The countertenor and his two voices

It's no secret to the people around me that I have a "thing" for countertenors. I'm simply fascinated by the sound of a countertenor voice; a voice that doesn't really sound like a man, then again not like a woman and not like child either, just some undefined sound of beauty.

Maybe people in the industry or in the small community of countertenors roll their eyes at this common description of their singing, as a lot of them are keen to make people view them as "just normal singers" equal to tenors, baritones and basses, not some other-worldly creature or something, in a way, unnatural or strange.

If they should be offended by my description above - I apologize, it was not my intention to be inaccurate, mocking or anything like that. But I do see why they can grow tired of defending themselves. Look up a performance of any countertenor on youtube and you're guaranteed to find comments along the lines of "Is that a woman?" or "He has got to be gay". People even include castration and hormonal disorders in their theories. It seems many jump to the conclusion that when a man is able to sing like that, something has to be wrong - it can't be a "real" man.

But these opinions are not only expressed on youtube. Philippe Jaroussky mentioned in an interview once that during a church concert in France, a teenage girl in the audience had cracked up laughing the instant he started to sing. Andreas Scholl, also in an interview, joked about the "taboo" around the countertenor voice by introducing himself like in an AA meeting - "Hello, my name is Andreas and I'm a countertenor". As a mere fan of countertenors I've even experienced people's misconceptions first hand - as I was trying to explain the difference between a castrato and a countertenor to some friends over lunch, I was told to change the subject because "we're eating".

Which would have been understandable had I gone into the gruesome details of what the castrati had to go through in order to keep their golden voices intact, but even when I didn't it was apparently too much. Therefore I will simply say, just to make the difference clear, that whereas a castrato had one voice which was very high and very flexible, a countertenor has one singing voice - head voice - and one speaking voice, which sounds like the normal speaking voice of any man. (I'm emphasizing this because it seems people sometimes think countertenors also speak in a high voice.)

Adding to that the misconception that countertenors have to be gay, no wonder the countertenors feel the need to defend themselves - sometimes by giving their audience a glimpse of their "other voice" in performances or recordings, or by moving into other musical genres.

For his CD of folk songs, Andreas Scholl included several tracks in which he used both of his voices to tell the story in the song; a conversation between two people. In his case it was not only the rare sound of his deeper voice that came as a surprise, but also the ease with which he switched between the two voices, creating the illusion of actually hearing two different singers.



Philippe Jaroussky surprised his audience in London recently (as shown above) by switching between his two voices during a performance of Sombrero (which he recorded in his countertenor voice only for his latest album Opium), and he also showed a glimpse of the same during a concert with L'Arpeggiata a while back - a concert which was described as a kind of baroque jam session; arranging the songs in new ways and even including jazz improvisations - where he sang a line in his speaking voice and then clasped his hand in front of his mouth as if he had "forgotten" which voice to use.

As for moving into other genres, there haven't been that many attempts that I know of, thankfully one should say.. however I have heard of two: Gérard Lesne trying to crossover into pop music and Andreas Scholl who have actually recorded a pop album. (The latter comes as less of a surprise though when we know he did actually dabble with electronica music before he started taking singing seriously)
I don't necessarily think that's the right approach to make countertenor voices more accepted, but I admire their courage for trying.

I suppose what I'm trying to do is to emphasize the fact that countertenors are NOT castrated, NOT women, not necessarily gay, and perfectly healthy, normal men.

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I have already mentioned Philippe Jaroussky, Andreas Scholl and Gérard Lesne, but if you have an interest in countertenors you should also look up Robin Blaze, David Daniels, Xavier Sabata and Max Emanuel Cencic.