# A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Bass (voice)

From volume 1 of the work.
​BASS is also the lowest or deepest of male voices.
By the old masters those notes of the bass voice only were employed which could be placed on the bass stave, eleven in number. By the moderns this compass has been largely extended, chiefly upwards. For whereas even the employment of the lower E is now exceptional, and that of the D below it most rare, its double octave, and even the F and F♯ above it, are not unfrequently called into requisition, even in choral music. Examples dating even as far back as the end of the 17th century point to the existence of bass voices of extraordinary extent. The Services (intended for choral performance) of Blow and his contemporaries abound in deep notes; and in a solo Anthem, 'They that go down to the sea in ships,' composed no doubt for an exceptional performer, Mr. Gostling, of His Majesty's Chapel Royal, as well as for a special occasion—the escape of King Charles II and the Duke of York from shipwreck—Purcell has employed repeatedly both the lower D and the E two octaves and a tone above it. Handel however has employed a still more extended compass. In a song for Polifemo, 'Nel Africano selve,' from his early Acis and Galatea, is the following passage, quoted by Chrysander (Händel, i. 244):—
A contemporary singer, Bosoni, might by all accounts have sung these passages—the groups of high notes in the third or falsetto register.
No theory resting on difference of pitch will account for such passages. If the church-pitch of the 17th century was lower than that of our own time, the lower notes employed in them become still more astonishing to us than they are already; if (as is probable if not certain) that pitch was higher than our own, the higher notes will stand in the same predicament. The unquestionably greater compass of the basses, and even tenors, of former times, is however explained by the fact, that judicious training, while it increases the intensity and flexibility, and improves the quality and equality of a voice, diminishes its compass. Voices of extensive range are rarely homogeneous; and their timbre or quality is generally found to be in inverse ratio to their extent. More than one passage in Milton, beyond doubt a competent judge, indicates the existence, at any rate in Italy, of considerable vocal skill even in the 17th century; and if half that has come down to us respecting the accomplishments of Balthazar Ferei be true, one singer at least flourished in the first half of that century of extraordinary skill. But prior to the end of it, when the first Italian schools were opened at Bologna under Pistocchi, singing, in the full sense of the word, was an art, skill in which was confined to a small number of persons, and instruction in which had not extended beyond the land of its origin. It is not extraordinary therefore that in the North of Europe very extensive—in other words, untrained—voices existed in the 17th century in greater number than now.
The intensity or power of the bass voice is due to the same causes as that of the tenor, the contralto, the soprano, or indeed of any other wind-instrument—the capacity and free action of the apparatus by which it collects and ejects air—in the human body, the lungs. Its 'volume' depends on the capacity of the pharynx, the cavity at the back of the mouth, between the root of the tongue and the veil of the palate, the part of the vocal mechanism most easily open to inspection. As with all well-endowed vocalists, the jaw of the bass is generally wide, the tongue large, the teeth small, and the mouth capable of easy expansion. The bass singer is generally above, as the tenor is generally below, the middle height.
The Basso profondo and the Basso cantante are distinguished rather by their quality than their compass; that of both extending occasionally from the E flat below the bass stave to the F above it. This possible compass is frequently increased by a third register, or falsetto, of a quality wholly distinct from that of the first or second. The English male counter-tenor is in general a bass whose second and third registers have been cultivated exclusively, always to the deterioration, sometimes to the destruction, of the first.
[ J. H. ]