# Were countertenors specifically called for in Early Music?



## Forsooth (Apr 17, 2018)

Hi,

I just listened to an album of music composed by Giovanni Paolo Colonna, 1637-1695, ('Motetti e Lamentazioni') performed by Ensemble Arte-Musica. The singing was performed by soprano, mezzo-soprano (I think), baritone, and countertenor. 

When Colonna wrote this set of works, would he (most likely) have specifically called for a countertenor? 
It would seem that the countertenor voice would have been an unusual one and difficult to find.

Thanks, just curious.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

According to Wikipedia Castrati date from about AD400 in Constantinople until early 1200s, possibly continued in Spain when under muslim rule then reappeared in Italy 16th C, so it may be likely that Colonna wrote for Castrati


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## Forsooth (Apr 17, 2018)

Dorsetmike said:


> According to Wikipedia Castrati date from about AD400 in Constantinople until early 1200s, possibly continued in Spain when under muslim rule then reappeared in Italy 16th C, so it may be likely that Colonna wrote for Castrati


Well, thanks. So for important functions and services in larger cathedrals or churches, Castrati would probably have been available. As a matter of fact, it turns out that Colonna was a composer, etc., who served some of the most important leaders and officials in Italy at the time. This is also from Wikipedia:



> Giovanni Paolo Colonna (16 June 1637 - 28 November 1695) was an Italian composer, teacher, organist and organ builder. In addition to being chapel-master and organist of San Petronio Basilica in Bologna, he served prominent members of the courts of Ferrara, Parma, Modena and Florence. He was a founder-member and president of the Accademia Filarmonica di Bologna. Emperor Leopold I collected manuscripts of his sacred music, which reflects the Roman church cantata style of Giacomo Carissimi and looks forward to the manner of George Frideric Handel.


Still, I wonder if his manuscripts might have included a notation saying something like, "Written for Castrati or, if not available, use female low soprano or male falsettist." Meh, probably not.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

This is an interesting subject that was addressed in this thread: Countertenors in Bach, Telemann, Rameau, etc...

Some believe the falsetto countertenor is a modern invention.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Forsooth said:


> Hi,
> 
> I just listened to an album of music composed by Giovanni Paolo Colonna, 1637-1695, ('Motetti e Lamentazioni') performed by Ensemble Arte-Musica. The singing was performed by soprano, mezzo-soprano (I think), baritone, and countertenor.
> 
> ...


There were professional falsetti in Rome at the time. By the mid 17th century, the falsetto voice was cultivated in parts of Italy.



Forsooth said:


> " Meh, probably not.


Indeed


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## Forsooth (Apr 17, 2018)

isorhythm said:


> This is an interesting subject that was addressed in this thread: Countertenors in Bach, Telemann, Rameau, etc...
> 
> Some believe the falsetto countertenor is a modern invention.


Thanks for the link! I did a search before posting but I missed this one. :tiphat:


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## Forsooth (Apr 17, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> There were professional falsetti in Rome at the time. By the mid 17th century, the falsetto voice was cultivated in parts of Italy.


Thanks, and I was also reading this from classiccat.net:

After approximately the Baroque period _"…it was as choral singers within the Anglican church tradition that countertenors survived throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. Otherwise they largely faded from public notice…In the second half of the 20th century, the countertenor voice went through a massive resurgence in popularity, partly due to pioneers such as Alfred Deller, by the increased popularity of Baroque opera and the need of male singers to replace the castrati roles in such works. Although the voice has been considered largely an early music phenomenon, there is a growing modern repertoire"_

https://www.classiccat.net/iv/countertenor.info.php


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

In Colonna's day Italians, unlike the French, accepted and liked falsetto singing in their tenor voices. From what we know about late seventeenth century singing in Italy, singers likely used more than one vocal register. Falsetto and head voice would have been necessary to achieve the upper reaches of an expanding range. In his 1723 treatise on singing, the castrato Pier Francesco Tosi writes that blended registers and access to the falsetto voice are absolute essentials for a successful singer. More recently, Rene Jacobs has argued that all Baroque singers cultivated the ability to unite chest voice and falsetto, the haute-contre (countertenor) included. According to Jacobs, "If modern falsettists would abandon their preconceptions and would use their chest voice to their individual limits, and if some high tenors would develop their falsetto range, then the rebirth of the true Baroque countertenor might occur."


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

My father and I both sang counter tenor - smoking and lack of use finally killed mine when I was about 45! I found it came naturally to me almost as though my voice never broke. I was singing the soprano/treble line in Stainer's Crucifiction in my late 20s, I did start to loose some of the upper register in my late 30s but could still take the alto parts and occasionally could still get about an octave and a half above middle C on a good day.


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