You may gather from my user name or my signature block that I sing tenor. I can produce a countertenor voice, and often do so when helping the altos learn a line with the church choir. However, I much prefer my "natural" sound, and wondered what countertenor singers (for example I've spotted Heslop and Barry Clari) enjoy about their particular register.

I have a few guys who sing countertenor in my studio and I think part of the attraction is singing unusual literature, singing things that are considered 'special' and aren't normally sung by men.

I don't, however, buy the fact that there is such a thing as a natural counter tenor voice - vocal research has clearly shown over recent years that counter tenor production is accessible to all men and it's not something you're born with, rather an aesthetic choice.

All counter tenors should be able to produce a good baritone or tenor sound (depending on chord thickness) as well as their counter tenor range - then afterwards it's a case of choosing which register you prefer singing in in order to learn the appropriate literature.

I don't honestly think I analyse it that deeply! I enjoy using that range, and finding stuff to sing!

Sorry not to go into any more depth, but for me it's just like my clarinetting/fluting etc. I just enjoy doing it!

For many this is a natural voice to use, even if they have a happy lower register. One of my favourites, apart from the fabulous one in the Cardiff Singer of the World competition has to be Jochen Kowalski. The most beautiful sound this side of Heaven.

Have a listen to this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_h-v9cCiZ4

Wow...lovely voice! I like Andreas Scholl too.

On a (sort of!) related topic...can you remember the name of the last Castrato? There's a recording (from 1904 or therabouts) of him on youtube but I can't remember his name to find it. Thanks.

*Sorry stetenorve!*

Have a listen to this....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhHZdXFVmjU...feature=related

I tried to post a better recording but it would not let me edit the post for some odd reason!
There will be an even better one along in a minute.

You got there first HG! Thank you.

according to Wikipedia, Alessandro Moreschi.

Yes! That's it. Thank you!

If you google "who was the last castrato?" you get Alessandro Moreschi. Is that the recording you were thinking of?

[Clearly I crossposted with the rest of the world who had also found the answer!]

The last time I heard a sound like that was about 2a.m. in the morning. It was coming from the local monastery. Unfortunately I had to teach later that morning and needed my sleep. So I went around to the monastery door, and banged loudly. The Abbot answered. I asked him if he could tone down the noise, as I wanted to get to sleep. "But we're holding a monk's ball", said he....

What's the difference between castrato and counter-tenor?

(No jokes about surgery please!)

*Nice use of the apostrophe HG! Call the grammar police!*

There is quite a difference in style now between the sort of operatic counter tenor and the male alto found in cathedral choirs. I don't know what style they might use to sing in a monastery rave! I suppose that it would depend upon the repertoire that wes deemed suitable. I don't suppose that Meatloaf's Bat out of the other place would go down too well but what a good counter tenor number it would make at a monastery karaoke night!

Oops!

My husband is a counter-tenor, and has always sung alto. (which gives people a bit of a shock sometimes as they're not expecting an alto voice from a 6'4, 15-stone man!)
Apparently his school (Westminster Cathedral, then Trinity Boys' School) had a voice teacher (David Squibb, I think? I might have got the name wrong) who got them to sing as altos for as long as they could. When they recently had a reunion, there were 60 basses, 40 tenors and 32 (male) altos!

It may well be of case of using it or losing it then.

Possibly!
My husband sings solo counter-tenor and he's an alto in the choirs he sings with. He can sing bass but I've only ever known him to do so once (in the 16 years I've known him) for a very good friend of ours who had loads of altos and about three basses.
What is a bit surprising is quite how high he can sing - provided you don't mind how loud it is (i.e. VERY) and if you're not bothered if the windows get blown out of the building, then top B flats nearly 2 octaves above middle C are a possibility!

That's a great range, Ellie! One thing, though, he ought to be able to sing those notes very quietly too - if he can't then a bit of technical work would work wonders (and I wouldn't be surprised if he even gained a note or two more by working on it).

Ellie,

steady on, you'll have your husband performing the Queen of the Night next!

I'm fascinated by all the replies so far, and thanks for the links to the youtube recordings. My wife likes Andreas Scholl's voice, but as for me, I still think why don't we men let the lady altos sing the part?

I had wondered about your username, but it had never occured to me that it had the word "tenor" in it
*is an idiot*

Gosh, David Squibb!! I know him...he and my husband used to work together as choirmaster/organist and several of my ex-primary pupils went through his hands at Trinity...

Yes, me too. Until not so long ago he used to turn up at evensong fairly regularly, but have not seen him now for a few months - so I wonder if he has moved away...

There is an edgy quality to the male countertenor voice which is not heard in womens' voices, singing at the same pitch - I would imagine it has to do with the section of vocal fold being used to produce the sound, but no doubt rosfrog can enlighten us further on that. It is that eerie quality which so captivates me when I hear a countertenor voice. Jochen Kowalski's voice is the nearest I've heard to feminine-sounding, and I've wondered if that was because he sings counter from a natural tenor range - indeed, he'd intended becoming an operatic tenor at one point. Womens' voices at countertenor pitch sound warmer and fuller - but sometimes a rôle just seems to ask for a more masculine sound - and despite the pitch, I do think that counter-tenors sound nocticeably masculine.
*thinks*
what about a female with a natural tenor range singing countertenor?

Back in the late 1960s (I think it was) there was an article in Music and Letters by David Wulstan proving with the aid of scientific equipment that the so-called "natural" countertenor voice and the traditional alto falsetto voice are exactly the same thing, produced in exactly the same way. The difference was merely one of quality, nothing more. Shortly after this I was having lunch at the RFH with James Bowman (how's that for name dropping? ), who was commonly thought to be a natural (i.e. non-falsettist) countertenor, and asked him directly. He readily admitted it was a falsetto production. On the other hand, "natural" is open to interpretation. It may feel perfectly natural for a man to sing falsetto and I have no problem whatsoever with a countertenor claiming that he is singing naturally. I would be a bit worried if he wasn't.


As said, it was Alessandro Moreschi. There is actually a whole CD's-worth of recordings by him - I picked up a copy in Oxford Street a few years ago. It also includes a couple of tracks of him singing with the Sistine Chapel Choir which is quite revealing about choral standards at the beginning of the twentieth century. It's all fascinating stuff, though there's something about Moreschi's voice that means I can't listen to the whole CD at once without ending up with a headache. I couldn't in all honesty call it a "nice" sound, though by all accounts Moreschi was past his best and wasn't the best example to begin with; also the nature of the voice seems to me (as a non singer, I hasten to add) not particularly well suited to the bel canto style of singing.


And why not? Seems as good a reason as any! Indeed, I think that is probably as much as anyone could say since the modern countertenor, as a professional solo phenomenon, seems to stem from no earlier than Alfred Deller in the twentieth century.*

True, a voice called countertenor was the solo voice of choice during the sixteenth century, but scholars seem these days to be pretty much agreed on the pitch of Tudor music and it leaves no room for falsettists. Tudor church choirs were made up of boys, tenors, baritones and basses, the basic requirement for tenors being the ability to sing up to A flat (and the odd B flat) and in the top reaches of their range much of the time. Whether such voices were more plentiful on the ground then then now, or whether a crossover into falsetto in the upper reaches was the norm, singers will have to determine!

Does anyone know when these high tenors gave way to falsettists? My guess would be during the early 1800s. In Restoration period verse anthems the standard ATB solo trio clearly requires the top part to be sung by a voice in a high tessitura (which is why they never really sound right with a contralto) so it seems logical to assume continuity with earlier practices. However, I seem to recall that there were changes in pitch standards around this time (though I don't have much information on this). Could a pitch change have made it more difficult to find sufficient countertenors, opening the door to falsettist altos?

* Falsetto singing was certainly known earlier elsewhere in Europe (notably the "tiple" parts in the church choirs of Rensaissance Spain), but the name countertenor is specifically a recognition that in Britain a voice so called was traditionally held in particular esteem as a solo voice.

[quote name='Holz Gedeckt' date='Jun 13 2009, 10:53 PM' post='837106']
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The last time I heard a sound like that was about 2a.m. in the morning. It was coming from the local monastery. Unfortunately I had to teach later that morning and needed my sleep. So I went around to the monastery door, and banged loudly. The Abbot answered. I asked him if he could tone down the noise, as I wanted to get to sleep. "But we're holding a monk's ball", said he....
[/quote]

I recently heard Andreas Scholl being interviewed on radio and he said something along the lines that he can sing as a baritone as well, but that he's a much better singer as a countertenor (singing falsetto obviously)!

Fibi - that's very true - the countertenor sound is made by using a thin fold, slightly raised plane setting in the vocal folds - as such it is accessible by all men - tenors, baritones and basses alike.

He probably sings better as a countertenor because he hasn't had enough training in how to use his thick fold setting - this is common in classical circles where many believe the countertenor voice to be a 'gift' or 'rare', and so when someone can access it easily, it is trained heavily and often exclusively to get the most out of what is seen as an unusual instrument.

If one takes it that there's nothing particularly special or unusual about it, then it would make more sense to train all parts of the voice and let the singer choose.

Countertenors can ride the wave of the whole 'gift' thing, though - currently most male singers are not shown how to make those sounds unless they can access them automatically, so there's a bit of a lack in countertenors - a decent career move for any struggling male singer could be to retrain as a countertenor! There's certainly some great stuff to sing in that register.