"The countertenor is a new kind of man", the countertenor Philippe Jaroussky says in an article by ZEIT ONLINE and he means: "Being a countertenor is a way of expressing what a man can be. He can discover his female side and express a variety of feelings." From this, the female author of a later article in the same online magazine derives in a subhead “Lack of man’s power: Can a countertenor be male?" That just can’t be true: while here finally is, a man taking sides of women, a woman is already coming, and doubts about his manliness. Or would she like to draw the countertenor towards castrato, and so feed the prejudice of the unexplained that something cannot be quite right with the masculinity of a man singing in the alto or even the soprano register? This is true, as is known, on the castrato, but certainly not on the countertenor. While the former, as a boy, was manipulated by his masculinity from singing the rest of his life with a full chest voice like a man, that is, not brighter than a tenor, the countertenor avoids the chest voice at least as far as possible and relies on a tricky head voice technique, resulting in a smaller vocal range than the full chest voice of the castrato and leading to a completely different sound, which however also covers the alt and the soprano register. Since castratos thank God nowadays no longer "produced", the countertenor, besides in recent compositions since the beginning of the historical performance practice, has also been used for vocal parts originally written by composer’s tailor-made for castratos. While the historically oriented style of play at the outset not infrequently brought forth very nasty sound, but now, thanks to many years of practice, is at a top sound level, countertenors at the outset where characterized by thin, not assertive sound wise, while now deliver perfect sounding performance. And one more thing to note is that the number of countertenors is increasing annually, and the number of outstanding countertenors, which are characterized by highly individual voices, also increases considerably. The young Reinoud van Mechelen belongs to the latter species, who has joined the musicians of his recently established ensemble A Nocte Temporis on the album "Erbarme Dich", to bring to life selected cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach with obligatory organ and transverse flute, subdivided by instrumental Bach, in a very lively way.

In the cantatas, “Erbarme Dich” there is an attractive gain of colors, since Bach not only does allow the flute to accompany, but also to clearly contrast the countertenor. This double role plays in the Ensemble A Nocte Temporis a Melzer copy of a Palanca flute from the year 1750, played by Anna Besson. The ensemble’s cello is a Gérard Sambot copy of an Antonio Stradivarius, played by Ronan Kernoa. Benjamin Alard plays the André Silbermann organ from the year 1718, installed in the Strasbourg Sainte Aurélie church. This formidable trio of instrumentalists proves to be an ideal partner for the countertenor Reinoud van Mechelen, whose intelligently guided high register does not deny the characteristic masculinity of the tenor communicating in enormous expressiveness and conveying strong emotion. Thanks to the successful recording technique of the download, this album is recommended to the fans of great vocal art as well as to the Bach exegete.

To conclude, once again, the question "Can a countertenor be male?": Yes, he can, being of his constitution a whole man. And when he sings an alto or soprano part, he remains unmistakably a man, more precisely a tenor shifting when singing his voice from his chest to his head. Even in the high register, he never sounds like a singing in this range. And that's good. Otherwise, there would be no justification for the existence of the countertenor, since women can realize this high register in a natural way as a chest voice, but not with the extra prickling generated by the countertenor out of his special art of transposing the tenor’s chest voice into the alto’s and the soprano’s realm.

Reinoud Van Mechelen, tenor
Anna Besson, flauto traverso
Ronan Kernoa, violoncello barocco
Benjamin Alard, clavicembalo