Portrait of a Castrato : Politics, Patronage, and Music in the Life of Atto Melani Paperback / softback
by Roger (Dr, University of Rochester, New York) Freitas
Part of the New Perspectives in Music History and Criticism series
Paperback / softback
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Description
This book explores the fascinating life of the most documented musician of the seventeenth century.
Born in 1626 into a bourgeois family in Pistoia, Italy, Atto Melani was castrated to preserve his singing voice and soon rose to both artistic and social prominence.
His extant letters not only depict the musical activities of several European centers, they reveal the real-life context of music and the musician: how a singer related to patrons and colleagues, what he thought about his profession, and the role music played in his life.
Whether Atto was singing, spying, having sex, composing, or even rejecting his art, his life illustrates how music-making was always also a negotiation for power.
Providing a rare glimpse of the social and political contexts of seventeenth-century music, Roger Freitas sheds light on the mechanisms that generated meaning for music, clarifying what music at this time actually was.
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Out of StockMore expected soonContact us for further information
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:452 pages
- Publisher:Cambridge University Press
- Publication Date:01/05/2014
- Category:
- ISBN:9781107696105
Information
-
Out of StockMore expected soonContact us for further information
- Format:Paperback / softback
- Pages:452 pages
- Publisher:Cambridge University Press
- Publication Date:01/05/2014
- Category:
- ISBN:9781107696105