queerly beloveds

I'm beyond delighted to finally be able to share Something Spectacular with you. It's out today in all the formats (ebook, paperback & audio, the latter narrated by the appropriately spectacular Robyn Holdaway). I also understand from Mary that you can get the audio at a reduced price if you buy the ebook because of whispersync or something? In any case, I'm continuing my "I don't know what I did to deserve this but please don't ever let it change" trend of being beyond blessed when it comes to narrators: Robyn has delivered a pitch perfect performance here. Their Peggy is everything I imagined & their Orfeo is so sexy it legit makes me shiver. I do hope you enjoy.

For anyone who's read or is reading the book, you can probably tell I had a tremendous amount of fun taking cheap shots at popular Regency music and picking songs for Orfeo to sing. Given that this series as a whole treats anachronism very much as a feature not a bug, I basically went with pieces that were thematically resonant over what would necessarily have been typical for the time period. Castratri and the baroque operas in which they flourished, were sort of on the decline by the early nineteenth century. But as everyone's favourite fictional clock reminds us, if it ain't baroque, don't fix it. Which is to say, I felt baroque was needed, so I brought the fucking baroque.

With all usual provisos that I Am Not An Expert & Could Well Be Talking Out Of My Arse here's some in-depther musings about the music in the book

I think the musical soiree at the beginning is, at least, reasonably on trend for the period. 

• Here's a link to the full collection of Charles Burney's Sonata's for Four Hands. Peggy bids you enjoy.
• Here's a link to the not very silent 'Still silence reigns around' from Thomas Arne's Artaxerxes, which was apparently so over-popular during the Regency that Austen complained about it being tiresome not once but twice in her letters to Cassandra.
• I have honestly forgotten which specific CPE Bach (not to be confused with Johann Seb) cello concerto I was specifically thinking about: tbh, they're all pretty sturm and drangy. Try this one maybe. It would definitely send me into a melancholy spiral at a musical soiree. 
• & finally, here is Come Fill, Fill My Good Fellow.  Fun times for all.

As for Orfeo:

• The aria they sing at the soiree is 'Ombra mai fu' from Handel's Serse, an opera which flopped pretty hard at the time for the reasons Orfeo discusses. While the opera itself remains moderately unloved, this particular aria has independently become incredibly popular. I mean, you can sort of see (hear) why: even if it is a dude expressing his tender feelings for a tree. The version I'm directing you to is sung by the countertenor Franco Fagioli and it is abso-fucking-lutely chef's kiss. You probably won't faint. But I reckon you theoretically could. 
• The opera Orfeo is performing in while they're in London doesn't make a whole lot of sense, I'll be the first to admit.  It's Leonardo Vinci's (not to be confused with Leonardo Da Vinci, God how much of the history of music is just being like, no not that one, this other one) Artaxerxes: a hyper baroque opera, originally written for four castrati and a tenor. I think I kind of assumed that women would play the women in the version Orfeo performs in but, honestly, I mostly chose it because I love the living hell out of this piece of extravagant batshittery. Do not even get me started on the plot (the bit where Orfeo tries to explain it in the book is pretty accurate) but the aria (performed magnificently here by Fagioli again) that throws poor Sir Horley into crisis is 'Vo Solcando Un Mar Crud' ('I am crossing a cruel sea'). The way the rise and fall of the music mimics, y'know, the rise and fall of a cruel sea was some seriously hot shit for the time. It's a total showstopper in baroque terms.
• Orfeo's final song, the one performed at the masquerade ball, is 'Parto ti lascio o cara' from Porpora's Germanico (written originally for his pupil Caffarelli): another incredibly demanding showstopper, but in the 'make you cry' rather than 'make you breathless' mould. I can't find a countertenor performing it so have the fabulous Cecilia Bartoli instead.

& if you're curious about how castrati might have sounded in general? Well, that's complicated but:

• This is a recording of the last castrato, Alessandro Moreschi, singing Ave Maria. This is ... honestly kind of difficult to listen to. But if you do want to, please bear in mind that Moreschi was late in his career by the time this was recorded and recording technology was, err, not very advanced so I think it's more a ghost of what a castrato  could have sounded like than a useful insight into what it might actually have been like to hear one perform. I think what does carry across time and limited technology is the seamless way he switches registers from head voice to chest voice. The sheer power and control behind that is pretty extraordinary. 
• Obviously it's not the same--and shouldn't be considered so--but there are some really talented countertenors working today whose voices are probably the closest we can get to those for which castrato parts would likely have been written. Maybe look into Philippe Jaroussky, Max Emanuel Cencic, and Franco Fagioli
• There's also the queer sopranist, Samuel Mariño, who semi-recently put out a fascinating (and fabulous) album called Sopranista.
• Finally, Cecilia Bartoli (who I just independently adore) has released a couple of albums focusing specifically on music written originally for castrati. Given this style of opera is out of fashion (although it is coming back a bit) and we no longer (thankfully) have castrato to perform these roles, Bartoli's albums are one of the few ways to hear some of these arias actually being sung. The albums in question are Farinelli (songs that Farinelli was specifically known to have performed) and Sacrificium
• Finally, if you find you're super super into this stuff, you can get a DVD of a theatrical performance of Vinci's Artaserse performed by four countertenors in the four principle roles - which is a fucking incredible experience. The full album is on Spotify but it's such a spectacle that it might be the sort of thing that you just need to see somehow. The whole thing might also be on YouTube if you look (although I seem to recall the subtitles are in French, not you really need them, this is just four hours of people feeling their feels at each other in increasingly complicated ways). 

I'm afraid last edition's reasonable length newsletter was a fluke, an aberration, an outlying data point.  Please brace for, well, everything.

Starting with:

That's right: Something Fabulous is on sale right now! You don't have to read it to jump into Something Spectacular but it probably helps? 

The UK edition of Mortal Follies also has its own cover now (art by the wildly talented Radiante Mozzarelle). This absolutely stunning version of the art will grace the ebook, probably the audio (?) and ... my first ever HARDCOVER!  Ahhhh!

Mortal Follies is also available on UK NetGalley for anyone who wants, y'know, request it!

Afterlight/Illumicrate are doing an exclusive London Calling special edition of Boyfriend Material and Husband Material. They are signed, Royal format hardbacks, and feature all exclusive:

• Redesigned covers with illustrations by @vkelleyart, and overall design by @chattynora
• Digitally printed edges by @chattynora
  
• Foil on the hardback by @chattynora
• Endpaper artwork by @llstarcasterll
• Bound in author letters

From Illumicrate’s website:

The set is priced at £45 + shipping and VAT if applicable, and will be shipping in June/July. This set comes under our ‘Box Subscription’ shipping category, and our shipping rates can be viewed at illumicrate.com/shipping-rates. General sale starts at 3pm BST on Thursday 18th May. 

We will be holding a presale for active Afterlight subscribers. Details of when this is will be emailed out on Wednesday 10th May (the presale will not take place on this day).

Finally: 

Cover reveal coming for Ten Things That Never Happened this Thursday! So keep your eyes peeled on social media. Honestly, i'm so excited. It's another absolute masterpiece from Elizabeth Turner Stokes. 

Actually not quite finally: I have something else in the pipeline that is a bit new and I hope is going to be, like, a lot of fun. I'm kinda nervous. In any case, I'll be in touch about that next week. I know, I know I'm such a tease. 

<3