Word: countertenors
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...piece Esterhazy Orchestra played the first lilting strains of Bach's Christmas Oratorio. Then, clasping his hands, Alfred Deller began to sing. The contrast was startling: out of this burly frame poured the extraordinarily high, bell-clear voice of that rarest of all male singers, the countertenor...
...Handel arias, it floated lightly and lonely as a lark above the bustle of the orchestra. The performance had all the fresh appeal of a lost art rediscovered, which, in fact, it is. Deller is now 53, but when he first achieved recognition, he was the first virtuoso countertenor in 120 years. Almost singlehanded he has sparked a revival of interest in baroque vocal music...
...musical accompaniment by her young friend Walton, into the mouth of a mask painted on the curtain hiding her from view. Public and critics alike pronounced the evening an outrage. But the musical "entertainment" has been revived again and again, currently in this recording by Actress Hermione Gingold and Countertenor Russell Oberlin, with Thomas Dunn conducting the small chamber ensemble. Unfortunately for them, Dame Edith herself, with Peter Pears, has performed the work for London Records. Where Gingold dramatizes the poems, Sitwell chants her surrealistic lines like a hypnotist, sometimes at breakneck speed. "We sought to reach a country between...
Purcell: Come Ye Sons of Art (Alfred Deller, countertenor; Vanguard) is a happy new appearance of Purcell's birthday music for Queen Mary, this time with Deller and his countertenor son, Mark, sharing the sublime duet...
...woman suggested that the work for piano four hands-two on the keyboard (Lukas Foss) and two with mallets on the strings inside--be called "Murder in the Cathedral." In "Air Antique," cellist Howard Colf's delicate, ghostly left hand pizzicati held the audience literally gaping. Assisting countertenor Richard Levitt transformed his voice into a dazzling clarion in an improvisation on an Italian madrigal, "Dolcissima mia vita...