TODAY'S ‘countertenor’ – a man whose singing is exclusively or predominantly in falsetto – is widely seen as the very emblem of early vocal music. Once confined to the Anglican choir-stall, he is now accepted in all manner of vocal ensembles and has achieved international status as a soloist, not least on the world's great operatic stages. Naturally enough, the rise of this new/old voice-type has attracted plenty of comment and speculation en route. Yet for the most part the modern countertenor's historical credentials have simply been taken on trust. Indeed, the undoubted complexity of establishing a reliable history for the voice, combined with its unassailable place as a linchpin of the Anglican choir and its evident allure for audiences, have ensured that scholars and performers alike have generally been content not to probe too deeply.

Irrespective of possible conclusions, a root and branch reappraisal of key evidence and of familiar thinking is badly needed. My aim here is therefore to clarify where, when, how and why falsetto singing may have been practised in previous eras. Or more specifically, to dare to ask whether any such voice-type was actually cultivated before the 16th century. Although much of the inquiry is necessarily concerned with church vocal ensembles and with early and sparsely documented periods, its consequences for an accurate understanding of 17th- and 18th-century practices, solo as well as choral, are considerable. For if falsetto singing is simply believed to have been an endemic feature of medieval life (as our film-makers evidently suppose), it is all too easy to assume its continued cultivation thereafter.

The issues to be addressed are both numerous and disparate, encompassing familiar and unfamiliar concepts and drawing on a broad range of sources (archival, theoretical, literary and musical). This crossexamination is therefore presented not as a single narrative but as a series of discrete critical case studies. (In order to keep the main text as plain as possible in what is inevitably a complex investigation, useful subsidiary material has been confined to footnotes and Appendices.)

LINES OF REASONING

IT may be as well to start in relatively familiar territory. In recent decades two related accounts of the 16th- and early 17th-century English ‘countertenor’ have held sway.