Tenor - Tenor Voice Classification

Tenor Voice Classification

Within choral and pop music, singers are classified into voice parts based almost solely on vocal range with little consideration for other qualities in the voice. Within classical solo singing, however, a person is classified as a tenor through the identification of several vocal traits, including range, vocal timbre, vocal weight, vocal tessitura, vocal resonance, and vocal transition points (lifts or "passaggio") within the singer's voice. These different traits are used to identify different sub-types within the tenor voice sometimes referred to as fächer (sg. fach, from German Fach or Stimmfach, "vocal category"). Within opera, particular roles are written with specific kinds of tenor voices in mind, causing certain roles to be associated with certain kinds of voices.

Here follows the operatic tenor fächer, with examples of the roles from the standard repertory that they commonly sing. It should be noted that there is considerable overlap between the various categories of role and of voice-type; and that some singers have begun with lyric voices but have transformed with time into spinto or even dramatic tenors. (Enrico Caruso is a prime example of this kind of vocal development.) It must be said that in the operatic canon the highest top note generally written by composers is B. Top Cs are rare (they are either given as oppure that is, up to the singer to interpolate or are traditional additions). An ability to sing C and above, therefore, is musically superfluous. Indeed, many famous tenors never even attempted C at least on record—for example, in Caruso's 1906 recording of "Che gelida manina", the whole aria is transposed to avoid the oppure top C. This is a normal transposition.