Pier Francesco Tosi

2025-10-19T01:03:22Z

2A02:8109:B68B:5700:6DA5:1AFC:2907:C909: /* Life and career */

[[File:Observations on the Florid Song title Plate (1743).jpg|thumb|Title plate from the English Translation of Tosi's singing treatise, ''Observations on the Florid Song'', first published in England in 1743.]]

'''Pier Francesco Tosi''' (c. 1653{{spaced ndash}}1732) was a [[castrato]] singer, [[composer]], and writer on music. His ''Opinoni de' cantori antichi e moderni...'' was the first full-length treatise on singing and provides a unique glimpse into the technical and social aspects of Baroque vocal music.

==Life and career==
Tosi was born in [[Cesena]], [[Papal States]] in 1653 or 1654. There is a disagreement among sources whether he was the son of composer [[Giuseppe Felice Tosi]]. He was [[castration|castrated]] before puberty to preserve his high voice. While it is not known where he received his rudimentary music training, he sang at a church in [[Rome]] from 1676 to 1677 and at the [[Milan Cathedral]] from 1681 until 1685, when he was dismissed for “misconduct.” Thereafter, he made his one recorded appearance in opera at [[Reggio nell’Emilia]] in 1687 (in [[Varischino]]’s ''Odoacre'') and was based for a time in [[Genoa]]. In 1693 Tosi relocated to [[London]] where he took on singing students and sang in weekly public concerts. In 1701 he entered into the service of [[Franz Joseph I of Austria|Austrian Emperor Joseph I]] and [[Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine]], whom he served as a musical and diplomatic agent, traveling extensively until 1723. In 1724 he returned to a London ablaze with the works of [[Handel]], where he again taught and was a founding member of the [[Academy of Ancient Music]]. He took holy orders sometime before his death in [[Faenza]], Italy in 1732. In addition to being a well-known [[soprano]] (of the [[cantabile style]], singing mostly [[chamber music]]) and [[vocal pedagogy|voice teacher]], Tosi was a [[composer]] of oratorio ''Il Martirio di Santa Caterina'' (1701), several [[arias]] and [[cantatas]].

==''Opinioni de' cantori antichi, e moderni...'' [''Observations on the Florid Song'']==
''Opinioni'' is primarily directed to the [[singing teacher]], laying out what and how they must teach their pupils. It also includes a chapter and several passages addressed to the future [[singing|professional singer]] with advice on [[good taste]], [[Ornament (music)|ornaments]], [[performance|performance skills]] and the life and [[music business|business of singing professionally]]. Tosi stresses the need for a long period of student training in [[music notation|reading]] and [[musical composition|composing music]], [[vocal pedagogy|singing]] and constructing ornamentation, as well as in [[grammar]], [[diction]], [[Decorum#Social decorum|social decorum]] and [[acting]]. All the standard ornaments of the time are thoroughly presented: ''[[Appoggiatura#Appoggiatura|appoggiatura]],'' ''[[messa di voce]],'' eight kinds of [[trill (music)|trills]], ''[[division (music)|passaggi (divisions)]],'' and ''[[portamento]]''. Tosi also dedicates a chapter each to [[recitative]] and [[aria]] singing, preaching throughout the necessity of [[Musical improvisation|improvising]] one's own [[grace note|graces]] and divisions on the spot in performances.

There are a few teachings of Tosi's in his ''Opinioni'' that have been particularly interesting to singers and scholars over the years. Tosi clearly advocates uniting and blending the [[vocal registers|chest and head registers]], the first recorded vocal pedagogue to do so. While earlier writers such as [[Zacconi]] and [[Giulio Caccini|Caccini]] stated that singers ought to only sing in their “natural voice,” Tosi went so far as to say “[I]f [the chest and head register] do not perfectly unite, the Voice will be of divers Registers, and must consequently lose its Beauty.”<ref>''Observations on the Florid Song'', Bel Canto Masters Study Series (Pitch Perfect, 2009), p. 11. {{ISBN|978-0-557-12293-6}}.</ref> Tosi's is also the first recorded encouragement of the use of ''[[rubato]]'' as an embellishment. While he again and again rails on singers who accidentally sing out of [[tempo]] or self-aggrandizingly hold out notes as in the modern ''[[fermata]],'' he encourages “[t]he stealing of Time […], provided he makes a Restitution with Ingenuity”; meaning, provided the singer catches back up the accompaniment, allowing them to keep tempo.<ref>p. 67.</ref>

Another interesting element of ''Opinioni'' is Tosi's discussions on [[intonation (music)|intonation]] and ''[[Solfège|sol-fa-ing]].'' During a period in which various methods of [[Musical temperament|temperament]] were used by [[Keyboard instrument|keyboards]], [[string instrument|strings]] and even singers, Tosi laments that “except in some few Professors, that modern Intonation is very bad.”<ref>p. 9.</ref> He speaks of a differing “[[Semitone]] Major and Minor” (or a larger and a smaller semitone) whose “[d]ifference cannot be known by an [[organ (music)|Organ]] or [[Harpsichord]], if the Keys of the Instrument are not [[split key|split]].”<ref>p. 9.</ref> Consequentially, he warns that “if a [[Soprano]] was to sing D sharp, like E flat, a nice Ear will find he is out of Tune, because this last rises.”<ref>p. 10.</ref> Tosi's remedy to poor intonation is to begin the singer young on ''solfege,'' using the traditional [[Hexachord#Middle Ages|gamut]] created by [[Guido of Arezzo|Guido]]. While both the Guidonian hexachord system and [[meantone|meantone temperament]] were becoming antiquated at the time Tosi wrote his treatise, he nevertheless insisted on their use.

''Opinioni'' was in fact a watershed for much more than just early [[Baroque music]] theory and tuning. Tosi spends a considerable amount of time in his treatise praising the “ancient” [[cantabile]] (or “Pathetick,” as the original translator put it) style of his generation, around the start of the 18th century. He cannot seem to understand why “the Mode” has moved to the rapid, highly ornate “[[Tempo#Italian tempo markings|Allegro]]” style popular at the time of his writing, which he lumps with insufficient singer training, ignoring the traditional [[Church modes]] and “tasteless” virtuosic displays as the great sin of the “modern” music generation. Being a pragmaticist, however, he still encourages “it will be of Use to a prudent Scholar, who is desirous to be expert in both Manners.”<ref>p. 40.</ref>

==Literature==
* Dutch Translation: "{{lang|nl|Korte Aanmerkingen over de Zangkonst, getrokken uit een Italiaansch Boek, betyteld Osservazioni sopra il canto figurato di Pier-Francesco Tosi}}" (Leyden, 1731)
*{{lang|it|Opinioni de’ cantori antichi, e moderni o sieno osservazioni sopra il canto figurato}}. (Bologna 1723).
*English Translation: ''Observations on the Florid Song''. Trans. by John Ernest Galliard, London: J. Wilcox, 1742 or 1743.
*German Translation and Extensive Commentary: {{lang|de|Anleitung zur Gesangskunst}}. By Johann Friedrich Agricola. Berlin: George Ludewig Winter, 1757. Facsimile Edition with introduction and commentary by Kurt Wichmann. Leipzig: VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1966.
*''Tosi, Pierfrancesco: Opinions of singers, Ancient and Modern, or Observations on Figured Singing,'' English translation with introduction and commentary by [[Edward Foreman]] Minneapolis, Pro Music Press, 1993
*Portuguese translation: ''[https://pantheon.ufrj.br/bitstream/11422/18519/1/ebook_opinioes-dos-cantores_2022.pdf Opiniões de cantores antigos e modernos, ou seja, Observações sobre o canto florido]''. Introduction and commentary by [[Alberto José Vieira Pacheco]] and Edoardo Sbaffi. Rio de Janeiro: Ed. UFRJ, 2022. {{ISBN|978-65-88388-20-4}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
*Malcolm Boyd/[[John Rosselli (historian)|John Rosselli]]. The ''[[New Grove Dictionary of Opera]]'', edited by Stanley Sadie (1992). {{ISBN|0-333-73432-7}} and {{ISBN|1-56159-228-5}}
*Text for this article has been excerpted by permission of the author from the introduction to P.F. Tosi ''Observations on the Florid Song'', Bel Canto Masters Study Series (Pitch Perfect Publishing, 2009). {{ISBN|978-0-557-12293-6}}.

== External links ==
* {{Gutenberg author |id=32034| name=Pier Francesco Tosi}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Pier Francesco Tosi}}
* {{IMSLP|id=Tosi, Pier Francesco}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tosi, Pier Francesco}}
[[Category:1650s births]]
[[Category:1732 deaths]]
[[Category:Castrati]]
[[Category:People from the Papal States]]
[[Category:18th-century Italian male actors]]

[[Category:Italian male classical composers]]
[[Category:Italian Baroque composers]]
[[Category:Members of the Academy of Ancient Music]]
[[Category:Italian music theorists]]
[[Category:18th-century Italian composers]]
[[Category:18th-century Italian male musicians]]

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Pier Francesco Tosi