At this point in our history, a very revealing light begins to search out our subject. Until now, in assessing how men sang high, we have been largely dependent on the pen (a notoriously subjective tool, as every writer must acknowledge). The way music was written, or the way music and its performers were written about, have been our staple. Now, in addition to the pen, we have a more objective tool of communication – the microphone. We should not fool ourselves that the microphone is absolutely objective, though: as we shall see, even its most accurate results still leave room for interpretation. Nevertheless, the start of the twentieth century marks an obvious break in any history of vocal performance practice. Not because there were any radical developments in the way that men sang, or the spirit in which they were heard, but because the tools of the history itself suddenly changed.

Moreschi and the Microphone

As luck would have it, the dawn of the recorded age marginally preceded the twilight of the castrati. Much has already been written about Alessandro Moreschi, the one castrato whose voice was captured by the microphone. It was Pope Pius X who was responsible for ending the practice of castrato singers in the Catholic church.