Dre de Man <dredeman@y...> wrote:
> I can imagine countertenors have some legitamacy
> performing Bach or other religious music, because this
> realy seems to have been been done in the past.
> Besides that, the accoustics of churches compensate
> partly for the fact that the CT-sound is poor of
> harmonics other than the first.
This is not really fair - The countertenors most of us have heard in the
last 150 years have been largely self-taught. How could you have
expected a sound on par with the highly trained opera singers we are
used to? Daniels and Asawa are the first few of a new breed of
conservatory-trained countertenors. They can sing over an orchestra.
Supposedly, a newer countertenor, Mehta, (once the famed boy soprano)
has a Strauss-sized voice.
Countertenors were not being trained in the "castrato age" (except maybe
in Spain, which was famous for the sopranist, and France which was
famous for the haute contre). Of course Handel or Gluck would not
consider the cathedral countertenors competent for opera!
I want to reiterate my notion that castration did create an otherwise
impossible voice. It simply made it much more likely that a particular
kind of voice would develop. Most men lose their upper extension during
puberty - but not all! (I maintained an easy D6 into my 20s.) Castration
meant boys with nice voices would be more likely to keep them into
adulthood. I've heard "hormonal" castrati and countertenors, and I
can't always hear the difference.
> The castratos were very good at singing never ending phrases: this
> something counter tenors are not good at.
I think is outdated information, based on the technique of falsettists,
not real countertenors. This data is probably from the time before
countertenors were being trained. Have you heard James Bowman, David
Daniels or Steven Rickards rip through half a page of coloratura on a
single breath?
> I just want to remember here of the often mentioned musical duel
> Farinelli held with a trumpet: Farinelli won! (because he was louder)
Actually, the duel was in regards to breath capacity, not loudness.
Also, the Baroque trumpet is not really all that loud... One theory is
that the castrati had greater lung space due to non-calcified ribs (a
hormonal side effect). It could have also just as easily have been that
castrati went through rigorous training and were selected from the most
talented boys in the first place.
Also, I have never seen a written pppp or ffff before Mahler's time.
Where did you get this information that castrati had such a dynamic
range?
> Now: show me the countertenor that rivals a trumpet,
> and I want to believe countertenors have anything to
> do with castratos, other than some strange ambuigity
> about their gender and sexual prefereces.
You may want to consider the possible sociological reasons why
non-heterosexual men might be more willing to pursue a marginalized
career in early music.
Please also consider the possibility that you are assuming many
countertenors are gay based on some gender ideologies to which you
subscribe. How sure are you about this statement you made about sexual
preference? We are not all gay! Are you privy to the love lives of all
countertenors? This prejudice may explain why straight men are unlikely
to try singing countertenor - they don't wish to be labeled as gay.
> We all now that after the castratos, the soprano's and
> tenors became the true stars of the stages. Nobody
> ever thought in that time of bringing countertenors on
> the operatic stage.
Countertenors were the stars in Purcell's time (he himself was a
countertenor). They are also star attractions now. If there were
countertenors like David Daniels around in Rossini's time, I'd bet he
would have had a shot at stardom too. They simply weren't available.
> By the way: there is still one living and singing
> castrato: it is black guy, who had some kind of
> fysical misfortune. It is a pity that he sings blues
> or something like that, but his biggest problem is,
> that nobody hears he is a man, he just sounds exactly
> like a woman, and most certainly not as a
> countertenor!
> If he would have had a better training, he might have
> developed qualities like some more famous castrati
> had, but he surely would not have started to sound
> like a counter tenor!
I have to take issue with this too. What's wrong with singing blues?
Why is operatic training "better"? Many other modern cultural traditions
(African-American for one, but also Chinese, Japanese, Gypsy) treasure
the high male voice. Why wouldn't a black man want to sing music in a
situation where he was valued at face value rather than considered some
circus show freak?
Of course this man doesn't sound like the countertenors you've heard -
folk musics usually have a beltier mix than "classical". I'd bet
he sounds like some popular countertenors, though. How about the lead
singers of Yes, Rush, Led Zepplin? Countertenors all, but none sound
like operatic classical countertenors.
Stepping off my soapbox now... :-)
-Tako
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