Great Performers: Alfred Deller
The British countertenor Alfred Deller (1912–79) was a pioneer who threw open the doors of a repertoire that had largely been forgotten. As a boy he had sung in the choir of Canterbury Cathedral, but when his voice broke he continued to sing in a high register, establishing himself not as a male alto but as a countertenor, a voice type that had all but disappeared in Britain at the time. When the composer Michael Tippett heard Deller singing in the choir he recognised something extraordinary; with Tippett's advocacy Deller's career took off.
Read more…What set Deller apart was the quality of his voice, its richness and warmth with none of the “hooty” production that was pervasive at the time: his voice was focused, flexible and his diction crystalline. When he sang Henry Purcell's Come ye Sons of Art on the fledgling BBC station, the Third Programme (now Radio 3), in 1946, his talents were immediately recognised and a solo career virtually inevitable.
Deller combined a desire to sing with a probing interest in the music of the Renaissance and Baroque, and he founded a consort with which to explore this early music. He caught the attention of many, including Bernard Coutaz, who was just establishing his record company Harmonia Mundi in the South of France and who persuaded Deller to record for him. It was the start of a fruitful relationship that gave us a rich catalogue of wondrous performances.
Listen to Deller in a lute song and you come face to face with his particular magic: a style rooted in the word, the colours of the musical lines drawn from the colours of the text and the subtlety of its meaning. He could pull the line around but never at the expense of communicating the essence of the poetry. Take his album 'The Three Ravens', made in 1971 with the lutenist Desmond Dupré: rarely has the English language been conveyed in song with such magic.
Deller also worked with one of the great pioneers of the Baroque period-performance revival, the Dutch harpsichordist and conductor Gustav Leonhardt. In 1954 they recorded two Bach cantatas for Vanguard (Deller's first album for the company). To hear Cantatas Nos 50 and 170 for the first time in centuries sung by a male voice rather than the then plumier contralto to which they were usually entrusted, is to hear singing of a beauty that still takes the breath away. This is a truly ground-breaking recording.
Deller also explored the music of the Dark Ages, with Masses by Machaut and Gregorian chant, and his voice, often forming part of a consort, gives any ensemble an ethereal colour. And from ancient to modern: his voice caught the imagination of Tippett's friend and contemporary, Benjamin Britten, who wrote the part of Oberon in his opera 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' for Deller.
By the 1970s, Deller must have enjoyed the knowledge that he'd helped usher in a new generation of countertenors who would explore the repertoire – especially in the direction of Handel – yet further. As such, he is one of very few artists who changed the history of performance, and for that he occupies a special place among the musicians of modern times.