At 11:57 PM 1/3/02 +0100, Dré de Man wrote:
>BBC Music magazine says:
>“It is sometimes said (by soprano’s?) that most mezzo’s are simply
>soprano’s with no top.
And while I'm in the mood for being opinionated...
I keep running into this attitude that a mezzo is a woman who can't sing
high enough to be a soprano; or a baritone is a man who can't sing high
enough to be a tenor. Range, range, range! It's all about "range". Truth
be told, my favorite female voice is the mezzo. Those "chocolatey-sweet"
voices are sooooo sublime, A soprano singing low doesn't necessarily have
the wonderful quality of the mezzo, IMO Her voice just isn't as rich or
sultry *to me*.
Further, my favorite male voices are the baritone & bass-baritone; powerful,
authoritative, really masculine. The tenor singing low, doesn't give me the
same sense of security and warmth.
As children in the schoolyard, we've all engaged in competition. For boys,
it was who could throw a rock farther or spit higher (among other more
vulgar things). The attitude towards range and fach seems so reminiscent of
that behavior. I think what makes baritones and mezzos special is that very
warm rich tonal quality that is predominantly theirs. I am not a tenor just
because I can sing higher. I'm a tenor because I'm not a baritone; I just
can't sound like one, no matter how hard I tried.
Sorry for my "ranty" tonal quality,
GWendel
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