Thursday, October 01, 2009

Women and Bach

I can't explain this, but I am shocked to read here that women did not sing in the Lutheran church of Bach's time. I think I was basing my opinion on how it felt to sing it. It is far more comfortable and easy to sing alto in a Bach chorus than a Handel one, for example. Paul has a lot to answer for.

2 comments:

Paul said...

When I was singing, I found it easier to sing bass in a Handel chorus (Judas Maccabeus, for one example) than a Bach one -- although Mozart was easiest of all. His bass lines lines were quite intuitive, and one could almost sing them cold (without ever reading the score or having heard the music) just by imagining where Wolfgang would have put the notes -- and you'd have been correct!

Dr.B said...

Handel alto parts have a range of about 5 notes, the wrong 5 notes. Bach alto parts sing up and down in a nice relaxing way.