Basso profondo (Italian: "deep bass"), sometimes basso profundo, contrabass or oktavist, is the lowest

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

voice type. Basso profondo voice range on keyboard

While ''

The New Grove Dictionary of Opera ''The New Grove Dictionary of Opera'' is an encyclopedia of opera, considered to be one of the best general reference sources on the subject. It is the largest work on opera in English, and in its printed form, amounts to 5,448 pages in four volu ...

'' defines a typical bass as having a range that is limited 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 (''The Knight of the Rose'' or ''The Rose-Bearer''), Op. 59, is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel ''Les amours du chevalier de Faublas'' ...

''. Often

choral A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which s ...

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 ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

below the bass part. Bass singer

Tim Storms Tim Storms (born August 28, 1972) is an American singer and composer. He holds the Guinness World Record for both the "lowest note produced by a human" and the "widest vocal range". Musical career Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Storms was raised in ...

holds the

Guinness World Record ''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...

for the "lowest note produced by a human".

Definition

According to

Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...

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

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

, and should not be confused with

contrabass Contrabass (from it, contrabbasso) refers to several musical instruments of very low pitch—generally one octave below bass register instruments. While the term most commonly refers to the double bass (which is the bass instrument in the orchest ...

es, which are instruments."

Oktavist

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

Russian Orthodox Russian Orthodoxy (russian: Русское православие) is the body of several churches within the larger communion of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, whose liturgy is or was traditionally conducted in Church Slavonic language. Most ...

choral music A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which s ...

. This

voice type A voice type is a group of voices with similar vocal ranges, capable of singing in a similar tessitura, and with similar vocal transition points ('' passaggi''). Voice classification is most strongly associated with European classical music, ...

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 Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one o ...

'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 "Ne otverzhi mene" by Pavel Chesnokov, or F₁ in "Kheruvimskaya pesn" (Song of Cherubim) by

Krzysztof Penderecki Krzysztof Eugeniusz Penderecki (; 23 November 1933 – 29 March 2020) was a Polish composer and conductor. His best known works include ''Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima'', Symphony No. 3, his '' St Luke Passion'', '' Polish Requiem'', ' ...

, 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 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 the modernism ...

Second The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ea ...

and Eighth Symphonies).

References

External links

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

Definition

Oktavist

See also

References

Further reading

External links