Basso profondo


Basso profondo, sometimes basso profundo or contrabass, is the bass voice subtype with the lowest vocal range.
While The New Grove Dictionary of Opera defines a typical bass as having a range that is limited to the second E below middle C, operatic bassi can be called on to sing low C, such 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 below the bass part.

Definition

According to the Italian definition, any singer with an E in fortissimo is a basso profondo. Italian composers considered basso profondo basses with "large" voices with a range of E to E, lower than typical basses. Although a basso profondo obviously requires the ability to sing notes in a lower register, more importance is placed on the quality of "largeness", or resonance and sonority.
According to Rousseau : "Basse-contres – the most profound of all voices, singing lower than the bass like a double bass, and should not be confused with contrabasses, which are instruments."
Russian composer Pavel Chesnokov divides the bass section into these groups:
  1. baritones
  2. light basses
  3. strong basses
  4. strong basses with a good low register
  5. oktavists with medium range, power and a soft sound
  6. strong and deep oktavists
Groups 5 and 6 are considered bassi profondi.

Oktavist

An oktavist is an exceptionally deep-ranged basso profondo, especially typical of Russian Orthodox choral music. This voice type has a vocal range which extends down to A and sometimes to F 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, G in "Ne otverzhi mene" by Pavel Chesnokov, or F1 in "Kheruvimskaya pesn" by Krzysztof Penderecki, although such notes sometimes also appear in repertoire by non-Slavic composers. Russian composers often make no distinction between a basso profondo and an oktavist, or a contrabass singer.
Because the human voice usually takes a long time to develop and grow, low notes often sound more resonant and full as the singer has aged considerably; thus oktavists are often older men.
Sergei Kochetov, Vladimir Miller, and Mikhail Kruglov recorded a number of classic Russian folk songs and similar music, singing them in a low-pitched key to invoke the old oktavist tradition which dates back to the Tsar's court.