Talk:Popoli di Tessaglia!

May 2016
...though the insanity of "Ma che vi fece, o stelle … Sperai vicino il lido" KV 368 is perhaps still unsurpassed even by this: in KV 368 you are expected to reach F6 and hold it for a whole bar, in the middle of a connected phrase that starts at the F5, leaps up to F6, and arpeggiates down to E♭4. (Its form is also pretty interesting.) The tessitura literally sits in the high fifth octave, instead of the lower end of the fifth octave in Popoli (with the exception of the famous G6s, which are at least stepped up to, and last so short that you can just use whistle-register squeaks). Simone Kermes has to breathe in it, but Elfriede Hobarth superhumanly negotiates it without a break (OK, so she's sharp on the F4 later, but who cares after such an awesome feat?) Of course Dessay does it perfectly in her recording, but she can't do that anymore, which really makes one all the more impressed with Aloysia for doing all this as a teenager(!). (Then again, KV 368 was probably written for Elisabeth Wendling.) Truly, these must be some of the only great pieces of music where extraordinary biology matters more than technique and skill in terms of getting a perfect result. Double sharp (talk) 14:35, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

The A6 requested by Umlauf of Aloysia
See this book:

Double sharp (talk) 14:08, 25 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't believe anyone has recorded this, BTW (and musically it's rather dire), although given everyone's love of incredibly high notes I suspect that it will happen at some point. I suppose one could then call the G6 the highest note in the standard repertoire, except that while its composer (Mozart) is certainly in the standard repertoire, this piece probably would not qualify because of the low number of people who can sing it. So I must admit that I am not really sure how to correct the GWR's claim gracefully. Double sharp (talk) 09:09, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe some explanations are in order: Mozart's K. 368 has articles in French and Spanish: Ma che vi fece... Sperai vicino il lido. The Mr Umlauf mentioned above is Ignaz Umlauf, and the fragment above is from the opening aria "Senkt kühle Schatten" from his 1782 opera Das Irrlicht. HTH. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:27, 3 January 2021 (UTC)