Leipzig’s St. Thomas Boys Choir copes with voices deepening at a younger age

Washington Post ^ | 4-7-12 | Michael Birnbaum

[afraidfortherepublic]

LEIPZIG, Germany — For 800 years, the St. Thomas Boys Choir has been filling churches with pure, young voices. Now it’s confronting a confounding phenomenon: Every year, those voices are cracking with teenage angst just a little earlier than before.

Other boys choirs have been noticing it, too, as an unrelenting march of puberty sweeps voices into rebellion. Over recent decades, the already-short careers of their sopranos have started to end between six months and a year earlier, challenging them at times such as Easter, for which choral music such as J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion was written with difficult lines for boys free of hormonal woes.

At the venerable St. Thomas Boys Choir, where Bach once drilled pupils in their scales, leaders have redoubled recruitment efforts and taken in boys at a younger age to make sure the choir has a full stock of voices ranging from the deepest bass to the most clarion-pure soprano. Children whose voices are deepening wait out the change by working the ticket booth.

The cause of the shift remains unclear. But some choir leaders say it is having a subtle effect on their music, and it’s not just that they have to buy more acne medication. The younger the boy, the less life experience and maturity underpins the complex emotions in what they sing, even if they’re more willing to study their scores instead of pining about romance.

“We have only a short time, from age 9 until 12, to squeeze in all the musical training for the boys,” said Stefan Altner, manager of the St. Thomas Boys Choir and once one of its singers.

[sitetest]

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[Hot Tabasco]

The cause of the shift remains unclear.

Little league pitchers are limited in the number of times they can pitch in a week and the number of pitches they can throw in any particlar game. That's to protect their fragile arms.

I suspect the voice boxes of these children are being overused and stressed beyond the natural ability of these kids to "grow into" their deeper voices as they age......

[tnlibertarian]

[Verginius Rufus]

Is Pedobear for or against Pedobaptism?

[Morgana]

I was thinking the same thing.

[left that other site]

I am a voice teacher, and I enjoy teaching ALL ages to sing.When a boy knows good technique and theory, and knows HOW to sing, puberty is not so traumatic. Once the new voice “settles in”, the boy is already educated as to how to use it.

However, the repertoire spoken of here is a completely different matter. My students all want to be Rock Stars! LOL!

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

Haydn worked as a singer in Vienna in his teen years. Apparently those in charge did not feed him well. When he was about 17, the empress complained about his singing, and he was dismissed.

However, he received musical training there, and if he had stayed, he might not have developed his abilities. In some cases, necessity is the mother of musical invention (Not comparing Haydn to that musical group though).

[SWAMPSNIPER]

If the choir director shows up with a sharp knife, RUN!

[sand lake bar]

“global warmimg”

You beat me to it.

[decal]

For anyone wanting to hear a castrato in action, here ya go:

http://archive.org/details/AlessandroMoreschi

[afraidfortherepublic]

One of the thrills of my adult life was hosting 2 members of the Land of Lakes Choir Boys on one of their tours a few years ago. They performed at our church, and 2 choir members spent the night at my house. LOLCB is a terrific program, and the young men were gracious and delightful guests. The CDs I purchased are still some of my favorite recordings.

Land of Lakes Choir