So I was listening to my recording of 'Rinaldo' on Harmonia Mundi, conducted by Jacobs, and was thinking that Christophe Dumeaux is, in my humble opinion, the best counter tenor there is.
What are your views on the subject?
okay, so which counter do you prefer??
and personally I greatly dislike Scholl, but that maybe because I had to work with him and his diva-attitude
del_icious_manager
Favorite Answer
'So' (!) Like all such questions, asking 'who is best' is rather pointless as it will always be at least partly subjective. I wouldn't be surprised if every answer here gives you a different name. What you really should be asking is 'who do you prefer?' (a different question). Different singers have different qualities, strengths and weaknesses (no-one is equally good at everything) and one cannot objectively quantify and qualify musicians as if they were high-performance cars or state-of-the-art computers and measure like with like. Personally, I find Andreas Scholl astounding and outstanding but for particular repertoire other singers can perhaps be more satisfying. René Jacobs himself was a leading counter tenor in his younger days and I have heard some excellent recordings of his.
Edit: As much as I hate diva-ish musicians (having had to put up with working with them for nearly 30 years), if one discounted them purely on the basis that they were a pain to work with, we'd lose a lot of the greatest musicians (although I have to say the TRULY great ones are usually not at all diva-ish).
Verity
I'm very fond of Andreas Scholl, though I don't think he's quite as good
as the late Alfred Deller.
Anonymous
I like Philippe Jaroussky >_>
Antonio Taylor
Franco Fagioli is one of the better ones out there.
hafwen
Have you heard the American countertenor David Daniels? If not, have a listen to him here...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWrhalTlpSg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa1e49KLXNU
His singing is sublime...
Hafwen x