h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's the singing season!

We start tomorrow night, with a concert of motets by Bach and Brahms. This will be a small concert - it's my small choir, with about 20 people, and we'll be lucky if we have twice that in the audience. It will take place in the Lady Chapel of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. This is the little chapel behind the main altar. 8pm Sunday 16th Nov if anyone is interested.

Then in a couple of weeks, the big choir is performing Messiah for two nights in the same cathedral, but in the main nave. We're hoping for an audience of about a thousand each night.

Two weeks later, we have our Christmas Carols concert in the National Concert Hall, which is a nice comfortable venue (for the audience) with a bar at the interval and comfy seats.

The Messiah in a Cathedral. I am very envious, G.

There is an organ recital today in Chchch Cathedral, but I've double booked myself and will have to give it a miss. There is something quite remarkable about music (whether it be orchestral, choral or organ) that fills every nook and cranny of a cathedral

Very dear Gnoman,

You must be so happy -you love your singing. what are you - a tenor a bass or what?

I have never sung in a choir. I love to listen though .

You are all very active in Dublin.

I have not had a reply to my question about what El thought of the Julian Lloyd-Webber. she must have been very impressed.

Go welll and thank you for invitin us to your concert. We shall all be there in spirit.


Christiane
AR80

Well, the first concert went well. The Bach motets were very tricky, and we weren't note-perfect on them, but I don't think the audience noticed, which is all that matters. The concert was very enjoyable and we had an audience of about 75 people, which is more than three times the number in the choir!

Hi gnoman,

So pleased about the increase in the audience and that you rewarded them with your singing.

I am still longing to know what range your voice falls into - tenor or bass. I do not know the names of any others except aler ???? I think it is which is a very special kind of voice. !

Today is the big day so am off at 9.00 to the other place.

Christiane.
AlsoRan80

Hi Christiane. Good luck at the other place.

The normal man's voice is called a baritone. Most men can sing the full range, but some are more comfortable at the top end, while some are more comfortable at the lower end. The high singers are tenors and the low ones are basses. Most composers tend to write for tenor and bass rather than for baritone. WIthin the tenor and bass ranges, there are further subdivisions: 1sts are higher and 2nds are lower.

So you have from top to bottom, 1st tenor, 2nd tenor, 1st bass and 2nd bass. I'm a 1st bass, but I was singing 2nd bass last night because otherwise we would have had three 1st basses and only 1 second bass.

The women are similarly divided: they naturally are mezzo-sopranos, but are pushed into high and low: soprano and contralto (normally called alto), and these are further divided into 1st soprano, 2nd soprano, 1st alto and 2nd alto. Mrs G is a 1st alto.

Thank you gnoman,

You explain it so clearly.

I thought there was a voice called a "contra tenor" which an abnovmally high tenor I think.

Then the lowest woman's voice is a contralto -my mother had a friend who was one and it was quite eerie. !!

Other meeting was totally and urtterly dreadful.

I am seriously considering a vast campaign in order to have them treated as human beings and not criminals.

Brr. Grr. and every other horrid noise and action I can think of.

CME
AR79

A contra-tenor is a high-voiced male who deliberately won't do what you tell him.

B

Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!Ha!

withlaughter

Christiane - rolling on the carpet l



What have I done wrong = all my laughs and expressions did not work out. !!

There are indeed countertenors, Christiane. In the old days, boys were "encouraged" by gruesome methods to retain their prepubescent voices, which meant that they could sing an amazing range. Such men were gifted with amazing high voices, apparently the most beautiful and flexible voices every heard. These people were called "castrati", and their voices perhaps compensated for the fact that they couldn't have children.

Many composers wrote music for castrati. When the "operation" was no longer legal, there were no more castrati, so there was no-one to sing those ultra high parts, so they had a novel idea: why not get women to sing them? Outrageous! You couldn't have women singing in church. So they developed the countertenor voice, which uses "falsetto", a vocal technique which produces the high notes, but has a very strange tone. This kept people going for a long time. Although Handel used women for his "Messiah", he still used falsetto males to sing the high roles in his operas.

Of course eventually, they started using women to sing the high parts, and the voices of "contralto" and "soprano" were invented.

You can still hear countertenors - Andreas Scholl is probably the most famous, and it is worth hearing him singing Handel's "Ombra mai fu".

There is still one recording made in 1919 of the very last castrato, who sang in the Vatican - I haven't heard him, but I believe he was really something else.

Azara wrote an entry on castrati: A590348

Present day countertenors are wonderful. I'm sure they're just as nice to listen to as their original, mutilated colleagues. They sound more like a woman's voice than a boy's.

Gracious!

I never even knew they did that!


*picks Christiane up from the floor*


Tsk! You don't know what you are in

Dear Gnoman,

I really am going potty,

I replied to your lovely post and goodness knows where it has got to.

Anyway, thank you so much for replying so clearly to my questions. I am really totally appalled that they did such things. I seem to be losing a lot of posts. Perhaps I am forgetting to post them after I have written them.

Anywaym, thank you so much. Perhaps I replied on another thread.

Sincerely,

Christiane
AR80

Dear Trilians Child,

Thank you for that marvellous link.

Christiane
AR80

Well, dear lil, I am glad that you were as shocked as I was.

thank you for picking me up off the floor. I have problems when I fall out of my wheelchair. !1

Good to hear from you

Christiane Ar80

The operation never was legal; parents would present their boys to the church choir explaining how they had been the unfortunate victims of nasty accidents . . . just as the Inquisitors never condemned anyone to burn, just gave their judgement that the accused deserved it, and the soldiers saw to the bonfire.

"Contralto" is a curious one. It is used to mean a female alto, but the historical reason for this is tortuous. In the early days, say fifteenth century, there were 'contras' to every voice, but they were not different pitches; so contralto is exactly the same as alto. Now "contratenor' has come to mean a high tenor (countertenor) and contrabass has come to mean a low bass.