I was so sad to hear, yesterday, of the death of James Bowman whose Oberon at Glyndebourne in the early 1980s first introduced me to the delights of Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream – and the counter tenor voice.
It was Alfred Deller who pioneered the role of the male alto in his explorations of Reniassance and Baroque music in the 1950s and 60s. But in the later years of the century it was James Bowman who dominated the role. In early music, especially that of Handel, but also in an increasing number of contemporary pieces. Not just Britten but Ligeti, Maxwell Davies, Jonathan Dove, Thomas Adès’, George Benjamin and many more have given the counter tenor voice a starring role – and often that voice was James Bowman’s.
As he said in a very charming recent interview which you can see here on YouTube – his legacy was to give the counter tenor voice a new dimension – ‘to make a lot of noise! I decided that I would not come on with a little tiny squeak – I would be butch’! And he was – which is what made listening to him sing so thrilling.
He retired from the concert platform in 2011 but I was fortunate enough to meet him last November when he unveiled a plaque to the great mid 20th century soprano Jennifer Vyvyan. After the unveiling we retired to a local hostelry to thaw out and consume delicious snacks when I had a long chat with him. He was quite as delightful as he appears in the interview above. Just to give another flavour, below is a short clip of his ‘unveiling’ – with thanks to Michael White for having organised the plaque and the event.
NB For those who are interested in understanding more about the counter tenor voice and how a counter tenor sings ‘falsetto’ there is an interesting interview with Iestyn Davies here on the Classic FM site, and another interesting piece here on Quora.
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