Abstract
Music historians have long agreed that by the end of the 1830s, the Romantic tenor had replaced his predecessor by extending the robust resonances of the so-called chest voice towards the higher pitches of the compass. In this manner, a group of singers established some of the basic characteristics of the tenor voice as we know it today. This chapter challenges this historical view through an autoethnographic study of early recordings. Using the author's 'insider knowledge' as a professional opera singer, selected pre-electrical recordings by Enrico Caruso are examined and compared with those of two of his contemporaries, Alessandro Bonci and Giovanni Zenatello. The excerpts analysed and discussed highlight that, as late as the 1910s, a universal idea of how a tenor's upper range, and therefore the 'top notes from the chest', should sound was still far from being established. These new insights from early recordings not only help re-evaluate previous historical reconstructions of the tenor voice but also offer fresh creative perspectives to singing students and professional performers.