Music: Vivaldi

[keristor]

Some time ago, in a BBC TV programme about the "Red Priest" Antonio Vivaldi, they featured an all-female choir (including female bass) who were performing his works in the style in which they were probably originally performed at the Ospedale della Pietà (some scholars have suggested that men were 'imported', but other records show that women took

Comments

[rinioth]

http://www.spav.co.uk/ perhaps

[keristor]

Thanks, they were indeed the group. My Google-fu is not strong...

[madfilkentist]

Very interesting, and it raises some disturbing thoughts. I'd known about all-male choirs, for which adult male sopranos called "castrati" were created by surgery. I can't think of any equivalent way to create female basses, other than by hormone treatment that was beyond the science of the day, so they must have gone eagerly after the few natural female basses.

[keristor]

Well, as rinioth's link indicates female tenors, baritones, and even basses aren't all that rare. We have at least three in the nMC who can easily sing in the tenor range and at least one who can get well into the baritone range (I'm not sure about the low G at the bottom of the staff but certainly below the C in the middle of the staff). I've known two women who could definitely get down to the low G with good tone (one of whom was able to go from there up to the top F on the treble staff, and quite possibly more than that

[madfilkentist]

There's a female member of our local filking group who sometimes sings an octave below me, so yes, it happens. Maybe you're right that our culture discourages it, so it seems rarer than it is.

I was once in a Unitarian Universalist choir that was tenor-heavy (all male tenors; perhaps the potential female tenors were much more needed as altos). Maybe there's less pressure on men to be baritones or basses in a UU environment than in the general culture.

[keristor]

Oh, distribution of tenors/basses is wildly variable. Where I grew up tenors were like golddust and basses were 10 a penny, 50 miles away the opposite was true (this was when people in the UK thought 100 miles was a long distance; it's still quite a long way to go for an evening rehearsal). With female voices it seems less variable, one can usually find reasonable number of both with no worse than a 2:1 ratio either way (as long as one accepts that most are actually mezzo, true contraltos and sopranos are relatively rare in amateur choirs

[cmcmck]

One female friend on my flist sings tenor so it does occur naturally.
Since Vivaldi's choir were nuns (or at least tertiaries of some kind) I can't imagine men being allowed anywhere near (and given the Red Priest's reputation, he'd have objected to the competition anyway! :o)

Fwiw and given my personal history, I'm a natural contralto, so as you say...........

[keristor]

Yes, as I said else-comment we have at least two women in the nMC[1] (with a total of 16 members) who can easily sing tenor (and often do, we swap parts a lot according to the songs' needs (I've actually sung alto, in falsetto!)) and at least one in the baritone range.

[1] The filk "n'Early Music Consort". As often with filk styles range from Gregorian Chant to Gospel, taking in Bach and G&S and Abba on the way, along with pieces composed and arranged by members of the choir and other filkers.