Wikipedia on Radu Marian: The renowned conductor Flavio Colusso affirms that Radu Marian is a sopranista whose voice is different from the other countertenors and sopranistas, of the Baroque music world. His voice does not sound like a falsetto’s, but like that of a soprano. Marian is an “endocrinological castrato” or “natural castrato”.
Henry Purcell “Music for a While” / Radu Marian, sopranista / Luigi Chiarizia, clavicembalo (via clotter234567)
If you want to hear something beautiful, watch this.
English Libretto:
Music for a while
Shall all your cares beguile:
Wond´ring how your pains were eas´d
And disdaining to be pleas´d
Till Alecto free the dead
From their eternal bands.
Till the snakes drop from her head,
And the whip from out her hands.
Portrait of Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino. 1623, Ottavio Leoni.
(Guercino is Italian for ‘squinter’. The nickname was given to him because he was cross-eyed.)
