Bass-Baritone (Paperback)

High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice type. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende Hollander, Wotan/Der Wanderer in the Ring Cycle and Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. Wagner labelled these roles as Hoher Bass ("high bass") - see fach for more details. The bass-baritone voice is distinguished by two attributes. First, it must be capable of singing comfortably in a baritonal tessitura. Secondly, however, it needs to have the ripely resonant lower range typically associated with the bass voice. For example, the role of Wotan in Die Walkure covers the range from F at the bottom of the bass clef to F# above middle C, but only infrequently descends beyond the C below middle C. Bass-baritones are typically divided into two separate categories: lyric bass-baritone and dramatic bass-baritone.