All Parts are Not Created Equal

Well, yesterday I got an email from the choir director about switching to the alto part in the Requiem. Really neither part is comfortable all the way through but at least the soprano part had some showy bits in a good part of my range which the alto part does not.

Here's my question (listen up musically knowledgable folks).

As a mezzo, my voice sits about a third lower than the average soprano's, but it has the same arc. However alto parts are not written a third lower than soprano parts with the same arc (I don't mean on the same notes, I mean even with separate melodies with climaxes in different places, but climaxes nontheless. Dare I say that alto parts are anorgasmic?)

For example: If the sopranos get to sing an achingly beautiful high A (something that as everyone knows, I don't have a great success rate with because I'm not a soprano) why don't the altos get to sing an achingly beautiful high F (something I can do very well as is evidenced by the Mozart "Laudate Dominum" being one of my best oratorio pieces). Or if the sopranos get to sing a showy run that barrels up to a B flat, why don't we get to sing a showy run that barrels up to a G? Instead, we get a lot of fast singing around middle C, a part of my voice that, barring the occasional showy chest tone, has very little volume or even very little momentum to sing fast.

Well, I'll look at it this way. The soprano section there is way overcrowded with talent, so unless there's a second soprano part (which is what fits my range best) there's no reason for me to be there.

And I might get to sing one of the solo bits. I am going to see if I can get a score from the library.

And I'm going to get to sing the Pie Jesu from the Duruffle Requiem in one of the evening services. And Saturday I'm going to sing that and "Liber Scriptus" in the group coaching.

ETA: An online friend of mine who's a choir director (I didn't feel comfortable asking anyone I know IRL about this) answered some of my questions. He said that alto parts in pieces like the Mozart Requiem were sung by countertenors or adolescent boys whose voices were changing (I know a lot of the soprano parts were sung by boy sopranos) rather than by lower female voices, so these voices had a lot of power around middle C and "peaked" at the C above. It's just depressing that it seems that the altos are the only voice part that never gets any "show off". Whatever sopranos do above the staff elicits a "wow" or an "ahhhh", likewise with high tenor parts, and of course everyone loves a bass who can pop out a really low note, but the only low female singing that ever elicits a "wow" is belting, which I don't do (and low singing isn't my strong point anyhow, my strong point is singing "high notes" that are a third lower than soprano "high notes"). Well, if nothing else I can say a prayer of gratitude that I'm involved in a glorious piece of music instead of still being at my old UU church where I would be forced to listen to Beatle songs.