Even beyond such clearly dramatic works, the quest for a historical performance practice should also take into consideration other possible liturgical or dramatic contexts. In Catholic sacred works, this includes the place of Gregorian chant, or organ versets in appropriate alternation with liturgical polyphony. In Lutheran works, it suggests the alternation of chorale verses between organ and choir, and perhaps with a large congregation singing the tune monophonically. In some cases, reconstruction of an entire liturgical service or secular festival offers a thrilling performance montage. Research can uncover equivalent contexts for secular works, as well, for interpolation of musical numbers in dramas as intermedii, set pieces, or melodramas. Such an expanded performance context can be further enriched by architectural investigation in order to locate musical forces as they might have been in a period performance for the best aural effect.
The music’s sound also depends very much on the types of voices used. At no other time prior to the present has there been such an array of different voice types, vocal productions, and vocal techniques. And now all vocal types prevalent in the seventeenth century except the castrato have been rediscovered and revived, including female tenors as well as male altos and sopranos, both boys and adults. Most of the vocal techniques used by these voices have also been rediscovered. Different voices were associated with different contexts, however. Choir schools in both Germany and Italy trained boys. When they grew older and their voices changed, they provided tenors and basses. Adult males also sang alto, or occasionally soprano, in falsetto. But neither boys nor adult falsettists could surpass the expertise, technical ability, and power of the great castratos.
Castrato voices became more common in Italy in the first part of the seventeenth century but diminished in number toward the century’s end. Female voices, while accepted in secular music, were not permitted to sing with men in Catholic churches, although they may have sung occasional special solos in aristocratic chapels. The reverse was true in Italian female convents, as previously discussed, where women sang all parts—through transposition of the works, instrumental doubling of lower voices, or the use of rare female basses and tenors. Such flexibility extended to the selection of voices for various parts of any vocal music, which was based less on fixed classifications (i.e., castrato versus falsettist versus boy soprano) than on the ranges needed, the voices available, and their ability and training.
The training of voices seems to have been largely by private lessons, even in the choir schools. This is documented in sixteenth-century Bergamo by the trial of Pietro Pontio, who was indicted for, among other things, teaching the boys in groups. As music became more challenging and soloistic, solo instruction remained the method of choice in the seventeenth century. That the same type of instruction was the rule in female convents might explain the continual controversy over their use of male music teachers when no sister was sufficiently competent. The training of women’s voices outside the convent faced no such problems, though. Although performance opportunities were more restricted than for men, in the Mantuan ducal chapel, female virtuosos took their places among men, boys, and the finest castratos money could hire. This practice can already be seen in the performances of the concerto delle donne in Ferrara. Documentation of vocal training is sparse, though, perhaps because patrons preferred to hire singers already trained.
The type of vocal production taught has been controversial, at least partly due to the modern entrenchment of nineteenth-century operatic technique in which vibrato provides the only safety valve for loud, high-pressure tone production. Since most seventeenth-century vocal training began in choir schools, with Gregorian chant, the singers’ technical foundation was quite different. Modern “historically correct” singers have rediscovered how to produce a clear, beautiful tone that is fully relaxed but has minimal vibrato. But such tone production is emphatically not the blended half voice cultivated by many modern choir directors. Since seventeenthcentury vocal ensembles were collections of little more than a few singers, usually performing in large spaces, there could be little or no difference in volume between favoriti and ripieno singers, even when lack of independent parts indicates that the former doubled the latter in tutti sections. Singers of either type would utilize a tone production centered around a solid forte in any sacred or spectacle music designed for public performance.
Nevertheless, within such a well-supported tone production, good interpretation demands shaping each individual note, as well as the larger phrasing of the melodic line. All singers’ interpretation requires clear understanding, enunciation, and interpretation of the text. Modern singers may also wish to research historic pronunciation of the music. For non-soloists, these skills, plus good intonation, would have been much more essential than complex ornamentation. But the final interpretive layer for soloists must also include improvisatory ornamentation using throat articulation, which demands a relaxed but vibrato-free technique (although vibrato can itself be used within the repertory of ornaments). Soloists who have fully mastered this technique can improvise using elaborate passaggi and diminutions like those described by the theorists dalla Casa, Rognoni, Bovicelli, Bassano, and others presented elsewhere in this volume. Such ornamentation is essential for soloists among the favoriti, even if ripieno singers should avoid it to concentrate on enunciation, shaping, phrasing, and intonation.
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