Shen can be classified as a castrato, but anyone who is interested can listen to him performing "Time to Say Goodbye". His voice is really angelic-like and if Farinelli sounded like that (or even better) I have no trouble understanding why people were so crazy about him.
Interesting I hadn't heard him before. I found an interview with him speaking, he has a naturally high voice but not unbroken. When he sings he is using more of his chest voice which we think many castrato singers did. There are a few, but not many, singers who sing in the alto range without using much falsetto - Russell Oberlin is one example. Michael Jackson could probably be put into that category as well. Zhou Shen certainly has a nice tone to his voice.
It depends. Does he has been castrated ? ._.
@@Quatrapuntal I am so glad you uploaded this, his voice is beautiful, thank you.
Also, I've heard suggestions that Michael Jackson was chemically castrated by his parents. Does that explanation fit with how his voice sounds to you?
@@goldenslumber4047 there is an interesting parallel with MJ, the 18th century castrati were the biggest stars of the time, and obviously MJ was the biggest figure in pop music for many years. He certainly had a voice at a higher pitch than a 'normal' broken voice, but not the child-like sound of an unbroken adult male voice. There are also recordings when you can hear him speaking a bit lower. So I think he had a naturally high tenor voice, and exaggerated that by speaking and singing in the higher part of his register. A classical soprano voice is also quite a bit higher in pitch than he sang.
@@Quatrapuntal Thank you so much. That sounds much more likely, the lore around MJ spins into fantasy and it's nice to have an expert debunk it. I'm obsessed with your channel btw.
What a great video and caption, very informative. Thanks for sharing!!
Thanks, there are some demonstration videos on the channel of different unusual instruments as well
Thank you for this wonderful recording! I hope Mr. Santos reappears and makes more recordings. Also, I'm glad to read that he isn't technically a castrato but instead has the physiological condition you mention in your introduction. [BTW, as you may know, the polite term for a castrato during the 18th century was "musico."]
I think that's pretty unlikely, he must be going on 65 now. There were various terms, mostly not too polite (there are reports of audiences chanting "long live the knife") but then again the boys mostly came from very poor rural backgrounds so had an easier life and far more wealth as singers than they would have otherwise had.
Amazing voice!!!
Gorgeous voice! Just blissful to listen to.
*¡Gran documento! Excelente hallazgo en TH-cam y excelsa interpretación. Thanks for sharing!*
Muchas gracias!
I imagined you were playing the lute! This is wonderful.
@@jennywren8937 thanks yes that's right, many years ago!
Very beautiful aria and wonderful voice, I love this, thanks 💖🙏🏼
Thanks for listening, plenty more unique sounds on the channel!
I think it would probably be better to refer to people who have experienced this endocrinological phenomenon as something like unbroken voice male singer rather than castrato because of the connotation. But yes, very interesting recording. He does sound kind of like a Countertenor but even a female singer who is undertrained can kind of sound like that too. I bet he would have been incredible with extensive training, especially with the lower range. When I was in college for voice pretty much all the sopranos came in with no chest voice coordination.
Yes it did sound different to a countertenor heard live, you lose something in the recording. I think people have unrealistic expectations of what the castrato voice sounded like in terms of tone based on hearing Moreschi who had a very particular and slightly odd technique, not to mention the effect of the poor recording quality. I think it's pretty unlikely that Farinelli sounded like that. Of the small number of modern singers with unbroken voices, it is different to a female sound but not so utterly different, it's still in the same range. A couple of male sopranos sound so much like female singers that you would struggle to tell if you didn't know.
@@Quatrapuntal absolutely, I totally agree. I don't really care for those recordings of Moreschi. They're cool but I don't think they're a good representation of the true castrato sound. The way he carried his chest voice up in that kind of "crying" sound like an Italian pop singer or something was a bit odd. I've heard the recordings of actual male sopranos like Radu Marian and it's definitely a different sound. Very similar to a female like you said. For the sake of comparison to this video here I just meant that undertrained female singers, especially lower voiced ones, can sound similar to countertenors sometimes.
Good Comment......
However he is not doing what you said .....
He is doing what someone does when they sing fake Bass only the focus is at the back of his mouth.......
I CAN SING UNBROKEN OPERA VOICE ,,,, AND IT DOES SOUND LIKE THE CASTRATO RECORDING .. ONLY SMOOTHER AND NOT AS TINY..
Endocrinological? You mean castrated? castrato
kă-strä′tō, kə-
noun
A male singer castrated before puberty so as to retain a soprano or alto voice.
A male person emasculated during childhood for the purpose of preventing the change of voice which naturally occurs at puberty; an artificial or male soprano.
A male person castrated for the purpose of improving his voice for singing; an artificial, or male, soprano.
Castrato is not a figure of speech. Read about it. Another psychopathic practice of the “elite”.
@@lodenco691 no I meant endocrinological. I know what a castrato is, it's been something of interest to me since my teens as I'm passionate about baroque opera. By endocrinological what I am referring to is men who for some reason, usually a hormonal issue with the pituitary gland, do not experience the normal male voice change so they retain their natural soprano, mezzo, or contralto voice. It is rare but it does happen. Two notable singers would be Michael Maniaci and Radu Marian. These are not men that just have a very high falsetto register, these are men who's voice did not change because of the aforementioned reason.
Thanks for the treat!
Glad you enjoyed it
Que relato rico, obrigado por compartilhar conosco 👏👏👏
Verdade! Alguém pensou que ele está em Portugal agora trabalhando num hospital, mas ele não canta mais que pena.
I went through normal puberty, but my voice didn't change until I was about 22. It really sucked. Beautiful aria though - thanks for posting!
Sou da mesma cidade desse que antes,aqui, conheci como César.
Era um rapaz franzino,muito delicado e gentil.Sua voz era gigante...
Mas aqui como em outros centros “culturais “ do país, o contratenor não é valorizado e muitas vezes desprezado.
A última vez que vi o Sr.Cesare,faz mais de vinte anos.Nunca fomos amigos,mas sabia do pontencial vocal dele.
Você é de Recife? Cesare estava definitivamente em Londres 1999-2002. Depois disso, não sei se ele voltou ao Brasil ou ficou mais tempo em Londres. Quando foi que você conheceu esse cara? Estou tentando descobrir se é a mesma pessoa
@@Quatrapuntal vc já procurou ele no facebook?
@@madeleinemachado Sim, não há nenhum vestígio dele que eu pude encontrar na Internet
@@Quatrapuntal Que pena!!... um talento incrível! Obrigada por compartilhar conosco!
Quatrapuntal olá!
Te respondi através do e-mail do seu canal. Espero poder ajudar.
Grâce!
Wow - a rare gem. I now see what all the fuss and effort was about castrati in the past; I always suspected they must have been very special as it would have taken a huge sacrifice to produce such an incredible sound. I have never been a fan of falsetto singing, preferring the female voice, but this is delightfully different, as described in history as a softer tone than a woman's but with potentially greater power.
I think this is quite far off from what Farinelli sounded like as this singer had quite inappropriate training and that was a big part of the virtuosity of castrati in the 18th century. It's also difficult to get a true idea from a recording, but he did have a very powerful voice and definitely sounded different to a countertenor live.
@@Quatrapuntal yes this singer likely does not compare to the great castrati but his natural voice gives us some idea of their texture as this is one of the few modern examples we have.
Brilliant. thank you
In a YT recording of Ave Maria by Moreschi you can hear him singing in both falsetto and in chest voice. Here, Santos' voice sounds mostly like falsetto, even though he may not be singing falsetto.
The Moreschi recordings are problematic for several reasons, and only give a glimpse of the castrato sound. Firstly the aesthetics of the early 20th century were very different than those of the 18th century, secondly he was past his prime which you can hear in the lack of transition between registers, and thirdly the very poor quality and subsequent degradation of the wax cylinder recordings. We don't know for sure whether the great castrati sang mainly in chest voice like that, historical descriptions are mixed and not clear. Santos is singing in his head voice as a female singer does, even Moreschi's head voice is not so different to falsetto sound, one of his pupils Mancini (a falsettist) imitated him so well that everyone though he was a castrato.
@@Quatrapuntal Agreed, the range of technical prowess in the available Moreschi recordings is wide. Perhaps it is his later recordings that show a difficulty in making the transition from Chest to Head (falsetto) singing, and back; still it is some amazing singing.
Do you know if it was just his vocal chords, or did puberty have no effects on the rest of him? I ask because the castrati had no puberty at all which lead to exceptionally large bones, rib cages and lung capacity and a large oral cavity. If he had those features too then he is probably a perfect example of what they sounded like!
It certainly had a lesser effect, he was quite slight with a boyish figure and features. He was going bald though so must have had some effect from testosterone. The historical descriptions are all talking about the very best singers, who as you say developed incredible lung capacity and breath control. A good part of this was also as a result of the very intensive training as well of course. We do know however that there were also lots of castrati who didn't develop great voices, and these men must have had a particularly difficult life with the strong prejudices of the time - they didn't even have the singing career. I think these physiological changes of growing tall etc. weren't always the case, true of the very best singers but not of all. Moreschi for example was fairly short. Perhaps those expectational singers would have been tall anyway and the castration and rigorous training from a young age exaggerated the height and size of rib cage etc.
@@Quatrapuntal Thanks for replying. Medical science does tell us why it is that not going through puberty at all causes the increased height, barrel chest, huge ribs and long limbs, especially arms of not just castrati but any adult who went through no puberty at all. Not all castrati had the magic formula physiological features due to not all getting castrated at the same time in their development, some having started early puberty and some not. It's not clear if a certain degree of puberty was actually beneficial to singing ability, versus no puberty at all, but it's possible that not letting them have any puberty at all might not have made the best singers, because there is a developmental sweet spot in terms of singing anatomy when boys' vocal quality is better than a girl or totally prepubescent boy, but before the voice breaks, a sweet spot that boys' choirs wait for before letting a boy perform. Interesting to ponder but as you say, nowadays we can't find out for sure. What scientists do know is the hormonal chain of events that causes the bones to grow for longer than usual, especially the arms and ribs, leading to a tall, disproportionately long-armed, barrel-chested physique that makes the head look too small for the body. There is a living example of this on TH-cam called Brandon Westfall, who has the complete set of features depicted in paintings and written records of the castrati, in his case due to Kalman's Disease. He has happily since gotten treatment and gone through puberty but you can see and hear him (speaking only, he's not a singer as far I know, else I would imagine he'd have mentioned it) before treatment in a few clips if you search for "The Doctors" "Brandon Westfall" on TH-cam. This subject is endlessly fascinating to me as a hobbiest singer and a biology nerd, I'm incredibly curious to know what the best castrati sounded like, especially when performing their so-far unmatched feats of single-breath stamina and agility. Thanks for sharing a related rarity in the form of your friend's beautiful performance here.
I'm certainly no medical expert but I would have thought that surely castrated or not, some people are short and others are tall due to inherited genetics? I wonder if as you say the 'magic formula' needed for an exceptional castrato voice which is the unusual height and large rib cage developed in those who would have been genetically fairly tall anyway, and the more average voices were of those that were naturally smaller. The castration maybe made them taller than they would have been, but not perhaps enough. Again Moreschi wasn't tall, the average height in southern Italy today is not that tall. For the closest in physiological terms to a castrato today who is a singer, check out Javier Medina. He was chemically castrated at the age of 11 due to botched leukaemia treatment so he basically is a castrato. He unfortunately wasn't trained well so is hardly Farinelli, but he does sound and even look a little like Moreschi - no facial hair, boyish features and hairline, tendency to put on weight that we see in the majority of the last Sistine castrati. You can hear his speaking voice here although there are better clips of him singing elsewhere, including Preghiera that Moreschi also recorded: th-cam.com/video/iVnuYcTFW_U/w-d-xo.html
By the way, in this fascinating photo there are 7 castrati, the most in any existing photo I believe. Notice that only 3 of them could be described as tall (Mustafa is seated but looks like he would be tall). Moreschi and Sebastianelli look rather short, and the final two average: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Castrati_della_cappella_sistina.jpg
Y'all were going back and forth with like, 30000 words every time you replied
I knew a young man in high school with a high voice like that. I never asked him why. It didn't really matter. He was17, a thin guy and already had a mustache, so it wasn't like puberty hadn't set in yet, lol.
It's very rare, but just occasionally this can happen naturally. Did he sing?
@@Quatrapuntal I was jealous because he had a higher singing range than me, lol, but he was mainly an instrumentalist - brass instruments.
@@sr14225 ah shame! It must be difficult for them at that age to be different and accept it, when many want to fit in with the crowd. We all know how nasty teenagers can be to each other sometimes.
Possibly puberphonia and a speech therapist may have been able to help him if he wanted it.
I have a friend who's 19~20 and he has a really feminine voice. The first time I heard him talking it surprised me, but now I'm used to it and it doesn't take anything away from his masculinity
Nice recording！Im so curious about his speaking voice
Look up Samuel Marino, he has a similar condition and his speaking voice is very similar. There are a few videos of him speaking.
@@QuatrapuntalWow! I think Samuel Marino and Bruno de sa’s voice is quite similar to real castrato 😮
@@carryjim1167 yes it's probably the closest we have today, also Javier Medina is a castrato.
Beautiful. The true castrato had a very even sound from top to bottom though. The registers were blended and even the low notes were powerful. Like Moreschi....
Moreschi gives us only clues about the 18th century castrato sound, firstly because the limitations of wax cylinder recording (look up Howard Goodhall's episode on the history of recording, he records something on wax cylinder then with modern microphones to show the difference) and secondly because he is far removed from the technique and aesthetics of the 18th century. Moreschi's sound is far from even, almost like yodelling at times! But yes they would certainly have had a stronger lower register, unfortunately this singer was trained badly so he is trying to sing like a female singer, not so successfully in the lower parts.
Спасибо! Понравилось! Неожиданно!
How interesting. I wonder if anyone can help you find your old friend and singer.
This voice is amazing, do you have anymore recordings?
Only one other, which we recorded at the same time as this, but there are a couple of mistakes on it which is why I used this one. I did have a live recording of a concert we did on cassette somewhere but I don't even have a cassette player now!
@@Quatrapuntal hmmm. Let me 🤔 think. Maybe on eBay or Amazon they may sell vintage stuff such as cassette players. Also I tried finding this singer on Google but to no avail.
Gorgeous
Whatever happened to Radu Marian? Doesn't seem to be anything new from him in years.
I know he seemed to completely drop off the radar. Shame there are very few recordings and even less videos of him. Have you seen Samuel Marino? He is a soprano with an unbroken voice and a rising star in the baroque world.
@@Quatrapuntal Yes, he's wonderful!
Muchas felicidades. Una interpretación muy bien lograda. Bien amalgamados tímbricamente los 3 instrumentos que acompañan.
Muchas gracias
❤️
So different, natural and a lot more powerful than countertenors...
No dire nada..Bueno si.
Bravo
Is the singer missing some parts or is he just able to his the high notes? I'm not detecting the resonance that I hear on recordings by Alesandro Moreschi
I don't really know what you mean, but Moreschi is problematic as a reference. The poor quality of the recording equipment changes the tone considerably, and he had a technique very particular to his time, quite different to the great 18th castrati. It is a fascinating glimpse, but probably a long way from the sound of Farinelli.
Unfortunately, Cesare sounds like a falsetto in this recording, nonetheless. Not all that rich and sweet.
Obviously we'll never really know how the actual castrati sounded but I would assume this is the closest we can ethically get
Well there are the recordings of the last castrato Alessandro Moreschi, but they are problematic for a number of reasons and only really give a glimpse of what the voice sounded like.
@@Quatrapuntal yeah I listened to his recordings but due to the inferior recording technology of the time and the fact that he was past his prime being 40 I believe when those recordings were made and his technique being quite different to that of the castratos of the baroque period it really is truly a small glimpse of what they must’ve sounded like
Javier Medina sounds exactly like him and they also look so much alike. Im very fucking surprised of how much like an angels they sound.
Wow!What an u usual voice. To me he is almost the same as Joan Sutherland , true.y beautifull.
I don't know Joan Sutherland's voice, but yes he has the same registers etc. as a female mezzo but a different tone, that was more evident hearing him sing live.
The singer sings wonderfully and I enjoyed it very much. I know it is stated that the singer is not singing falsetto in this recording. However, there's a quality in the singing that sounds like falsetto to me. Just my opinion.
He is singing in his head voice, which can sound a bit like falsetto just as some countertenors sound similar to female altos (some obviously don't as individual voices are different). Even on the recordings of the last castrato Moreschi, when he sings the high parts in head voice it's not a million miles from falsetto in sound. One of his pupils, a falsettist, was supposed to be able to imitate Moreschi so well that everyone thought he was a castrato.
Does he have more recordings ?
There is one more we recorded in the same session, but there was a mistake in it which is why I went with this Mozart. I don't know of anything else.
Wow.
Sehr interessante Stimme. Ob der Titel Recht hat kann ich nicht sagen, da die Stimme auch wie ein Countertenor klingt.
Ich empfehle sich einmal den österreichischen Kastraten Arno Raunig anzuhören, der (höflich) als Countertenor bezeichnet wird,
sich selbst aber einen Kastraten nennt ,was nur er selbst genau wissen kann. Traurig aber wahr.
If the person has a "normal" male broken speaking voice they are a countertenor and singing in falsetto. Arno Raunig speaks with a broken voice so he is a high countertenor/sopranist. The singer on this recording had an unbroken adult voice so spoke like a child, which is the closest modern equivalent to a castrato. Look up Samuel Marino, he also has an unbroken voice it is extremely rare.
@@Quatrapuntal Ich möchte mich sehr herzlich für den Hinweis zu Samuel Marino bedanken. Marino hat auch ein ausgeprägtes schauspielerisches Talent, was nicht jedem Sänger eigen ist. Was halten Sie von Radu Marian als Sänger. In welche Kathegorie würden Sie ihn einordnen? Er ist für mich ein aussergewöhnlicher Sänger, leider mit einer schwachen Bühnenpräsenz , was er natürlich nicht zu verantworten hat.
Alles Gute für Sie.
The singer would seem to be a natural, or "endocrinological" castrato.
So this person actually got castrated? Or does he just have a hight voice?
he's more of a falsessist. This kind of thing might happen, for example, when a boy sings as a soprano treble for a long time and also during the mutation and as a result the boy's method of phonation is preserved instead of the new adult one being developed. So for some reason this particular guy had something similar: after the mutation he could not find his new voice. It's still a countertenor voice. As we can hear he has absolutely no voice in the lower register. He is singing with his head register only which proves the point - the adult chest voice phonation is missing.
We could call him a castrato if something had happened to him before puberty that prevented him from developing into an adult male - voice only being one of the things that become abnormal.
I lived with him for a year, his voice never broke in puberty he had numerous medical investigations when he was a teenager. His vocal cords didn't develop in the usual way, they think due to a hormone issue. What you are hearing as falsetto is his head voice, just like female singers have a head voice. Infact Moreschi's head voice sounded fairly like falsetto, and falsettists at the time were said to imitate it so well that people couldn't tell they weren't castrati. Unfortunately this singer was trained by people who didn't understand his voice, so he was taught to sing in head voice and he is weak in the lower range because of this.
What do you think of Dimash? Is he singing in falsetto or is he using his chest voice?
Someone mentioned him before, I looked up an interview (an easy way to tell is by hearing the speaking voice) and he has a higher voice but not so high to be unbroken. I would guess that his voice deepened a little but not fully at puberty, which would make it easier for him to get the higher notes. I imagine he is mixing the registers to an extent like female singers do.
Only 500 likes? TH-cam isn't recommending the right channels.
The algorithm is very mysterious, you can have a high click and watch rate and it's still not recommended. Yet other things get suggested massively which are very similar. I have come to the conclusion that YT decides that if you haven't had a 'big' video by a certain point, then your channel is consigned to low views whatever you put out as it's not going to be suggested. But I may be wrong!
@@Quatrapuntal extremely ironic, considering you need youtube to push you forward to even hope of having a video blow up... Anyway, I wish your channel grows. It's frustrating when you're working hard on content and putting work into it but feeling like you aren't getting more views. Good luck!
Yes absolutely. Having the right platform is essential, no matter how good the content is if nobody sees it it won't go anywhere. As an example, this video of mine ( th-cam.com/video/qVk8VS-Ad2c/w-d-xo.html ) has about 33k views here on YT, it was shared by ClassicFM and got 3.6 million! It's easy for creators to get disheartened, but we have to remember that it's not always that people don't appreciate it, but that they aren't getting to see it in the first place. Also there is an unbelievable amount of stuff on YT now, so you are doing OK if anyone watches it!
When I was twelve (12) in 1948 and in the school choir I could sing like that and the boys next to me looked at me in surprise. I did it by sort of pushing my toung down and backward,
Doesn't every boy of 12 sing at this pitch though?
@@Quatrapuntal Shure but what I was getting at was that I managed to sound some thing different to PITCH, like the sound of what of what I hear from the CASTRATA ?
@@QuatrapuntalNot necessarily. My voice changed when I was 12 in 1993. My vocal range had been sliding down for about six months. I was quite a good Alto, for a while with a good broad sound in my chest voice. Once my voice ‘broke’ I became a bass-baritone. It did mean that I had a falsetto though. I essentially had two voices as I had a treble range from F4 up to top A5, as well as a bass voice from Great F2 up to Middle C5 and It sounded quite natural as I had the chest and throat of a young lad, but I had very little dynamic range up there. I could only really sing loudly when singing falsetto and the higher I went the louder I got this meant that the top notes could sound forced. It required a lot more ‘support’ to sing up there. So holding a quiet top G5 would have been impossible.
I remember the next year for the School Carol Service in the Cathedral. singing bass for the verses of the carols and then singing the descants for the final verses. I got shocked looks from the smaller boys standing in front. Because all this was new to me, I couldn’t transition smoothly from my ‘true’ voice to my falsetto voice, and there was a gap of notes between the two ranges which I couldn’t reach from either direction.
One thing I do regret from those days was not developing my falsetto range as I likely would have kept it. Alas it was gone by the time I was 16. I wasn’t singing regularly in a church choir, and the new sound of my chest voice was just too interesting so I practiced that instead
I'm a natural castrato. My larynx did not drop and I don't have an Adam's apple. I'm 41 years old and my height is 1,80 cm (5'11'')
I chose a female gender identity (legally) because of being more accurate socially in these times. So, my name is Vera Arianna.
Greetings!!!
How do they get that voice now? Medicine or castrations?
Various very rare occurrences, hormone differences, side effects from medical treatment etc. The details of this case are explained on the video description.
I’m skeptical since the low range is weak like a counter tenor. More vibrato than usual.
He is trying, and not entirely successfully, to blend his head voice in the lower register which is why it sound a bit weak. His training wasn't the best unfortunately, so he had picked up some bad habits. I lived with him for over a year and performed with him many times, his voice is unbroken, all the info is in the video description.
Excellent video and voice but not castrati, even when he does have a beautiful voice and the voice was not fully developed still sound very airy even when is not falsette because sounds still connected, sounds more like a soprano or contratenor, not less talented for this! Has an amazing sounds 🥰
People often have unrealistic expectations of the sound of an unbroken male voice from listening to Moreschi with all the issues around those recordings. If you listen to the small number of other modern singers with unbroken voices, with the exception perhaps of Radu Marian, they don't sound so utterly different to female singers, e.g. Michael Maniaci. Also in Moreschi's time, his student Mancini was said to copy him so well that everyone that was used to hearing real castrati all the time though he was one. Mancini was a falsettist, so it's not so simple.
@@Quatrapuntal Can we really say that? How do we regard these modern male singers as unbroken voices? And can you really compare Moreschi to the modern ones? He is quite clearly far from countertenos as clear in his use of chest voice like a female singer. And the commenter is right that castrati voices had color without sounding hairy as we know from historical reports.
It sounds like he is singing falsetto
The skepticism is odd. Women singers all sound different from each other - did you expect all castrati to sound like Moreschi?,
Yes exactly, and Moreschi was also singing with a technique very particular to that era, I think it's pretty unlikely Farinelli sounded much like that. Samuel Marino who also has an unbroken voice sounds nothing like Moreschi either.
Ah qui se souvient dans ces jardins des fêtes d'antan ? Vous pensiez que cette mémoire à jamais c'était éteinte...c'était sans compter à la mémoire d'éternité...
can't find a singer by that name
Which name?
Castrati used chest voice not low head voice. This is entirely inaccurate.
All of the information about this singer and his voice is in the video description. I hope you are not basing that statement on Moreschi, who had a very different technique to the 18th century castrati. The descriptions from that time are open to interpretation, there are many references to castrati blending the registers perfectly so there was no obvious change (this was said of Farinelli) also Tosi, himself a castrato, said this should be done in his treatise. So we don't know for sure if they used pure chest voice for the lower notes or blended it as modern female singers do, as the singer in this recording is also trying to do albeit not 100% successfully.
@@Quatrapuntal no I'm referring to my PhD in the reconstruction of historical vocal technique from the Royal College of Music in London. Giovanni BattistaManicini (1714-castrato) even stated clearly that a castrato covering their entire range in chest was a "gift". I found no historical evidence to suggest they sang their low notes in head voice they way they do today. In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite, that they sang higher in chest than sopranos do today. The singer is not in any way reconstructing a historical technique. Instead he seems to be singing in a modern counter tenor way which is absolutely historically inaccurate.
At no point does this video claim to be singing using a reconstruction of 18th century technique, in fact I can't think of any singer who does that. The title is referring to the fact that his voice is unbroken, so he and the handful of others like him are the closest modern equivalent. This singer unfortunately was poorly trained in Brazil where he was something of an oddity, so they just treated him like he was a female mezzo. However, I have not come across any 18th century evidence that categorically proves they used pure chest voice without some blending or mix. If you have I would be interested to see it. For example, Tosi (a castrato) writes " If the chest and head register do not perfectly unite, the Voice will be of divers Registers, and must consequently lose its Beauty". That would surely suggest a mixture of head and chest in the middle. Similar comments were made about other castrati having a seamless transition. As always, words alone are rarely definitive when describing sound, especially considering the differences in taste and aesthetics from 300 years ago. I am not disagreeing with you, I think that it is likely that they did use chest voice more extensively, perhaps this explains the clear difference between a castrato and female voice which was often mentioned. Maybe female sopranos sang more like they do today, but if you hear Samuel Marino or Michael Maniaci it isn't so massively different in sound to a woman. But it's difficult to put things as black and white, history is more complex than that, the same is true of historical instrumental technique.
Was it worth it to be castrated at the age of 9 to have that voice?
I have read that the boy was meant to agree to it, but I don't know how true that is and anyway they can't really give meaningful consent to something life changing at that age. It's difficult to say looking back hundreds of years later without putting our 21st century interpretations on it. We will never know what a fully trained castrato sounded like, written descriptions of sound are always inadequate. Many of the boys came from very poor families and if they were good could become very wealthy and a star, a life they would never have had otherwise. I feel sorry for those that had the op but ended up with mediocre voices which also happened, then they get the stigma but none of the rewards.
Did he have a very feminine voice when speaking or did he sound like a kid? I ask because I used to work with a guy who had what can only be described as a woman's voice, it was extremely off-putting, kind of creepy to be honest. I never asked him but I used to think maybe the guy was trans (female to male type of thing) but now I'm thinking maybe his voice never changed, like Mr. Santos?
The sound is not like a woman or a child, but perhaps closer to a boy. This video shows what a castrato speaking voice is like, in an interview with a woman so you can hear the difference. It's in Spanish, but you can hear the tone. The short clip of singing is unfortunate as he can sing a lot better! th-cam.com/video/iVnuYcTFW_U/w-d-xo.html
@@Quatrapuntal Wow, what a fascinating video, thank you so much! After hearing him, I think my ex coworker had a different condition because his voice did not sound like that of a boy, maybe he just had a very feminine voice naturally, who knows!
@@zarius6363 no worries, did you understand the Spanish? I thought maybe with a name like Carlos! I can get bits from speaking Portuguese but it would be interesting to know more about what he is saying.
I'm skeptical. I'm no specialist but this singer sounds altogether like a modern countertenor, which often is not quite pleasing to the ear.
If you read the video description, it explains that I lived with this singer for over a year and performed with him many times. His voice is unbroken, but this does not mean that his voice sounds totally different to other voices in the same range. The couple of other modern singers with unbroken voices sound different to falsettists, but not completely different. You are also hearing a recording which can't really reproduce the effect of the voice heard live. A good part of what made the 18th century castrati so incredible was their extensive training and technical ability. The actual tone of the voice was different, but probably not so utterly different as people now expect.
If you like him. You may like Vitas and ZhouShen they also have the Micky mouse voices as Chris Colfer singer from Glee series described himself, when he got excited he would sound like Mickey Mouse. Yep, all 3 also never crack their voices during their puberty. 😂
Not true that they have unbroken voices, they are singing using falsetto. You can easily find spoken interviews with those people you mention where you can clearly hear they have a normal broken male speaking voice. An adult male with an unbroken voice (that sounds like a child when speaking) is incredibly rare.
@@Quatrapuntal What makes you so sure that they use falsetto not counter tenor or head voice. Have you listen to songs of Zhou Shen?
@@jiaunmew878 if you hear the speaking voice you can tell straight away, it is more difficult just listening to singing. If they have a speaking voice at normal male pitch, like the singers you mentioned, then they are using falsetto. Watch an interview with Javier Medina who has an unbroken voice and you will hear the difference immediately.
I hope, this voice is natural!
Yes, all naturally occurring. Contrary to popular belief, many castrati didn't actually have the testicles removed, either the cords cut (like a vasectomy) or caused to wither which has the same hormonal effect.
💕💝💛💚💜💙
去勢してまで神を賛美する思考が考えさせられるな...
It is falsetto
Read the video description
I’m not a costrati I can sing like this
Costrati? Prove that you can sing the high note he does as powerfully as that, anyone can make claims from a computer screen!
I’m here because of Joe Rogan
Eh?
I think castrati could sing ALL the notes in the score including the low notes. They had a well developed and strong voice including chest voice for the middle and low notes. This is not the case here. You know, composers wrote low notes because singers were able to sing them then and they were as important as any other notes.
I never said that he was the equivalent of Farinelli, unfortunately he had inappropriate training as nobody where he grew up understood his voice or link to historical singing. They tried to train him like a female, using modern technique for power and vibrato etc. rather than the baroque qualities of a lighter and very flexible voice. So by the time that I met him, he was already in his mid-30s (if I remember correctly) and had never really been taught to use the natural characteristics of his voice very well. He tries to extend the head voice lower as female singers do but as you can hear, not so successfully. He and the handful of others with unbroken voices are the closest we have to a castrato (hence the title) now, but nobody is going to undertake such rigorous training from a young age today so it is only a glimpse. People judge the castrato sound very often from Moreschi, that is likely very far from Farinelli and was in an age with very different aesthetics and technique.
No caso ele é um sopranista. Usar o castrati natural é obsoleto, pois ele não é castrato e sim um sopranista.
Existem termos diferentes, para mim sopranista sugere um contra-tenor agudo que canta em falsete (como Robert Crowe). Isso é raro, mas alguém com uma voz adulta inalterada é extremamente raro - o mais perto que podemos chegar agora da voz castrato. A castração mecânica causa alterações hormonais para que a voz não mude, nestes casos raros o mesmo efeito pode acontecer naturalmente. Ele não é realmente castrado, é claro, mas o efeito hormonal na voz é semelhante, por isso o termo 'castrato natural' ou 'castrato moderno' foi usado.
Did Mozart write this for a woman to sing? Did they have many Castrato singers in operas then?
This was written for a castrato, there were very many at that time as the first half of the 18th century was the peak of their popularity and fame.
sound falsetto to me
Talk about being married to the game 😂
It might be a beautiful sound but having your knackers chopped off is too high a price to pay.
It still doesnt make sense to me cos male pop singers sing so high these days
bro i can do that and i have balls.
OK, awaiting proof of that...
i not sending ball picks. im sorry.@@Quatrapuntal
@@hectorsilva401 proof that you "can do that" - trust me I don't want to see pictures 🤮
THAT'S NOT A CONSTRALTO
VOICE .....
This is 100% falsetto!
Please read the video description before commenting, it is all explained there
@@Quatrapuntal Nice story. (True or not). I still stand by my comment on it being 100% falsetto. It’s not just falsetto but one of them comical sounding falsetto’s. Without trying to sound too disrespectful. I’ve known of someone (on tv) who used to speak in their head-voice and thought they had an underdeveloped voice box, then it turned out to be a speaking habit through the voice brake. They also sounded like this when singing.
This is coming from someone (that’s me) that does has a child size voice box that didn’t grow. I sing from C3 way into the soprano range C6 and have a very light timber (like Michael Jackson) to my voice. A true falsetto sound (like in this recording) is VERY hard for me to recreate, because my vocal folds are too small. That’s how I can tell falsetto vs true full-voice.
So regardless of what you and your friend believe, I have to be honest and stand by my own ear, intuition & experience. Considering I do have a small voice box that didn’t grow and my voice never broke in my teens like it should have.
My voice did get lower at the age of around 30‘ish, but I never lost my light timber or my vocal range. Even tilting my head right back now, there’s still no visible Adam’s apple, (larynx) it’s smaller than 90% of ladies. So this is why I believe I’m right on this regardless of the background story in the description.
But this is just my opinion, hope you don’t take offence, as none is intended.
@@jazznotes3802 every single internet music “critic” has to turn everything they say into a story about their “super unique and rare” vocal qualities and why they are such good singers lol.
I came from more plates more dates
What is that?
@@Quatrapuntal TH-cam channel
Bit of a strange leap from that to a castrato!
@ludwig
Falsetto.
Ps. It is not falsetto, but he is not a Castrato. He’s whole.
I wish people would read the notes in the description - it's all explained in there. Moreschi is featured in the latter part of the video so clearly I have heard that. He uses a very particular technique of singing in full chest voice as high as he can then a very noticeable switch to head voice. Apparently older castrati lost the ability to blend the registers, he is almost yodeling at times. We don't know whether the great 18th century castrati sang like this, or what seems more likely from descriptions, blended the registers like a modern female singer. This is what the singer on this recording is doing - I lived with him for over a year and heard him speak every day, his voice is unbroken. Look up Samuel Marino, his speaking voice is very similar and clearly unbroken there are videos of him on TH-cam. Does he sound like Moreschi? No, nothing like it. So just like there is quite a bit of difference between female singers, not all unbroken male voices sound the same. The handful of other male singers with unbroken voices all sound quite different to each other. Moreschi is a fascinating and invaluable historical source, but represents a very particular style and technique of the time and therefore not all castrato voices. If you listen to his head voice, it isn't massively different in sound to falsetto, in fact one of his pupils Domenico Mancini was so good at imitating Moreschi that everyone (that was used to hearing real castrati all the time) thought he was a castrato. Mancini was a falsettist with a normal broken voice.
@@Quatrapuntal thank you for your thorough answer and for sharing. That’s fascinating and intriguing! So how did Samuel get castrated? I thought that was a practice now condemned and abolished, to do that to innocent boys
@@Quatrapuntal
I just learned of him and heard him speak as well. It’s true he is a soprano. He’s not a castrato even though he sounds like one. He says he’s not castrated, he’s a whole man. His voice is just his gift because it never deepened when he hit puberty.
I think the most important thing to focus on here is the voice, rather than the contents of these men's trousers! Mechanical castration was done for the effects it had on the voice. The point of the castration after all is to deny the body those hormones at puberty, in rare cases such as these this same effect can happen naturally due to hormonal or other anomalies. That is why I used the term 'modern castrato', as clearly nobody is going to castrate children for singing in the 21st century. These rare singers are the closest modern equivalent, their voices have not changed at puberty which is the key point affecting what they, and those mechanically castrated in the past, sound like. There is also the rigorous training the 18th century castrati received which I think also made a big difference, again nobody is going to inflict that on a young singer these days. But I think someone like Samuel Marino is going to be pretty close, or certainly as close as we can get now.
@@Quatrapuntal
But you’re implying that castration is the standard for the high pitch voice, which is actually a body modification and barbarism. The end did not justify the means. He’s not a modern day castrato, he’s a soprano man with a naturally gifted voice, he grew a beard which means he’s got testosterone working fine.
What didn’t change was the voice and I’ll find out why that happens ins pite of testosterone
this is so creepy bro
He sounds like a normal songer
He's definitely not a normal songer
Won't we now again - or soon - have many castrati due to sex reassignment/affirmation procedures and surgeries?
Good question, but no. A castrato is created by removing the hormones that lead to puberty before it happens, it was typically done around the age of 9. Someone transitioning from male to female would already have the voice change, and would be given female hormones, so if anything creating a voice more like a woman's. A castrato did not sound like a female voice as they did not have female hormones like an adult woman, just no male ones so creating something unique. Nobody these days is going to allow reassignment surgery on a boy of 9 (thankfully!) and even if they did they would be given female hormones. The closest we can get today is the very rare cases like this singer where the voice did not break naturally because of some hormonal abnormality.
@@Quatrapuntal , where have you been lately??? Kids are now receiving "puberty blockers" at ages 9 or 10 BEFORE puberty so they never develop secondary sex characteristics, followed by cross-sex hormones at about age 11 or 12. The most visible example is "Jazz Jennings" (Jaron Bloshinsky) who has been in the public eye since about age 6 and now, at age 22, still has a reality TV show on TLC. So it's precisely a male never experiencing puberty, exactly like the young castrato. Of course this renders them infertile, hovering between male and female, and somewhat childlike. Jazz is also, unfortunately, obese, anxious, depressed, and confused after "bottom surgery." But Jazz DOES have an amazing singing voice!
@@skeptigal2785 yes but going from male to female they are given female hormones, which makes their voice like a woman not a castrato. Castrati didn’t have female hormones, they just didn’t have male ones so remained neither, a third sex as they were described. I hadn't heard of Jazz, but she has a voice just like a girl because of the female hormones, this is not like a castrato. The nearest thing I know of is Javier Medina, who actually is a castrato by some bodged treatment as a child. There is an interview where you can hear the difference between his speaking voice and that of the woman interviewer, very different.
@@Quatrapuntal , then it's interesting that David Reimer - who was also castrated, puberty blocked, and given female hormones after a botched circumcism - ended up with a deep male voice after he chose to detransition. It doesn't seem just adding testosterone after puberty would change the larynx. I don't think we have all the answers yet.
Falceto
No it isn't, please read the video description
You say it’s not, but it is. That’s not a full voice. Listen to a real castrato with a real voice. You’ll see the difference with Moreschi
See my reply to your other comment which addresses the Moreschi comparison.
@@Quatrapuntal
Ok sounded like falsetto. But it is not. I take it back. I just learned about this magnificent singer. However, he’s not a castrato, he’s a whole man, he just never developed his voice.
That is why I used the term 'modern castrato' - it is the effect on the voice that is the important factor, see reply to other comment in more detail.
TIf you think he is a castrato then you don’t understand the word. Whether his voice broke or not has nothing to do with being castrato. Due to the physical removal of the testicles castrat were void of testosterone and when singing in chest voice they sounded like female singers with rich and powerful bottom registers. This singer here avoids any chest voice and the lower middle and bottom notes are virtually non existent
Historical castrati didn't always have the testicles removed, anyway what is important (and why it was done) is how that affected the voice, and stopping it from breaking. A modern singer who has a similar voice through a natural anomaly is the closest equivalent we can have now, so hence the term "modern castrato". And your statement "when singing in chest voice they sounded like female singers" is incorrect, historical sources were very clear that the castrato voice was different and did not sound like a female voice at all. This may have been partly because they favoured more use of pure chest voice although this is unclear, Tosi for example who was a singing teacher and himself a castrato said that there should be a seamless transition between chest and head voice, Farinelli was also praised for this. The singer on this recording was unfortunately trained by people who had no clue how to deal with his voice, he is trying to carry his upper voice down and blend it for the low notes as female singers do, but as you can hear not so successfully.
Please point to evidence that proves Castrati were not castrated. Whether this singer went through a voice break or not in adolescence, doesnt change the fact he is now singing in falsetto - like all counter tenors.
And then italians found out about counter tenors and sopranists
They always knew, but preferred the castrati despite the moral issues
Sorry that’s not a real/full voice. That’s FALSETTO. No chest voice. A real castrato would have a “female” chest voice. Sorry to disappoint. Good try!!
Clearly you haven't read the description, I lived with this singer for over a year and heard him speaking every day with an unbroken voice. He is singing in his head voice, as female sopranos do, because he was trained inappropriately as they didn't know what to do with him. 18th century castrati didn't use chest voice across the range, read Tosi who was a castrato.
@@Quatrapuntal my dear friend, you may have lived with a person for 100 years, but that voice is not a full voice. I am a singer in singing teacher and believe me, I can identify a real voice from a falsetto voice. I am sorry you are confused and you have believed, the tale that your friend has told you.
@@alexgomez2 yes of course I will disregard all of my experiences of living and performing with him over several years, and everything that the doctors told him, based on the opinion of a random person on the internet listening to 10 seconds of one recording. I never said he was singing in chest voice, if you read my previous reply I said he is singing in head voice, hence the weakness in the lower range. What is your reference as to what an unbroken adult male voice sounds like anyway? Please don't say Moreschi, although he sang in head voice above about C or D. In fact, one of his pupils who was a falsettist could imitate Moreschi so well that everyone though he was a castrato. And this is people who heard castrati singing all the time in person, not from an ancient gramophone recording.
@@QuatrapuntalEsmaga
Beautiful but not worth what it cost the poor devil!
It's not so bad, cats recover in 24 hours
its hard to enjoy the voice when you know he was castrated for this
It's not too bad, just a little snip. Cats hardly notice when they are done
This i quiet obviously a countertenor.There are beautiful countertenors of course,listen to Russel Oberlin where it is even less obvious that one listens to a counter,and nowadays of course Franco Fagioli.
You say 'quite obviously', but what is your reference of what an unbroken male voice sounds like? His voice was unbroken at a child's pitch, I lived with him for over a year and did many rehearsals and concerts with him so I should know!
What a terrible thing that was done to him.
Just a little snip, cats recover within a day
E un falsettista si sente benissimo
Leggi la descrizione del video
Niente di che.
This is not a castrato
Heh. No balls
This is the devil’s work
Try putting some ointment on it
Poor nutless men 😢🥜
Yes true, but there are other things in life. It's not all about the nuts...