‘All these things require aptitude, agility, and time, without which nothing can be achieved, and the singer, in using or adopting them...

Since we’ve already seen Zenobi’s comments on the requirements for a soprano (https://www.cacophonyhistoricalsinging.com/post/luigi-zenob...

‘In Rome...while singing [extempore] counterpoint, in the mind (alla mente) above the bass, nobody does that which his partner sings, but...

‘The common singing-men in cathedral churches are a bad society, and yet a company of good fellows, that roar deep in the quire, deeper...

‘Many of us can remember (indeed in some few places it still exists) the old village choir, assisted by the double bass, bassoon, wheezy...

‘Sometimes there sung sixeteene or twenty men together, having their master or moderator to keepe them in order ; and when they sung...

‘Moreover, such diminutions should be used in [works for] more than four voices, because diminution always causes the loss of numerous...

‘In setting these vowels, composers are advised that some, such as a, o, and u, are amenable to runs in the low registers and support the...

‘The old masters of the French school, who never employed the head voice, wrote a part in their operas which they called haute-contre...

“Everything was done in the most florid style, viz., grace notes, cadenzas, 'shakes' (single, double, and triple), while time was...

'In such other florid ornaments which well-practiced singers use when singing solo, one has a lot of license and freedom, so that the...

‘Not content even with these things, we have brought into the churches some kind of laboursome and theatrical music...

A Gloria from an unknown mass setting by Estienne Grossin. Check out the ossia cadenza!

‘Another fault which is more obvious than the others is singing high notes with an unstintingly full and powerful voice...

There remains the soprano, which is truly the ornament of all other parts, just as the bass is the foundation. The soprano...