I doubt sometimes if anyone in the world besides me listens to opera (:(), but I figured if anyone knows they can probably be found here. I would like to buy Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, but I don’t know which version. Right now I’m thinking of the one with Andreas Scholl and Bonney because I like Scholl and Bonney isn’t bad either, though her voice is a little too… uh, vibrative for my taste (is that a word?). I have also heard the Emma Kirkby and James Bowman version, but I don’t plan to buy it at all because Bowman’s voice induces gag reflexes in me (I just want to like… kick him in the nads and cackle “HA! FEEL THAT? YOU’RE NOT A CASTRATO! YOU’RE NOT AN ALTO!”). I’ve heard good things about other versions but I’m not really familiar with them and that’s where you come in! You get to offer me suggestions.
Oh, and something I just don’t get about the Stabat Mater: why do they always have to have a male alto? Sure, it was written for male alto and soprano, but if they replace the soprano with a woman they might as well replace the alto too, right? I mean… the male altos sound horrible. Why do they get the part while there are plenty of more capable female singers?
Juve, an alto is not a castrato. Male and female alti are completely different timbres. I heard a woman singing Gretchaninov’s “Russian Creed” at Charles and Camilla’s non-wedding and though she was objectively a fine singer, she had nothing on Bowman. Male alti “soar”; women don’t. Why replace the soprano and not the alto? Eh, availability issues.
'part from that, I’ve got nothing on Pergolesi’s SM. Sorry.
(Btw, how’s it feel to be enharmonically the same as a military-band flute? I’ve been wondering for weeks.)
I know altos aren’t castrati. No need to Juve at me I just find most countertenors overwhelmingly mediocre and would not particularly mind if they were replaced with women. Most.
And I’ll carefully ignore your band flute question because I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’ve found going by the handle of “csharpmajor” attracts a lot of people who actually know something about music. And think I do too
I’m afraid I cannot give you useful recommendations. The version I prefer is exactly the one you don’t like, to wit the Kirkby/Bowman version with the Academy of Ancient Music. It appears you have definite preferences, which is a good thing, but which also means that it is quite impossible to give a good recommendation as you will have to listen yourself to a number of performances anyway. I’d say, go to a large record store and listen to a few performances, or do the modern thing and browse on Amazon and listen to samples.
That said, I also have a version of Fisher/Chance and the King’s Consort by Hyperion which I find fine for listening. There’s also a cheap Naxos version which I gave to a friend of mine; I’ve forgotten what it was like exactly but it wasn’t too bad. It might be more to your taste as it has two female vocalists.
Counter tenor or alto? Well, y’know, you could play Saint-Saens’s “Le Cygne” on a viola without needing to transpose - it falls comfortably within the smaller instrument’s compass - but I’m willing to bet it wouldn’t have anything like the resonance you get when it’s played on the 'cello. Similar sort of idea.
As to the other, I was just showing off. Until a year or two back I had no idea that a D-flat flute even existed, let alone why anyone would bother. But military bands are primarily composed of brass, clarinets and saxophones - a big preponderance of B-flat and E-flat instruments. That means their music is usually very flat-heavy, and the instruments built in C suffer a little. There’s nothing much that can be done for the oboe or bassoon, but a flute can have its head-joint replaced with a smaller one to ramp it up a semitone, into D-flat. Lo and behold, five flats disappear from the key signatures as if by magic. (Not everyone has 'em, of course, and so packs of band music include “concert” flute parts as well.)
And the obvious response to your username is to say “Ooh, csharpmajor, you’re so sharp you’ll cut yourself”. (You could have been cflatmajor instead, and then you’d be tuned the same as a harp.)
Mm, thanks Tusculan, but the two versions I mentioned are the only ones with previews on Amazon, and, helpfully, they’re also the only ones I can find on Limewire. I’ll see if I can find a music store with previews, though I’ve never tried buying this stuff in real life :\
Malacandra - countertenor is a range? I always thought it was just a type of singer, since “countertenors” sing both below and above the tenor (Right? Right?) which would be one hell of a vocal range for any one singer. Or something. Do you just hate women singers?
Wrong. Wrong. The distinction between “countertenor” and “male alto” is sloppily applied, but they’re pretty much the same range, and above the tenor. Naturally there’s plenty of crossover, just as there is between baritone and tenor.
Talking of a hell of a range for a vocal singer, btw, my teacher has got me down as low as the F# below the bass stave - one note off the double bass’s limit - and up to about the second C# above middle C, all in natural voice. Mostly I don’t use all of that.
Do I just hate women singers? Assuredly not, at any rate no more than I hate women generally . I don’t even hate contralti. Something like “He Was Despised” from the Messiah is exactly suited to the sombre tone of a big fat contralto (voice, not singer, though the two aren’t mutually exclusive). And one of my favourite albums is Sir John Barbirolli’s recording of “The Dream of Gerontius”, with Dame Janet Baker as an Angel to die for (as 'twere).
I have had some classical training, enough to point up a feck of a lot of rough edges in the any-old-how technique I’ve been improvising for the past thirty-odd years with an adult voice. It’s interesting that, as a bass-baritone, I’ve been trained by a semi-pro opera tenor who himself has been trained by a pro bass.
Music theory, OTOH, has been one of the facets of my geekiness for at least 35 years, though there are always surprises (such as finding out about the D-flat flute, to which my initial reaction was ).
In “alto/counter-tenor” register, I’ve sung Purcell’s “Come ye Sons of Art”, though the range for the part I sang wasn’t huge - A below middle C to second D above. When I’m really crankin’, I can get up to the G at the top of the treble stave, but it’s not easy. Mind you, even as a boy treble I couldn’t get much higher. I’m seriously envious of the kids who can hit the high Cs in Allegri’s Miserere – which brings us right back to castrati again, if you’re interested.
Speaking from experience, Pergolesi’s Stabat mater is gorgeous–absolutely thrilling–when it’s done by two very pure-voiced young soprano soloists in a church-like acoustic setting. I think the Toronto Children’s Chorus, from where I hail, has a good recording on one of their CDs.
The distinction between “countertenor” and “male alto” is sloppily applied, but they’re pretty much the same range, and above the tenor. Naturally there’s plenty of crossover, just as there is between baritone and tenor.
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