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The year 1601 saw the publication of two extraordinary books in Northern Italy – one in Florence, the other in Ferrara – each destined to be landmarks not only of their own respective disciplines, but also, each in their own ways, as exemplars of a profound shift in both cultural and scientific ways of describing the voice. Both were lavishly illustrated with state-of-the-art graphics: the first, Giulio Caccini’s Le nuove musiche (literally: ‘New Songs’), was one of the first books of music which tried, using the latest advances in type-setting, to describe for its readers the way that contemporary singers actually used their voices to perform and adorn composed music – complete with all the improvisations, interpretative gestures and ornamentations normally added spontaneously in the moment of the performance.  The other book, the Anatomical History of the Organs of Voice and Hearing by the famous Paduan anatomist Julius Casserius, included the most detailed images of dissections of the larynx and ear yet seen, in a series of extraordinarily precise engravings. In other words each tried to represent the voice ‘as it really is’ in the age that saw the births of both opera and modern science. This lecture, which starts by wondering if these phenomena are in any way connected, explores the relationship between singing and anatomy at the site where they both meet – the human voice – and will also be lavishly illustrated, not only with historical descriptions, quotations and images but also with live performances of Renaissance songs.

Richard Wistreich is both a professional singer and an academic. For more than three decades he has specialised in the performance of the virtuoso vocal music of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, collaborating with many of the most famous names in early music, touring and performing throughout the world in concerts, operas and recordings with over one hundred CD projects and countless broadcasts, including with his distinguished accompanist at today’s lecture-recital, the lutenist Elizabeth Kenny. As a cultural historian, he researches and writes about the history of singing and, more generally, about the part played by the voice in the construction of modern identity. He came to Newcastle University as Head of Performance in 2003 after twelve years as Professor of Singing in the Early Music Institute of the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Trossingen, Germany, where he was also Director from 1999–2001 and is now Senior Lecturer in Music History. He has recently published Warrior, Courtier, Singer: Giulio Cesare Brancaccio and the Performance of Identity in Renaissance Italy and co-edited the Cam,bridge Companion to Monteverdi.