Basso profondo (, "deep bass"), sometimes basso profundo or contrabass, is the lowest bass voice type. While '' The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' defines a typical bass as having a range that extends downward to the second E below middle C ( E₂),; ''The Oxford Dictionary of Music'' gives E₂ to E₄ or F₄ operatic bassi profondi can be called on to sing low C ( C₂), as in the role of Baron Ochs in '' Der Rosenkavalier''. Often choral composers make use of lower notes, such as G₁ or even F₁; in such rare cases the choir relies on exceptionally deep-ranged bassi profondi termed oktavists or octavists, who sometimes sing an

octave In music, an octave (: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is an interval between two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referr ...

below the bass part. Bass singer Tim Storms holds the Guinness World Record for the "lowest note produced by a human".

Definition

According to Rousseau (1775): "Basse-contres – the most profound of all voices, singing lower than the bass like a

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

, and should not be confused with contrabasses, which are instruments."

Oktavist

An oktavist is an exceptionally deep-ranged basso profondo, especially typical of

Russian Orthodox The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

choral music A choir ( ), also known as a chorale or chorus (from Latin ''chorus'', meaning 'a dance in a circle') is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words ...

. This

voice type A voice type is a classification of the human singing voice into perceivable categories or groups. Particular human singing human voice, voices are identified as having certain qualities or characteristics of vocal range, vocal weight, tessitura ...

has a vocal range which extends down to A (an

below the baritone range) and sometimes to F (an octave below the bass staff) with the extreme lows for oktavists, such as Mikhail Zlatopolsky or Alexander Ort, reaching C. Slavic choral composers sometimes make use of lower notes such as B₁ as in Rachmaninoff's ''

All-Night Vigil The All-night vigil is a service of the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches consisting of an aggregation of the canonical hours of Compline (in Greek usage only), Vespers (or, on a few occasions, Great Compline), Matins, and the ...

'', G in "The Twelve Brigands", G in "Ne otverzhi mene" by Pavel Chesnokov, or F₁ in "Kheruvimskaya pesn" ("Song of Cherubim") by Krzysztof Penderecki, although such notes sometimes also appear in repertoire by non-Slavic composers (e.g. B₁ appears in

Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic music, Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and ...

's Second and Eighth Symphonies). In popular culture, several a capella groups have bass singers with an oktavist range, such as Home Free's Tim Foust, VoicePlay's Geoff Castellucci, and Avi Kaplan formerly of Pentatonix, as well as Tony-nominated Broadway performer Patrick Page, each of these being able to reach down to a G or in some cases even lower, with Castellucci able to hit a B using subharmonic singing and Foust able to hit a G using growl.

References

External links

oktavism.com
��Website dedicated to the oktavist voice {{Range (music) Bass (sound) Italian opera terminology Voice types

Definition

Oktavist

See also

References

Further reading

External links