TY - CHAP
T1 - Understanding Joseph Joachim's Style and Practice
T2 - Recordings as a Research Tool
AU - Milsom, David
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Eva Moreda Rodríguez and Inja Stanović; individual chapters, the contributors.
PY - 2023/2/28
Y1 - 2023/2/28
N2 - Evaluating timbre in the early recordings of singers can be crucial for understanding the evolution of performing practices. Indeed, several researches across ethnomusicology, popular music studies, and voice studies have shown how vocal performers use timbre as a potent signifier for subjectivity, while listeners locate performers' identities through vocal colour. This chapter focuses on timbre to identify the new orthodoxies of “beautiful” singing developed during the first half of the 20th century, as testified by early recordings made both by sopranos and tenors. The authors drawn upon concepts and tools developed within timbre studies, the attentive reading of late nineteenth-century vocal treatises and their own expert understanding of singing. Barbara Gentili explores the creation of the verismo soprano through selected recordings of Eugenia Burzio and Emma Carelli, two prominent prime donne of early twentieth-century Italy, as they developed a novel system for blending the vocal registers that lent a fuller and darker quality to their voice. Daniele Palma focuses on tenors, highlighting the different steps in the process of codification of the tenore di forza in the first half of the 20th century. Furthermore, it shows how timbre became a contested territory between this progressive codification and the search for vocal individuality.
AB - Evaluating timbre in the early recordings of singers can be crucial for understanding the evolution of performing practices. Indeed, several researches across ethnomusicology, popular music studies, and voice studies have shown how vocal performers use timbre as a potent signifier for subjectivity, while listeners locate performers' identities through vocal colour. This chapter focuses on timbre to identify the new orthodoxies of “beautiful” singing developed during the first half of the 20th century, as testified by early recordings made both by sopranos and tenors. The authors drawn upon concepts and tools developed within timbre studies, the attentive reading of late nineteenth-century vocal treatises and their own expert understanding of singing. Barbara Gentili explores the creation of the verismo soprano through selected recordings of Eugenia Burzio and Emma Carelli, two prominent prime donne of early twentieth-century Italy, as they developed a novel system for blending the vocal registers that lent a fuller and darker quality to their voice. Daniele Palma focuses on tenors, highlighting the different steps in the process of codification of the tenore di forza in the first half of the 20th century. Furthermore, it shows how timbre became a contested territory between this progressive codification and the search for vocal individuality.
KW - Early recordings
KW - nineteenth-century performance
KW - academic recordings
KW - research
UR - https://www.routledge.com/Early-Sound-Recordings-Academic-Research-and-Practice/Rodriguez-Stanovic/p/book/9781032047515
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85149559790&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.4324/9781003194521-8
DO - 10.4324/9781003194521-8
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9781032047515
SN - 9781032047539
SP - 99
EP - 117
BT - Early Sound Recordings
A2 - Rodriguez, Eva Moreda
A2 - Stanović , Inja
PB - Routledge
CY - London
ER -