Music that Touches Your Soul

[petra]

Heard this on a movie trailer for Red Dog and it moved me.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9dw29xpA0Qg

[DNA]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KLjvfqnD0ws

The last of the castrato and the only recording of an actual castrato on record.
This recording is from one of those Thomas Edison first phonographs, but it is still incredible.
I had no idea the range and depth.
To hear one of these folks live must have truly been an experience

[rgray222]

Posted by DNA (here)

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KLjvfqnD0ws

The last of the castrato and the only recording of an actual castrato on record.
This recording is from one of those Thomas Edison first phonographs, but it is still incredible.
I had no idea the range and depth.
To hear one of these folks live must have truly been an experience

What an incredible recording. When I first started listening, I thought it was just some strange recording, but after listening to the full 3 minutes, it is truly special. The sound and the range are rare and unsual. The story that goes with it (I had to look it up) is extremely bizarre.

Here is a bit of the story. This recording was made past his prime (for voice quality), but it is still magnificent.

Alessandro Moreschi (1858–1922) is the person referred to as "the last castrato." He was an Italian chorister who sang for the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel Choir, and he is historically significant as the only castrato singer to have made solo recordings (between 1902 and 1904), providing the only direct audio evidence of the voice type produced by prepubescent castration. It is possible that he was born with an inguinal hernia, for which castration was still thought to be a cure in 19th-century Italy. Another possibility is that he was castrated later, around 1865, which would have been more in line with the centuries-old practice of castrating vocally talented boys well before puberty.

It seems likely that Moreschi's singing abilities came to the notice of Nazareno Rosati, formerly a member of the Sistine Chapel Choir, who was acting as a scout for new talent, and took him to Rome around 1870. Moreschi became a pupil at the Scuola di San Salvatore in Lauro, where he was taught by Gaetano Capocci, maestro di cappella of the Papal basilica of St John Lateran. In 1873, aged only fifteen, he was appointed First Soprano in the choir of that basilica, and also became a regular member of the groups of soloists Capocci hired to sing in the salons of Roman high society.

Thanks for posting.

[petra]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=PrRplVoI2MU

This one makes me cry