Martin Ashley
Page 243 | 2024
Abstract
Joshua Rifkin’s contention that Bach’s B minor mass and cantatas were performed by four concertante singers throughout the work with little or no support from a ripieno group remains contentious but has significant support. This paper lends further support to Rifkin’s ideas by drawing attention to the fact that Bach’s singers in Leipzig were boys and those capable of singing a cantata could not have been very numerous. The popular theory that voice “break” did not occur in eighteenth century Leipzig unto age 17 or 18 is critiqued on biological and logistical grounds. Instead, it is proposed that boys regularly sang soprano for some time after their voices had “broken”, giving Bach sufficient time to train the most able to the standard needed for a cantata. Such a practice has fallen increasingly out of favour since possible risks to the voice have been demonstrated by phoniatricians. The paper suggests that a modern boys’ choir of up to thirty or more sopranos and altos with “unbroken” voices is therefore not a suitable resource for historically informed performance.
