(Fr.).
A
high tenor voice, cultivated in France until about the end of the 18th century.
Rousseau defines haute-contre as the shrillest (‘les plus aiguës’) and
highest (‘les plus hautes’) of the male voices, in opposition to the Basse-contre, the lowest and deepest.
Although the term is always translated in English Baroque treatises and
dictionaries as Countertenor (for example Cotgrave, 1611; Pepusch,
1724; Bailey, 1726; Prelleur, 1731; Rousseau/Waring, 1779), Rousseau (1768)
gives ‘altus’ as a synonym and equates the voice with the Italian Contralto, which he says is ‘nearly
always sung by the bas-dessus [or second soprano], be they women or
castratos’: that is, the haute-contre is a male voice equivalent in
range to the contralto or second soprano parts sung by women or castratos.
Although the relation of the terms haute-contre and countertenor seems
therefore natural, given that both are male voices in the same register, this
association has led to the mistaken understanding that the haute-contre
was a falsettist. Joseph de Lalande (Voyage en Italie, 2/1786) makes it
clear this was not the case. He writes that ‘the tenor goes from C to g'
in full voice and to d'' in falsetto or fausset: our haute-contre,
ordinarily, after g' goes up in full voice to b
'; while the tenor after g'
goes up into falsetto’. Above this pitch, however, the haute-contre
singers must ‘force their natural means by contracting their throats; but in
this manner they lose in charm what they gain in range’ (N.E. Framery, Encyclopédie
méthodique: Musique, i, 1791).
The haute-contre was primarily a soloist. Lully assigned the principal male role in eight of his 14 operas to this voice. Among the finest of haute-contre singers was Pierre de Jélyotte (1713–97), for whom Rameau wrote most of his principal haute-contre title roles. By the beginning of the 19th century, the haute-contre was largely replaced by the more powerful natural tenor. The voice always had its detractors. Rousseau wrote that ‘the haute-contre is not natural in a man's voice; one must force it to carry it to this pitch: whatever one may do, it always has some harshness and is rarely in tune’.
The term haute-contre was also used at times as a synonym for haute-taille in French choral music. For example, Lalande labels the parts in his grands motets (from top to bottom): dessus, haute-contre (or haute-taille), taille, basse-taille and basse-contre. The haute-taille and haute-contre are also conflated in Rousseau (explicitly in the English translation of William Waring, 1779). Similarly, haute-contre is sometimes used, instead of haute-taille, to identify the highest of the three parties intermédaires of the string orchestra played by the violas. The term was also used, confusingly, to refer to the second part of any instrumental group, such as haute-contre de hautbois (second oboe) or haute-contre de violon (second violin). See also Alto (i).
N. Zaslaw: ‘The Enigma of the Haute-Contre’, MT, cxv (1974), 939–41
M. Cyr: ‘On Performing 18th-century haute-contre roles’, MT, cxviii (1977), 291–4
OWEN JANDER/ELLEN T. HARRIS