Portrait of a Castrato: Politics, Patronage, and Music in the Life of Atto Melani [Hardcover]

A fascinating insight into the life and music-making of the most documented musician of the seventeenth century, castrato Atto Melani.Exploring the fascinating life of the most documented musician of the seventeenth century, Freitas tells how the castrato Atto Melani rose to musical and social prominence. Whether Atto was singing, spying, having sex, composing, or rejecting his art, this book illustrates how music-making was always also a negotiation for power.Exploring the fascinating life of the most documented musician of the seventeenth century, Freitas tells how the castrato Atto Melani rose to musical and social prominence. Whether Atto was singing, spying, having sex, composing, or rejecting his art, this book illustrates how music-making was always also a negotiation for power.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.Introduction; 1. Creating a castrato; 2. The politics of patronage: 163853; 3. In pursuit of prestige: 16535; 4. The sexuality of the castrato; 5. Disgrace and transformation: 165671; 6. Atto Melani and the cantata; 7. Completing the portrait: 16711714; Appendices: A. The lettelƒŽ