Alfred Deller on In Tune

[doversoul1]

No, Not live

Sean Rafferty played Alfred Deller sing Agnus Dei from Bach’s B Minor Mass yesterday (Thursday). I didn’t catch the name of the orchestra but talking about historical performance, how things have changed! And what a most extraordinary voice!! This was not the first time I’d heard Deller but what I knew were mostly quaint lute songs, and these days, we are (well, I am) used to countertenor voice but it still sounded almost shocking. Does anyone on these MBs remember the first hearing of Deller? I don’t mean his first public performance but when the countertenor was still fairly unknown thing in concerts. What did the audience think?

[Chris Newman]

Hi Doversoul,
I heard Alfred Deller a few times in the sixties. The first time was at my old school where the Horsham Music Circle held their concerts. Wilfred Brown, the tenor, was an old boy and being a member of the Deller Consort brought them there. They were a superb ensemble with singers of the calibre of Gerald English and Maurice Bevan. They sang RVW arrangements of folk songs, madrigals and some very naughty songs by Purcell which made the ladies blush. I was amazed to hear this huge bearded gentleman singing very high notes. I later heard Deller sing a recital with Desmond Dupre, again a fair bit of Purcell again at Horsham. His son Mark sang with him on this occasion. It was an extraordinary sound, though smaller and softer than most other altos that followed in the "big-time" circuit. He explained that he had had his larynx filmed in action by a throat specialist and that to produce his sound he used only half the vocal chords of tenors, basses etc and that with care a counter tenor could sing more per day. Not long after this James Bowman came onto the scene. His voice was fuller and more masculine sounding. A whole bunch of counter tenors (some called themselves male altos) appeared after Deller liberated the voice: Charles Brett, Roland Tatnell, Paul Esswood.

[amateur51]

Nice post dovers!

And interesting memories, Chris

When I used to work in Liberty's record department, we would sometimes have gentle fun with the customers. In between playing a track from the latest Billy Joel album or something by James Galway, we'd occasionally play a track by Alfred Deller - Harmonia Mundi were releasing quite a few of his LPs at the time.

People would stop in their tracks in Home Ideas outside the Record Department, cock their heads, come in, give the cover a good scrute and usually we'd manage to have a decent conversation with them and make a sale or two.

A few would just shake their heads & run for cover, mind

An almost unearthly voice, especially 40 years ago. James Bowman is giving his final London recital at Wigmore Hall very soon - there are quite few tickets left, now that WH has opened the balcony, for what should be a very special occasion,

http://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/productions/james-bowman-countertenor-mahan-esfahani-harpsichord-27847

[doversoul1]

Chris

had his larynx filmed in action by a throat specialist

Time has changed indeed. Thank you for your memory. I love to hear from those who were there.

amateur51

A few would just shake their heads & run for cover, mind

I know at least one on these MBs who would do that.

James Bowman’s concert certainly looks very good, with Mahan Esfahani at the harpsichord.

By the way, the track SR played must be part of this.
In 1954 he led the Leonhardt Baroque Ensemble with the great English counter-tenor Alfred Deller in a pioneering recording of two Bach cantatas.

[ostuni]

I don't remember my first hearing of Deller, but I'll never forget the last. He was doing a concert in St Giles, Cripplegate, some time between 1977 & 79 (can't remember the exact year). I wasn't going to go: I'd heard him on the radio not long before, and was convinced that he was past it: no voice left. And I much preferred the Bowman style.

But a friend was playing bass viol for him in the concert (it was just voice, lute & viol); he came round after the rehearsal the previous day, and said 'you have to be there!'. So Iwent - and it was quite extraordinary. Mostly (all?) Dowland. And yes, very little voice left. But it's what he did with that voice! Pure magic. Almost unbearably moving.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I heard Deller only once, in Basingstoke on 4 April '79 which could well have been one of his last UK concerts as he died that July in Italy. he did two short groups of Italian and English lute songs (though sadly no Dowland) with Robert Spencer, amid longer groups of madrigals by the Deller Consort. (IIRC Mark Deller did all the countertenor-ing in these.)

The venue was a large school hall and we were near the back. At first the voice seemed almost inaudible, which I suppose made us all keep extremely quiet, and a small miracle then became apparent.Tiny though the voice was, it was incredibly well sustained and projected. We hung on every note, yet the texts were always beautifully clear.

An indelible memory.

[LeMartinPecheur]

This disc http://www.amazon.co.uk/Purcell-Musi...4760707&sr=1-1 was the last that Deller made, in April 1979 so within days of the Basingstoke concert I've tried to describe above. I only bought it a few months ago so comparisons are tricky after some 32 years. The disc is marvellous, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't reproduce the fineness that I recall of the voice heard live. Again, I nearly used the word 'fragility' but that would suggest wobble, intonation or breath problems, which would be completely false - think more of the fragility of a miraculously-preserved piece of fine porcelain.

The problem with a disc is that there's little sense of the size and scale of a voice: if the music sounds quiet we just turn the volume up a bit and hey, the size and scale become indistinguishable from any other recorded countertenor. And that's before we ask whether the balance engineers turned Deller's mike up a tad so the the instrumentalists didn't have to scale their parts down to match him, which might have given the game away and even - who knows? - lent a seriously pallid aura to the recording.

I guess it's similar to the problem when, say, a lyric soprano records a role that's a size or two bigger than she could do in the theatre (e.g. Margaret Price as Isolde). For many it's just wonderful, but for some who really knew the voice live it's never going to sound 'right'. In some strange way the well-intentioned recording 'fakery' destroys the magic.

Or maybe that magic never can be reproducable via a machine with a volume control??

[HARRIET HAVARD]

No, Not live

Sean Rafferty played Alfred Deller sing Agnus Dei from Bach’s B Minor Mass yesterday (Thursday). I didn’t catch the name of the orchestra but talking about historical performance, how things have changed! And what a most extraordinary voice!! This was not the first time I’d heard Deller but what I knew were mostly quaint lute songs, and these days, we are (well, I am) used to countertenor voice but it still sounded almost shocking. Does anyone on these MBs remember the first hearing of Deller? I don’t mean his first public performance but when the countertenor was still fairly unknown thing in concerts. What did the audience think?

If you like countertenors have a listen to the incredible Phillippe Jaroussky. There is a live performance of Scherza infida from Ariodante by Handel on the internet. Easy to access by Google Video. CD Review a couple of weeks ago reviewed his new CD of Vivaldi, including the Motet in C minor RV638.... Most beautiful.

[HARRIET HAVARD]

[QUOTE=doversoul;52922]No, Not live

Sean Rafferty played Alfred Deller sing Agnus Dei from Bach’s B Minor Mass yesterday (Thursday). I didn’t catch the name of the orchestra but talking about historical performance, how things have changed! And what a most extraordinary voice!! This was not the first time I’d heard Deller but what I knew were mostly quaint lute songs, and these days, we are (well, I am) used to countertenor voice but it still sounded almost shocking. Does anyone on these MBs remember the first hearing of Deller? I don’t mean his first public performance but when the countertenor was still fairly unknown thing in concerts. What did the audience think?[/QUOTE

[Old Grumpy]

An indelible memory.

Just come across this...

Must admit - don't particularly like what I've heard of Deller on record. Never heard him live, mind.

OG

I've already got my cloak on and am out of the building...