Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface: A Declaration of Disinterest
- Acknowledgements
- CHAPTER 1 The Discovery of Alfred Deller
- EXTEMPORE 1 An Inartistic Trick: Physiology and Terminology
- CHAPTER 2 The Ancient World to the Middle Ages
- EXTEMPORE 2 A Famine in Tenors: The Historically Developing Human Larynx
- CHAPTER 3 Renaissance Europe
- EXTEMPORE 3 Are We Too Loud? The Impact of Volume on Singing Styles
- CHAPTER 4 Late Medieval and Renaissance England
- EXTEMPORE 4 Reserved Spaniards: Cultural Stereotypes and the High Male Voice
- CHAPTER 5 Baroque Europe
- EXTEMPORE 5 Into Man's Estate: Changing Boys' Voices and Nascent Falsettists
- CHAPTER 6 Baroque England
- EXTEMPORE 6 A Musicological Red Herring: The Etymology of the Counter-Tenor
- CHAPTER 7 The Nineteenth Century
- EXTEMPORE 7 The Bearded Lady: Gender Identity and Falsetto
- CHAPTER 8 The Early Twentieth Century
- EXTEMPORE 8 The Angel's Voice: Falsetto in Popular Music
- CHAPTER 9 The Modern Counter-Tenor
- Bibliography
- Index
EXTEMPORE 6 - A Musicological Red Herring: The Etymology of the Counter-Tenor
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface: A Declaration of Disinterest
- Acknowledgements
- CHAPTER 1 The Discovery of Alfred Deller
- EXTEMPORE 1 An Inartistic Trick: Physiology and Terminology
- CHAPTER 2 The Ancient World to the Middle Ages
- EXTEMPORE 2 A Famine in Tenors: The Historically Developing Human Larynx
- CHAPTER 3 Renaissance Europe
- EXTEMPORE 3 Are We Too Loud? The Impact of Volume on Singing Styles
- CHAPTER 4 Late Medieval and Renaissance England
- EXTEMPORE 4 Reserved Spaniards: Cultural Stereotypes and the High Male Voice
- CHAPTER 5 Baroque Europe
- EXTEMPORE 5 Into Man's Estate: Changing Boys' Voices and Nascent Falsettists
- CHAPTER 6 Baroque England
- EXTEMPORE 6 A Musicological Red Herring: The Etymology of the Counter-Tenor
- CHAPTER 7 The Nineteenth Century
- EXTEMPORE 7 The Bearded Lady: Gender Identity and Falsetto
- CHAPTER 8 The Early Twentieth Century
- EXTEMPORE 8 The Angel's Voice: Falsetto in Popular Music
- CHAPTER 9 The Modern Counter-Tenor
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The fact that Elford […] had a range as low as A at the bottom of the bass stave is a musicological red herring, for either Elford was a tenor […] in which case he should not have called himself a counter tenor, or, more likely, this note was falsetto.
G. M. Ardran and David WulstanImagine you are at some large governmental function, and are asked if you would like to meet the ‘secretary’. Armed only with that information, as you are taken across the room perhaps you idly assume the person you are about to meet will have certain office skills, and a relatively passive working nature. You may even make an inappropriate assumption about the secretary's gender. When you then learn that this same person is actually Secretary of State, you may want to revise some of your assumptions. You may also regret the imprecision of language – that one term can be expected to cover such a broad remit: but would you hold the individual responsible for the vagaries of his or her job title?
If a single term can mean two things at the same time and place, we should hardly be surprised that historically it can cover an even broader range of options. This self-evident (but easily forgotten) truth has already been aired in this book. Now, though, we need to think about it with reference to the ‘counter-tenor’ and its companion terms.
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- Information
- The Supernatural VoiceA History of High Male Singing, pp. 144 - 148Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2014