[2] To be properly executed, the only feature of the note being sung that should change is the volume, not the pitch, intonation, timbre, or vibrato.
[a] In its three-page "Avvertimento sopra il precedente sonetto" ("Note on the previous sonnet"), Mazzocchi asked for performance "scritto à rigore" ("strictly as written").
[b] By the eighteenth century, Martha Feldman argued, the technique was a castrato hallmark entailing masterly breath control.
Thus music historian Bonnie Gordon argued that the technique was also associated with instruments, to which singers were compared in terms of vocal control.
Pace, mio Dio", from La Forza del destino, is a later example in the transition from bel canto singing.
Messa di voce became less common in the less stylized, speech-like singing of Romantic music of the mid- and late nineteenth century.
[12] Gentle messa di voce exercises are sometimes used to help treat a variety of voice disorders, including nodules and polyps.