loft is shown by the absence of the con• gregation: Bach and Maria Barbara were Treble Voices In Choral Music: only practicing and church was not even in session! WOMEN, MEN, BOYS, OR CASTRATI? There were certain places where wo• men were allowed to perform reltgious TIMOTHY MOUNT in a "Gloria" and "Credo" by Guillaume music: these were the convents, cloisters, Legrant in 1426. Giant choir books, large and religious schools for girls. Nuns were 2147 South Mallul, #5 enough for an entire chorus to see, were permitted to sing choral music (obvious• Anaheim, California 92802 first made in Italy in the middle and the ly, for high voices only) among them• second half of the 15th century. In selves and even for invited audiences. England, choral music began about 1430 This practice was established in the with the English polyphonic carol. Middle Ages when the music was limited Born in Princeton, New Jersey, Timo• to plainsong. Later, however, polyphonic thy Mount recently received his MA in Polyphonic choral music took its works were also performed. __ On his musi• choral conducting at California State cue from and developed out of the cal tour of Italy in 1770 Burney describes University, Fullerton, where he was a stu• Gregorian unison chorus; this ex• several conservatorios or music schools dent of Howard Swan. Undergraduate plains why the first choral music in Venice for girls. These schools must work was at the University of Michigan. occurs in the church and why secular not be confused with the vocational con• compositions are slow in taking up He has sung professionally with the opera servatories of today. They were supported the new fashion. The medieval church by the Church and cared mostly for chorus of the Festival of Two Worlds in knew principally only the unison Spoleto, Italy, the Kenneth Jewell Cho• foundling and orphan girls. Several com• choir and the solo ensemble. The posers, including Hasse, Porpora, Gaspa• rale in Detroit, the Festival Singers of polyphonic choir was an idea foreign Canada, and the Aspen Chamber Choir. rini and Vivaldi, composed music for to the medieval tradition. The be• the' girls at such institutions. Last year he was conductor of the Po• ginnings of choral polyphony coincide mona College Choir, during William Rus• Only men and boys were allowed to with the beginnings of the musical sell's sabbatical. sing in liturgical choirs throughout Eu• Renaissance (Bukofzer, 3:189). rope before the middle of the 18th cen• By 1400 the Catholic Church allowed tury. A good example of the ideal choir women to participate in congregational can be obtained from evidence concern• Whether a composer envisioned male or singing of hymns. The early Protestant ing the activity in the court chapel where female (or both) treble voices in the churches also provided for female con• Lassus worked at Munich in the middle performance of his choral works is an gregational participation in the singing of the 16th century - "ideal" because interpretive problem too often ignored by of. hymns and psalms. Composers, inclu• Lassus was respected, successful, and choral conductors. Ignorance of this ding Walther, Senf!, Praetorius, Hassler, had the best available musical resources. problem may produce poor performance and Schein, The ensemble Lassus worked with is not practice and increase the danger of wrote polyphonic settings of chorale only well documented but a painting also making every piece sound the same, re• tunes for use by choirs, as well as survives (McKinney, 15:217). In addition gardless of the musical period of its tunes for the congregation. It was to instrumentalists there were thirteen composition. Because there has been so often the practice for congregation male altos, fifteen tenors, twelve basses, little research in this area the conscien• and choir to alternate stanzas of the sixteen choirboys to sing the soprano tious musician is left with only the vague chorale, the congregation unaccom• part, and five or six castrati. generalization that men and boys were panied and in unison, and the choir With the increasing complexity of des• used in the Medieval, Renaissance, and in parts, accompanied by organ or cant and counterpoint in Renaissance Baroque periods while mixed choirs, con• other instruments (Rice, 17:21-22). and Baroque music, it became more and sisting of both sexes, were not used until Thus, female participation was limited to more difficult for boys to perform these the time of the Romantic period. But congregational unison singing of psalms difficult treble parts by themselves. Usu• what types of voices were used in the and hymns. ally by the time they had achieved some years c. 1740-1810? What role did female Most authorities agree that no mixed musical proficiency, their voices were vocalists play, if any, prior to the Clas• groups sang as the official, liturgical ready to change. There were three alter• sical period? Were castrati ever used in choirs of the Catholic Church prior to natives to using boys' voices to sing treble choruses? Why were women excluded the 18th century. This custom was not parts: castrati, a mysterious Spanish from choral music for so long? And how confined to Catholicism but was also technique of falsetto singing, and male does all this affect choral interpretation? found in Protestant churches. While he altos. These are some questions this paper was organist at Arnstadt in 1706, Bach Castrati first sang in the Papal Choi!' will attempt to answer. was officially reprimanded and ques• in 1562. The use of castrati, while not An historical survey of the different tioned ". by what right he recently officially condoned by the Church, was types of treble voices which participated caused the strange maiden to be invited at least tolerated until the 19th century. in singing choral music should begin in into the choir loft and let her make Monteverdi used castrati at St. Mark's the early part of the 15th century. In music there" (David, 7:53). This "strange in Venice. After his visit to the cathedral "The Beginnings of Choral Polyphony," maiden" probably was Maria Barbara in Milan, Burney describes a small choir Bukofzer concludes that the earliest Bach, Johann Sebastian's cousin and fu• consisting of "one boy, and three castrati known example of choral polyphony (i.e., ture first wife. The strict nature of this for the soprano and contr'alto, with two more than one singer to a part) appeared rule forbidding women to enter the choir tenors and two basses" (4:65,I). Castrati were also employed in the court chapels and cathedrals of Northern Europe - FOR YOUR BICENTENNIAL PROGRAM. 1976 for example, in Lassus' choir. Michael Haydn employed castrati in Salzburg and FOR THIS DEAR LAND Mozart mentio_ned them frequently in by his letters and used them in his operas and sacred works. Thus, while preferably Aneurin Bodycombe employed as soloists, castrati probably SA TB - 30it each sang choral music but almost always in Band and orchestra accompaniment available conjunction with boys singing the same part. In France and England, however, Arranged by Maurice Ford their sphere of activity was confined to the Italian opera, boy sopranos being Ttie [_,<; 4rmed Forces Bicentennial Band and Chorus unde i preferred for choirs. the di r e ct iori of Lt. Col. Hal Gibson has selected the Protestant churches were more reluc• above fur their entire tour visiting every state, plus tant in allowing castrati in their ser• Canada. Mt'Xico, Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. vices. Yet some of the more difficult treble arias in Bach's cantatas must have Complimentary copy on reoue s t . been sung by adult falsettists. Spitta (19:310,II) believed that it was not un• VOLKWEIN BROS INC. common for these men to command a 117 Sandusky Sheet Established 1888 Pittsburgh, Pa. 15212 range up to "E and F in Alt.," i.e., the third E and F above middle C! The only 26 THE CHORAL JOURNAL way Spitta is able to account for this the middle of the 18th century only as quiem, or been present at some Ro• is a belief in the existence of a mysteri• follows: 1) congregational unison sing• man Catholic Cathedral where an ous, secret, vocal technique which by ing, 2) predominantly solo or ensemble eighteenth-century mass was per• Spitta's time had disappeared. Very little (one singer to a part) secular music, and formed, a woman hired from the is known of this special. technique of 3) females performing only with other Opera-House whooping the Benedictus soprano falsettists. females. from the Western Gallery (Bridges, In the sixteenth century the Sistine Why were there no mixed choirs before 2:25). Choir included some famous Spanish the middle of the 18th century? Most of Church dogma, primarily that of the falsetti who may have supplanted the the significant choral music up to that Catholic Church, also kept women from boys provided by the Orphanotropia time was composed for and performed at membership in church choirs for a long or Scholae Cantorum. Rockstro states court or church. (Theater or opera music time. As early as the 4th century women that the soprano falsetto was exten• was largely a function of the courtly were not allowed to sing in church by sively cultivated (in Spain) by means aristocracy and oriented primarily to• order of the Didascalis of 318, the Coun• of some peculiar system of training, wards the vocal solo.) Thus, the answer cil of Laodicea (367), and the Synod of the secret of which has never publicly to this must be found by analyzing sepa• Antioch (379). And as recently as 1903 transptred, At the close of the six• rately the needs of each institution.