glenm@mako.UUCP (Glen McCluskey) (04/22/85)
I recently went to a performance of Handel's oratorio "Jephtha". The part of the lover of Jephtha's daughter was played by Randall Wong, who has mastered the art of singing falsetto over a two octave range. My question is this: he didn't appear to have much volume or oomph to his singing. Is this peculiar to him, or because of singing falsetto, or is it the way the part is supposed to be sung? Glen McCluskey ..tektronix!mako!glenm
dep@allegra.UUCP (Dewayne Perry) (04/23/85)
[I really wasn't cut out for this job!] The use of male voices for treble sounds has a long history. Our present day incarnations include boys choirs (much more a part of the tradition in England and Europe than here) and counter-tenors. What you heard was a practicing counter-tenor, which as you described is singing falsetto. Mind you, this is no mean feat - while you correctly observed that there is not much power, it is extremely hard to get the amount of power just to get to that point. There have been a number of noted practicioners (eg, Alfred Deller) and they are often associated with the performance of relatively early music (up through the baroque generally). For a contemporary group that really makes terrific use of counter tenors in all styles of music, give a listen to the King Singers (there are about 15 albums available here in the states on the MMG label) - there are two counter tenors, a tenor, two baritones and one bass. Everything from madrigals to pop (try "The Gambler" in the album "New Day"). So much for current incarnations. Up through the middle of the 18th century, it was common practice for male voices to be used in all parts of performed vocal music. In fact, most of the opera stars in the 17th-18th century were male (well, at least they started out that way) with very few female singers (though there were some quite famous ones). The then current practice was to take any boy vocalist who showed any promise whatsoever and turn them into Castrati (Kingsley Amis has a novel about them, though I cant remember the name of it). While the gamble only worked a small percentage of the time, the results were apparently spectacular: male soprano and alto voices of extreme power and agility (most likely with the "white" sound of boy sopranos) such that many of the parts written for them in baroque opera are sung only with great difficulty by sopranos of today. One of the reasons for the power and long lines was physical: they developed what might be described as pouter-pigeon chests with great lung capacity. Ah, the good old days when they coud carry a line :-). Apparently, there was still a castrato living into this century who made a recording - I remember reading about it somewhere, but cant remember where. As in language design, it is what you leave out that is important! Dewayne