In his youth, Dr. Stephen
Westmoreland’s favorite hobby was music. He studied piano and voice,
performing in a number of contests. He gained recognition and won
various awards and scholarships to summer music programs. He studied with
concert pianist Lilli Kelleti and had the honor of playing for the eminent
Hungarian pianist and composer Ernst von Dohnányi. His university studies were
both in the U.K. and the U.S. After several years teaching, he
opened a private behavioral health clinic and was Program Director.
During this time, he maintained his interest in classical music and conducted research
on Baroque vocal music and the male high voice, giving lectures on the
subject. His information has been utilized by various music professors
and an opera company. Now retired, he is able to devote more time to his
musical interest. He has continued his research, discussed the
human singing voice with various singers such as male sopranos, sopranists, and
countertenors, and shared many examples of exceptionally fine voices on
his YouTube channel. It is a great pleasure to have such a distinguished
authority.
In this short presentation, I
suggest to the reader to reconsider any potential decision to lump together
high-tessitura female and male voices as being about the same. I hear and
read this comment from time to time.
Although I enjoy and have studied a
wide spectrum of music, my preferred specialty for several years has been
Baroque vocal music. Over the last generation or two, singers, directors,
and audiences gradually have shown an increased interest in the vocal works
written for castrati. Because the era of castrati is long
gone, a frequent solution has been to cast such roles with women. These
efforts continue to be met with relative success or failure depending upon the
quality of the voices and the training of the singers.Not surprisingly, the casual
listener conveniently equates high voices with female and low voices with
male. If, for example, a male sings with a high tessitura, whether
naturally or with falsetto, some listeners fail to analyze what they hear
beyond their simple conclusion. I recall during one of my lectures, a
music professor and Julliard graduate exclaimed, “Why, he sounds just like a
woman!” One irritated response was, “No, he does not!” I suggest
that there are two major factors in one’s ability to discern male voices from
female voices other than tessitura: musical experience and innate musical
sensitivity.
Other than through musical education
and experience, the degree to which a listener is able to discern the
difference between male and female singers also is determined by a genetic
secondary-intelligence keyed toward musical perception. Each of us possesses
a variety of secondary intelligences, but to varying degrees. This factor
contributes to our uniqueness. I have friends who are classical-music
lovers and who have listened to the Met for many years but who admit to not
being able to perceive the differences between voices of the same tessitura, or
for that matter, any musical nuance. One states that, to her, music is an
unfathomable foreign language. There are others of us, however, who have
a very acute hearing and the ability to perceive fine nuances in sound.
I, for example, have surprised myself by hearing radio broadcasts of piano
recitals and identifying the brand of the piano, such as Steinway, Baldwin,
Bechstein, or Bösendorfer (the one I chose for myself because of its sound and
touch.)
Yes, it is true that we also are
aware that vocal timbre varies somewhat from individual to individual singer
because of variations in physical structure as well as vocal training. As
a consequence, a few female voices, such a Maria Cristina Kiehr, may sound
somewhat more “masculine,” and a male singer, such as natural male soprano Radu
Marian, may sound somewhat more “feminine,” not exclusively because of his high
tessitura, but also because of his timbre. Regardless, the acute listener
will detect general differences between male and female voices.
Recent studies, such as those by
Christine Mecke and Johann Sundberg, have revealed that such differences exist
even among young boys and girls, despite the fact that most people do not stop
to consider the question because all children have undeveloped voices.
The history of boys choirs stems not exclusively from mere tradition or
religious doctrine. A generally unified sound results from boys’ choirs
or girls’ choirs, but less so from mixed. The sounds produced are
discernibly different, even at an early age. Such differences increase
significantly as boys and girls approach puberty. As a boy soprano grows,
the sound of his voice changes, and not only from the beginning of the effect
upon the physical voice-structure itself. A larger body, larger chest and
breath capacity, larger head, larger jaw and mouth, and larger resonating
chambers, result in a fuller, richer, stronger sound. Also as the voice
begins to change, the deeper notes begin to take on a somewhat heavier sound,
whereas the top notes have more force. The boy may be singing soprano;
however, the voice does not resemble that of a girl.
When it comes to the question of how
best to cast male roles in Baroque operas or for other similar works such as
oratorios, motets, and cantate, a male sound is preferable if possible to
acquire. With the relatively recent rediscovery and renewal of interest
in Baroque vocal music, such considerations are important, especially
considering that 80% of operas were written before the year 1800, and 70% of
the roles were for alto or soprano castrati. Of course, we no longer are
producing artificially more than 4,000 potential singers per year, as was the
custom during the Baroque golden age. We have only a handful of natural
male sopranos and altos whose voices result from a variety of causes, such as
Kallmann’s Syndrome. The music world has developed, however, improved
methods of training the growing number of singers who choose to be countertenors.
As a fortunate consequence,
adult men who sing high tessitura (be they natural male altos or sopranos,
countertenors, or sopranists), who have been trained in the Baroque style, will
sing with a noticeably male timbre, power, and breath capacity. Then
there is the additional advantage with on-stage performances where the physical
appearance of men playing men’s roles may be preferable. With the growing number of
countertenors, I have heard some superb singers, many average ones, and a few
unfortunate ones. Despite the fact that producing and financing Baroque
operas is difficult and often avoided, the best countertenors can not fill all
the roles available. If carefully chosen, a female singer can do
well. One director told me that he had attempted to hire a rare male
soprano for a lead role, but he was already booked-up. The director then
offered the role to a countertenor who had sung the role before; however, he
found the tessitura too high for comfort. The director then was fortunate
enough to find a female singer whose voice and acting, as well as her
understanding of Baroque opera, were so successful that the director hired her
two years later for the role of Rinaldo. Despite her not having a truly
male timbre, she was good enough for my suspension of disbelief to be
relatively easy. I do wonder, however, how much more fascinating the
performances would have been with the male soprano. I have heard him live
before. His soprano tessitura does have a male timbre, and his
masculine form on stage works well.
