Talk:Marietta Piccolomini

Her voice range
In the section London: "..due to her limited voice range of just over two octaves...". I invite discussion on this, though I have changed nothing, because "limited" and "just over two octaves" seem to me a contradiction. I suppose it can't be helped if the source says this. See article soprano. 82.43.177.219 (talk) 11:39, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * The source cited (Clayton, II, p. 49) just reports that Piccolomini had a range of over two octaves, and not that it was a limited one (in fact, over two octaves make quite a considerable compass!). Another source (Chorley, p. 235) states that "her voice was weak and limited—a mezzo soprano hardly one octave and a half in compass" (where I suspect that mezzo soprano in italics might be disparagingly intended to mean literally 'half a complete soprano' or 'half a complete singer'). The two sources are clearly inconsistent with each other. Chorley's technical opinion (but not his visceral aversion to the singer) seems to have been partly supported by the authoritative critic Paolo Scudo ("Revue des Deux Mondes" p. 934, translated in Clayton, pp. 389 et seq.) who does not give, however, any precise measures for Piccolomini's range. In the Italian translation (and extension) of this article, I have removed most value judgments from the biographical notes and created a new section "Caratteristiche artistiche" (artistic features) where are reported the major critics' opinions and names. I don't feel able, because of my poor English, to do the same thing in this article.--Jeanambr (talk) 17:34, 17 April 2014 (UTC)