Bhairitu I think it is great you had a chance to work with Alfred Deller. Among countertenors he had a unique quality of sound.
The following is for seventhray27: High male voice singing has been a part of European culture for centuries. Undoubtedly this began because women were not allowed to sing in church, just men and boys. Men (that is older) generally have greater control and greater musical maturity than boys. The countertenor tradition has been fairly strong in England. Today many 'classical' performances tend to use countertenors in part originally sung by boy altos. In the past (when food was a bit scarcer) boy's broke around age 16, today it is more likely around the age of 12, so today it is less likely to find musically mature boy altos or trebles, so countertenors are used for the altos, and women sopranos with more 'boyish' sounding voices for the boys' treble voice. It does not sound the same, but times change. I once asked a countertenor here on the East Coast what his normal signing voice would be like if he did not sing in the countertenor range and he replied he was a baritone. High falsetto singing by males is frequently heard in popular music, in rock etc., so this kind of singing (minus operatic training) is not restricted to classical venues. So it is not the case as seventhray said these are men trying to sound like women, they are singing parts originally written for men, castrati, or boys. The whole effect is instrumental colour, the voice is an instrument and it has a distinct timbre just like any other instrument, and that is how it is used. It should be noted than in older European drama, like opera, unlike in the late 19th century, roles of villains tended to be given to high male voices, such as a castrato soprano, while the hero was often a deep bass voice. Today a castrato soprano part has to be performed by a woman. The last known castrato, a singer for the Vatican died in 1922. Alfred Deller, Countertenor singing 'Music for a While' by Henry Purcell, a strange, mesmerising and plaintive song by one of England's greatest composers. This was recorded shortly before Deller's death in 1979 http://youtu.be/trOXaDeFeD4 http://youtu.be/trOXaDeFeD4 Another countertenor with a beautiful singing voice is Paul Esswood. The New York composer Philip Glass cast him in the role of Akhnaten in his opera here in the 1980s. Esswood's voice seems a bit more fleshed out than most other countertenors, and is able to sing with more vibrato, a very expressive voice. He lives in England and also conducts. Paul Esswood, countertenor, singing a part from Monteverdi's opera 'The Coronation of Poppea' written about 1643. http://youtu.be/zAuxsIhixKI http://youtu.be/zAuxsIhixKI He has a website: http://www.esswood.co.uk http://www.esswood.co.uk
