A Singer’s Guide to Voices: Bass-Baritone (Heldenbariton) — Edinburgh Music Review (2024)

When I wrote recently about the baritone voice, I was slightly disparaging about the current trend for calling everyone who the commentator cannot quite categorise, a bass-baritone. Bryn Terfel is a bass-baritone. Matthew Rose is a bass-baritone. Norman Bailey was a bass-baritone. I am a bass-baritone. Michael Ball, God help us, is a bass-baritone! This seemed to me to be sloppy journalism, and yet, in retrospect, it is an easy trap into which to fall. On reflection, I think we can actually differentiate between three voice types within the lower male voice range, and so, with some trepidation, I have decided to wade into the discussion. I have been prompted by a Facebook Message from a colleague in Germany, who very kindly got in touch to say that he was enjoying my scribblings, and would I consider writing a piece about bass-baritones?

As I pointed out in my article about baritones, there exists, and has existed for many years, a voice category system in Germany which, with Teutonic efficiency, allocates each role in an opera to a particular Fach or type. This was set up to allow managements and agents to cast operas more easily from lists on pieces of paper, saving time and effort in the process. Clearly the problem with this system is that it is far too simplistic and creates more problems than solutions. The Fach in question here is Heldenbariton (Heroic baritone), which sounds splendid and evocative, with its triumphal echoes of martial glory and manly exploits. Who wouldn’t want to be thought of as heroic? Much better surely than Wimp Baritone, or Feeble Baritone, or Cowardly Baritone? Unfortunately, it also tends to be used for roles which are rather less than heroic, roles which involve singing loudly but portray characters who are criminal, bloodthirsty, boastful, bullying or downright evil. This surely explains why it has become fashionable in English to refer to singers as bass-baritones, eschewing the heroic bit, and simply categorising singers as neither bass nor baritone, but somewhere in between. I was a bit snooty about this in my earlier article, but, prompted by my colleague, who quite rightly mentioned that he thought I had changed Fach during my career, appearing on the Schwarzkopf Masterclass in 1980 as a baritone, but turning into a bass, or maybe bass-baritone, later in my career. It seems to me now that it is indeed possible to change voice type during a career, and that it might be interesting for our readers to learn a little about how this comes about, and perhaps I can help you understand how voices work and change with age and maturity. I touched on this aspect when writing about sopranos and mezzo-sopranos, and how many singers have moved about within various categories without doing harm either to their voices or their reputations, although the opposite is also true!

As an example, although very slightly the exception that proves the rule, I offer you my mentor and hero, Hans Hotter. Readers may remember how I met and worked with the great German singer back in the 1980s, as I was beginning to establish myself as a young artist, and how I had found myself on a Masterclass course he was giving in Vienna. We got on very well, and soon I was travelling to his home in Munich for lessons, a period culminating in a wonderful evening in my parents’ house in Edinburgh when he came for dinner, and entertained Fran and myself with stories and anecdotes about many of the great singers of the 20th century, like Callas, Schwarzkopf and Fischer-Dieskau!

I mention Hotter in the context of voice categories because he defied categorisation, starting out as a pure baritone, developing into the finest Heldenbariton of all time, and ending his career by singing and recording some of the great bass roles. It did help that he had the biggest and finest voice I have ever heard, but the fact remains that he triumphed in three categories, a success that the system would suggest was impossible to achieve.

Returning to my favourite subject, me, it is interesting that someone should think of me as a baritone. As I see it, there are two principal reasons for this: one is that the distinctive quality of my voice is, and has always been, a certain brightness, a directness of timbre, far removed from the normal idea of a woolly or woofy bass. Not for me the wide vibrato of the archetypal low voice, but rather a laser-like penetration which will carry easily in a big room. My speaking voice is similarly direct, and I am firmly of the view that one’s speaking voice is the clue to the singing one. By this, I don’t mean the exaggerated sing song quality of some basses (I mention no names), but rather the natural projection of a well-developed and well-placed voice. My headmaster at George Watson’s College in Edinburgh, Sir Roger Young, had a natural projection that allowed him, a man of small stature but huge charisma, to speak easily in a large space without a microphone, a quality I also possess naturally. It’s funny that one never really knows how one comes over to other people, but I was struck by this a few years ago at a reunion of old alumni of the Guildhall School in London. I was amazed how many people mentioned how much they had loved my speaking voice and how hearing me in the bar where we met had brought back lots of happy memories. I was totally oblivious to this aspect of my personality and character, but on reflection I realise that I too think of certain people with their speaking voices in mind.

This whole digression was brought about by my comments about the brightness of my singing voice, and its quasi-baritonal qualities. Indeed, in the early days, this directness of timbre was a mixed blessing. Many people really liked my individual quality (I repeat my favourite broadsheet quote - “particularly fine was the shimmering electric voice of BBS”), but, au contraire, there were many for whom it was a definite turn off, described on one occasion as a “tiresome bleat!”

The second reason for some people to suspect that I was, in the words of one early colleague, a “lazy baritone”, is that, combined with the bright quality of my voice, I was not blessed with particularly good low notes, especially in the white heat of performance. My only attempt at Sarastro in ‘The Magic Flute’, in Nantes in France, was largely unsuccessful, as the low Fs were lacking in both volume and quality. It was a shame really, since later in life these low notes became perfectly natural and could be relied upon. When I sang Baron Ochs in ‘Der Rosenkavalier’, with his highly important low Es in Act Two, I never had a problem. A mixture of maturity and much enhanced technique, inspired by Tony Roden, my voice guru for the second half of my career, brought about a revelatory ease in the lower register, which would have allowed me to sing many more Sarastros.

All this is a long way round trying to explain why I was neither a baritone, nor indeed a bass-baritone, for most of my career. This article is about bass-baritones, so let’s see what that actually means. It would appear to be really easy to categorise, but in fact, and this was my problem when writing about baritones, it is phenomenally difficult. Is Bryn Terfel a bass-baritone? Well, yes, and no. Is Gerald Finley a bass-baritone? Well, no and yes. Was the great Scottish singer, David Ward, a bass-baritone? I don’t think so. Was Norman Bailey a bass-baritone? Maybe he is the nearest, but I’m not sure. Is Gwynne Howell a bass-baritone? No! Is John Tomlinson a bass-baritone? No! Was George London a bass-baritone? Yes! Was Thomas Stewart a bass-baritone? Yes! Was Donald McIntyre a bass-baritone? Yes! Am I writing down names randomly and assigning them to a category on a whim? Absolutely not, but I bet you would find no consistency of answer if you asked these questions of other singers or casting directors. The problem is that all these singers have largely the same voice range and timbre but are all subtly different. Even in the case of my voice, which is by no means on a par with the truly great voices listed above, it is really hard to categorise. I sang mainly bass parts, as my range and voice quality was suited to that Fach, but I also sang Falstaff, Elijah and the part in Britten’s War Requiem written for Fischer-Dieskau, all parts assigned to baritone or bass-baritone voice.

Let’s look at some of the singers mentioned above. I sang alongside Bryn Terfel in Wagner’s opera ‘Die Meistersinger’ at Covent Garden, when he sang the enormous role of Hans Sachs. Now, I use this role as a barometer of what a bass-baritone is, although with the caveat that its length (the singer sings for hours on end, and the role gets higher and more strenuous towards the end) means that elements of stamina and vocal health also come into play. Wagner is the real template for this Fach, with Wotan, Sachs, Amfortas, the Dutchman and, perhaps, Kurwenal and Telramund, all falling into this category. Except, of course, that they are not all the same!

Each role is slightly different, in tessitura, in orchestration and in relation to other roles in the operas. What is absolutely clear is that I, a bass but as we have seen a bright, forward placed one, could never sing any of these parts. The only bass I know who has successfully sung even some of these roles, is John Tomlinson, who has had success at the highest level with Wotan and Sachs. That doesn’t make him a bass-baritone, however. John is a freak of nature (and one of the nicest men you could ever meet) and has the lung capacity and muscular support of a very strong ox. I have literally no idea how he has managed to sing these huge roles, but even then, I would respectfully suggest that he is better suited to Fafner, Hunding and, especially, Hagen in the ‘Ring’, and Pogner in “Mastersingers”. Back in 1993, I was the understudy for Pogner at Covent Garden, and for two weeks at the beginning of the rehearsal period, I sang the role (Gwynne Howell had always been unavailable for those two weeks). It was fascinating to watch John singing Sachs, and with his empathy and intelligence, commanding the stage. However, as the opera progressed, I felt he had to resort to full-bodied singing (I won’t say shouting, but it was close) just to get through. I have also watched, myself as a lesser Master, both Gwynne and Bryn singing Sachs and, for me, neither was right. Gwynne, like John, was a bass, and the relentless nature of the role did for him by the end. Bryn, by contrast’ is I feel a baritone, and his problem (I use the word sparingly – these great singers’ problems are like another singer’s utter triumph) was a question of stamina, and lack of heft and weight. David Ward, a very successful Wotan, but at the very limit of his voice, was a fine Pogner, but never attempted Sachs. Even the divine Hans Hotter admitted to me, and wrote in his autobiography, that, although he sang Sachs, he never felt comfortable with it.

The only singer who really could sing Sachs, night after night, was Norman Bailey, who I sang with at Scottish Opera in the early 80s, and who seemed as fresh at the end after five hours as he was at the beginning. For me, Norman was the king, every inch a Heldenbariton, perhaps almost a low baritone, and, I suppose, the epitome of what this article is about.

Perhaps this is the answer to our question. A true bass-baritone is a baritone with a lower extension, with the weight of voice and stamina to sing for a long time, and able to be heard easily over a huge orchestra. Interestingly, Wagner rarely made such a distinction of voice. Most of his low-voiced roles were simply notated as “bass”. Maybe we are getting too het up about a name, and we should simply be satisfied by successfully identifying a particular singer singing a particular role. Perhaps the elusive nature of this fictional bass-baritone is like the Yeti or the Loch Ness Monster, easy to describe but impossible to find, an elusive enigma.

All I know is that I am not one of them!!

Cover Photograph: Donald Southern