Alessandro Moreschi

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Alessandro Moreschi around 1875

Alessandro Moreschi (born November 11, 1858 in Monte Compatri ; † April 21, 1922 in Rome ) was the papal singer of the Sistine Chapel , one of the last castrato singers and at the same time the only one who still has recordings.

Life

The date and circumstances of his castration are not known, but it has been suggested that it could have taken place in 1868, about two years before boy castration was finally banned, at the age of nine, in line with medical ideas of the time cholera - epidemic to protect that raged at that time in his home region. In 1871 he began his singing studies under Gaetano Capocci in the choir of the Sistine Chapel with the tenor Nazzareno Resati and at the singing school of San Salvatore in Lauro . Capocci became his main sponsor. In 1873 he appointed him first soprano of the Choir of the Lateran Basilica , where he himself officiated as organist and conductor. Under Capocci, Moreschi became a sought-after soprano, also used in private performances. When Capocci performed Beethoven's oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives in an Italian arrangement by Franz Sales Kandler during Lent in 1883, Capocci had Moreschi sing the part of seraph , which requires the use of the soprano up to the three-accented E , and this performance established Moreschi's fame and is said to have given the cause for his nickname "the angel of Rome". He was then invited to apply for entry into the papal choir ( Cappella Musicale Pontificia ), the so-called Sistine Chapel or Sixtina, where on March 22, 1891, he succeeded the castrato Evangelista Bocchini as soprano . In 1896 he was also granted full membership in the Cappella Giulia of St. Peter's Basilica and in the chapel of the Lateran Basilica.

The Sistine had been headed by the castrato Domenico Mustafà since 1881 , like Capocci, a representative of a traditional style that was often criticized as degenerate and secular, against which the representatives of Cecilianism demanded a return to the principles of the vocal polyphony of the Renaissance . Under Mustafà became Moreschi 1891 Secretary ( puntatore ) and 1892 maestro pro tempore organizing samples and the supervision belonged, the latter an administrative office, whose tasks on the duty of the choir members, but also the participation in the selection of soloists and belonged to the development of the repertoire . When Mustafà, after 50 years of membership and under the impression of increasing criticism, decided to retire in 1898, he recommended Lorenzo Perosi as his successor , who was initially appointed as his co-director on December 15, 1898. Perosi, a priest and important composer, from whom Mustafà had expected the continuation of his own endeavors, was, however, close to Cecilianism. He turned out to be an opponent of Mustafà not only in musical matters, but also campaigned against the further appointment of castrato singers for moral and humanitarian reasons.

The increasing influence of Perosis and the constant friction between the two directors of the Sistine also limited Moreschi's ability to work in the Sistine. However, his appearance on August 9, 1900 in an unknown, probably soloist role at the funeral ceremonies for King Umberto I , for whose family he has already participated in the annual commemorative masses for Umberto's father Victor Emmanuel II , testifies to his continued esteem outside the Vatican and whose widow could have had a relationship insofar as she had also received musical lessons from Capocci.

After Mustafà was in an audience with Pope Leo XIII in 1895 . Having negotiated an amendment to the statutes, through which 240 lire were made available for the education of two castrated boys, Perosi was able to obtain a ban on the further appointment of castrated singers in the Sistine on February 3, 1902 in an audience with the Pope. Mustafà, who perceived his own castration as grave suffering, was concerned with the preservation of a musical tradition of the Sistine, which he only ensured through castrated singers, but which he saw endangered by the admission of non-castrated boys from other choirs in Rome. When he offered his resignation in protest against this decision, it was accepted and his title was changed to that of direttore perpetuo "for honorary purposes". After the death of Leo XIII. on July 20, 1903, Pius X., a long-time friend and supporter of Perosis, succeeded him. In his Motu Proprio Tra le sollecitudini on November 22nd, 1903, the new Pope reaffirmed the prohibition of the admission of women to church music as part of a general reorganization of Catholic church music aimed at suppressing secular and “modern” influences in the sense of Cecilianism stipulated that boys ( fanciulli ) should be used for high voices if necessary . The practice introduced by his predecessor for the Sistine was thus codified throughout the Church, even if no express general prohibition was issued and nothing had yet been decided on the continued employment of castrati who had already been appointed.

“Hostias Et Preces” (Eugenio Terziani), sung by Moreschi, 1904
"Ave Maria" (1904)

It is possible that Moreschi was still involved in the celebrations for the election of the new Pope, and also at the high mass in St. Peter to celebrate the 13th centenary of Gregory the Great on April 11, 1904 with two other castrati, among a total of around 1200 Singers. His solo participation is guaranteed in the sound recordings, which were also made in April by William Sinkler Darby of the Gramophone Company at the request of the Pope . Similar sound recordings had already been made in 1902 between April 3 and 5, in which, with the participation and even direction of Moreschi, selected castrato singers together with other Sistine singers seven pieces of the no longer desired style, among others by Mozart , for Fred Gaisberg and Alfred Michaelis from the Grammophone Company . The recordings from 1902 and 1904 are the only surviving recordings of castrato singers in this more than three hundred year old tradition.

In the Pontifical Yearbook ( Annuario Pontificio ) Moreschi continued to be listed as a member of the papal choir until he retired on March 22, 1913. In the following years he was regularly recorded as an emeritus until the previous year of his death . Little is known about Moreschi's last years. He remained active in the Cappella Giulia of St. Peter's Basilica until at least 1914, where, in addition to himself as castrati, his long-term colleagues Domenico Salvatori (1855–1909, member of the Sistine since 1878) and Vincenzo Sebastianelli (1851–1919, member of the Sistine since 1880) participated. In November 1904 he took over the teaching of the boy soprano Domenico Mancini, who subsequently trained himself in Moreschi's style and, after his voice broke, developed it further as a falsetto artist , but was suspected of being a castrato and was rejected by Perosi. In 1911 Moreschi appeared in Tivoli in a concert on the occasion of a musicological congress. Franz Haböck (1868–1921), professor at what later became the State Academy for Music in Vienna , visited and questioned Moreschi in 1914 as part of the preparations for his monumental work on the singing art of the castrati , which was published posthumously by his wife after Haböck's death and one is an important source of knowledge about Moreschi. Haböck intended to win Moreschi for a concert tour in honor of Farinelli , but found that Moreschi, who had a vocal range of two and a half octaves in earlier years , only mastered less than two octaves and showed uncertainties, especially in the high registers.

Around Easter 1919, Moreschi fell ill with an unknown infectious disease from which he did not seem to have recovered. After a long illness, he died on the morning of April 21, 1922 in his long-term apartment at 19 Via Plinio, and the funeral procession took place on April 23. Perosi himself led the funeral mass at his own request, which took place in San Lorenzo in Damaso with the participation of singers from all of Rome's choirs . Moreschi's tomb is on the Cimitero del Verano . In the Pontifical Yearbook of 1922, contrary to custom, his death was not commemorated.

The term Moreschi as the “last castrato” was coined by the Gramophone Company and can be based on the fact that of the castrato singers of his generation who have remained active for a similar long time, only Salvatori and Sebastianelli are known, both of whom, like his former director Mustafà († 1912), died before him. In his dissertation on the decline of castratoism in 1982, Gerold W. Gruber took the view that, by analyzing sound recordings, castrati voices could still be identified among the Vatican singers in later years and that the last castrato would probably be Moreschi's last pupil, Domenico Mancini who did not retire until 1959, but had always assured himself that he was merely a falsettist.

Discography

  • Alessandro Moreschi: The last castrato. Complete Vatican recordings. Opal 9823, 1984 and 1987 (Helikon, Heidelberg) - recordings from 1902 and 1904.

literature

  • Robert Anthony Buning: Alessandro Moreschi and the castrato voice. (Dissertation) Boston University, Boston Mass. 1990, OCLC number: 27315491.
  • Nicholas Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. House Publications, London 2004, ISBN 1-904341-77-2 .
  • Jörg Wilhelm Walter Derksen: The Roman soprano Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922): The reproducible image of the 'last castrato' and musicological research in the 20th century. Master's thesis, Friedrich Wilhelm University Bonn, Bonn 1995.
    • Jörg Derksen: The Roman soprano Alessandro Moreschi. A singer's life between the transmission of an artist's vita and the realities of new media after 1900. In: Christian Kaden, Volker Kalisch (Ed.): Professionalism in music. Essen 1999, pp. 121–131 (from the series: Musik-Kultur. A series of publications by the Robert Schumann University in Düsseldorf. )
  • Christian von Deuster: On the pathology of the human voice. Medical historical considerations on castrato singing. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 23, 2004, pp. 39-60; especially pp. 55-57.
  • Christian von Deuster: How did the castrati sing? Historical considerations. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 25, 2006, pp. 133–152, here: pp. 145 f.
  • Luigi Devoti: Alessandro Moreschi detto "L'Angelo di Roma" 1858-1922. In: Renato Lefevre, Arnaldo Morelli (ed.): Musica e musicisti nel Lazio (= Lunario romano. Volume 15). F.lli Palombi, Rome 1985, pp. 463-474.
  • Joe K. Law: Alessandro Moreschi Reconsidered: A Castrato on Records. In: Opera Quarterly. No. 2, 1984, pp. 2-12
  • Bruno Sebald: Les enregistrements d'Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1921), dernier castrat du Pape. In: Bulletin de liaison des adhérents de l'AFAS. No. 28, 2006, pp. 14-16; Electronic publication of November 20, 2010 ( online ).
  • Wilhelm Ruprecht Frieling : Killer, art fart, castrato. Reports on unusual fates. Internet-Buchverlag 2011, ISBN 978-3-941286-69-6 , Chapter: The jubilating castrato.

Web links

Commons : Alessandro Moreschi  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christian von Deuster: On the pathology of the human voice. Medical historical considerations on castrato singing. 2004, pp. 39-60; here: p. 55.
  2. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 31ff.
  3. ↑ Christian von Deuster: On the pathology of the human voice. Medical historical considerations on castrato singing. 2004, p. 55.
  4. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 49f.
  5. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 50.
  6. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 80.
  7. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, pp. 88f.
  8. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 111f.
  9. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 122f.
  10. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, pp. 114f.
  11. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 107f.
  12. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 118, cf. P. 122f.
  13. ^ A b N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 118.
  14. ^ Pius X .: Tra le sollecitudini . V, 13
  15. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 126.
  16. ^ A b N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 128.
  17. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 126ff.
  18. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 126, p. 130, p. 134, life and admission dates according to p. 66.
  19. ^ A b N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, pp. 130ff.
  20. ^ Franz Haböck: The singing art of the castrati. Universal-Edition, Vienna 1923 (only the first volume, a volume of music, has been published); The castrati and their vocal art, a vocal physiological, cultural and music historical study. German publishing company, Stuttgart 1927
  21. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 134ff.
  22. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, pp. 134f.
  23. ^ N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, pp. 137f.
  24. ^ A b N. Clapton: Moreschi: the last castrato. London 2004, p. 138.
  25. ↑ Gerold W. Gruber: Der Niedergang des Kastratentums: An investigation into the bourgeois criticism of the courtly musical culture in the 18th century, shown using the example of the criticism of the castratiism - with an attempt at an objective classification of the castrati voice. Dissertation, University of Vienna 1982, p. 186
personal data
SURNAME Moreschi, Alessandro
BRIEF DESCRIPTION papal singer of the Sistine Chapel, one of the last castrato singers and at the same time the only one of whom sound recordings are still available today
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1858
PLACE OF BIRTH Monte Compatri
DATE OF DEATH April 21, 1922
Place of death Rome