Haunting electronic echo of music’s past created for TV
Posted on 4 July 2006
Professor David Howard, Head of the Audio Lab in the University’s Department of Electronics, has synthesised electronically the sound of the castrato voice by morphing the voicebox of York Minster choristers with the mouths and noses of adult males.
The experiment was carried out for a 60-minute BBC Television programme, Castrato, part of a series on 18th Century music.
Castration for choral purposes was made illegal in the late 19th century and the last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, died in the 1920s. Poor quality recordings of his voice, made in 1902 and 1904, still exist.
The challenge facing Professor Howard, who is an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Media Fellow, was to create a high quality replica of the castrati’s distinctive timbre.
Castration stemmed the flow of testosterone at puberty inhibiting the growth of the larynx, so the voice remained boy-like. But the rest of the body grew, leaving a boy's larynx in the body of a man. Castrati were hugely popular in Europe’s opera houses – some estimates suggest that up to 4,000 boys a year between the ages of eight and 13 were castrated to ‘preserve’ their voices.
The castrati sang in the pitch range of a woman, but with a larger head and the lungs of a man – they sang high notes and extremely long notes.
The challenge was to produce an electronic version of a castrato voice and scientific explanations of human singing
Professor David Howard
Professor Howard said: "The recordings made of Moreschi in 1902 and 1904 use wax cylinder technology, but in terms of the science, they are not very useful because they have no information in the treble range (between 2.5 and 4kHz).
"The challenge was to produce an electronic version of a castrato voice and scientific explanations of human singing. The electronic version was based on recordings of three York Minster choristers, two tenors and a counter-tenor (male alto).
"I morphed these electronically to create the sound of a castrato, based on the underlying physiology of a boy's larynx (voicebox) and a man's head. As my son, Joey, was one of the choristers, I was also able to morph myself with him to produce a sound which he and I find quite haunting."
The recordings were made in a special sound-proofed chamber in the Department of Electronics.
Castrato will be screened at 9pm on Wednesday 5 July 2006 on BBC4, and repeated at 11.50pm on Sunday 9 July 2006 on BBC4 following the feature film Farinelli, which is a study of the life of the most celebrated castrato.
Notes to editors:
- Professor David Howard was appointed to a three-year Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Senior Media Fellowship last year. He spends 30 per cent of his time promoting the variety and versatility of engineering and technology to the public.
- David Howard leads the University of York’s media engineering research group, whose work focuses on television image processing, making computer and video games more realistic, specialised audio production equipment, and voice production. Visit the group at www.elec.york.ac.uk/ME/
- The EPSRC fund research and training in engineering and the physical sciences, investing around £500 million a year in a broad range of subjects – from mathematics to materials science, and from information technology to structural engineering. EPSRC also promotes public engagement in science, engineering and technology.