Countertenor
The use of adult male falsettos in polyphony, commonly in the soprano range, was known in European all-male sacred choirs for some decades previous, as early as the mid-16th century.
Countertenors, though rarely described as such, therefore found a prominent part in liturgical music, whether singing a line alone or with boy trebles or altos.
[10] In Italian opera, by the late seventeenth century castrati predominated, while in France, the modal high tenor, called the haute-contre,[11] was established as the voice of choice for leading male roles.
In England Purcell wrote significant music for a higher male voice that he called a "counter-tenor", for example, the roles of Secrecy and Summer in The Fairy-Queen (1692).
[13] In Purcell's choral music the situation is further complicated by the occasional appearance of more than one solo part designated "countertenor", but with a considerable difference in range and tessitura.
Later in the same work, Purcell's own manuscript designates the same singer, Mr Howel, described as "a High Contra tenor" to perform in the range G3 to C4; it is very likely that he took some of the lowest notes in a well-blended "chest voice" – see below).
[6] The most visible person of the countertenor revival in the twentieth century was Alfred Deller, an English singer and champion of authentic early music performance.
Deller initially identified as an "alto", but his collaborator Michael Tippett recommended the archaic term "countertenor" to describe his voice.
Many modern composers other than Britten have written, and continue to write, countertenor parts, both in choral works and opera, as well as songs and song-cycles for the voice.
Men's choral groups such as Chanticleer and The King's Singers employ the voice to great effect in a variety of genres, including early music, gospel, and even folk songs.
Other recent operatic parts written for the countertenor voice include Edgar in Aribert Reimann's Lear (1978), the messenger in his Medea (2010), Prince Go-Go in György Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre (1978), the title role in Philip Glass's Akhnaten (1983), Claire in John Lunn's The Maids (1998), the Refugee in Jonathan Dove's Flight (1998), Trinculo in Thomas Adès's The Tempest (2004), the Boy in George Benjamin's Written on Skin (2012) and several others (see Roles in opera below).
Some authorities do accept them as descriptive of male falsettists, although this view is subject to controversy;[17] they would reserve the term "countertenor" for men who, like Russell Oberlin, sing in the alto range with little or no falsetto, equating it with haute-contre and the Italian tenor altino.
[18] Adherents to this view maintain that a countertenor will have unusually short vocal cords[6] and consequently a higher speaking voice and lower range and tessitura than their falsettist counterparts, perhaps from D3 to D5.
