St Paul always had a lot to say for himself. His epistles are full of instructions on just about everything - from the suitable shortness of a man's hair to the glorious length that was appropriate for women. Part of his musical legacy, however, was the news that all these long-haired women should keep silent in church - a rather daft pronouncement which was to have seriously barbaric consequences.
According to Paul, it was "a shame for them to speak in the church" and it followed therefore, according to the 16th-century Vatican, that it must also be a shame for them to sing in the church.
But if women were not allowed to sing in the Sistine, you had a certain musical problem. Young boys could sing soprano certainly but it was equally certain that their voices would break at that certain awkward age. A real shame. If only such voices could be preserved and men could sing the women's parts ? A crazy notion perhaps, but one which would certainly keep all those long-haired women well out of earshot. And so emerged the castrati male singers whose sexual organs had been "modified" to preserve and later develop a soprano or contralto singing voice. I still have trouble believing any of this but here's the story.
By 1640, castrati were regularly heard in churches throughout Italy and by the end of the century they figured prominently in opera. It is said their voices were richer and more flexible than women's voices and so composers like Mozart, Gluck and Monteverdi all wrote parts specifically for them. The French were not impressed by the practice however and when Napoleonic forces invaded Italy in 1796 the days of modifying the sexual organs of young singers were coming to a close. Many castrati remained however, and some of them became great stars, particularly Farinelli - who apparently sang the same four songs every night for ten years and had that rare ability to make women swoon. He could reach a high F and that's what probably did it.
And while many castrati performed to astonished audiences in palaces and drawing rooms they also continued to sing at the Vatican. The Choir of the Capella Sistina in the 1800s was made up of eight basses, eight tenors, eight male sopranos and eight male contraltos and it wasn't until 1913 that the last of the castrati finally retired from the Pope's own choir. His name was Allesandro Moreschi and his voice can still be heard today on early 1900s' recordings known as The Last Castrato, the Complete Vatican Recordings (available on Opal Records). The 93-year-old Leo XIII, the Pope who finally got around to banning castration forever, also puts in an appearance at the end of the session when he says the Hail Mary in Latin. Moreschi himself died in 1922 at the age of 64.
This was all most unfortunate information to stumble across at a time when I was still singing soprano in the school choir. What with voices shattering all around me and my own surely about to go at any minute, the notion of the high voice became inextricably linked to questions of masculinity. When my voice finally did crack, I nervously demonstrated the fact to our conductor. Not only had I started shaving and grown about three feet in height over the summer, I had also turned into Shane McGowan. And so, one by one, we stepped off the tiered benches and walked off the stage never again to sing like cherubim and seraphim. Real men didn't sing high.
It was only in later years that I began to discover that the technique of falsetto or false alto was commonly used to great effect in popular music, particularly in doo-wop and soul. The technique originated in gospel music where the "head voice" was often used as the lead vocal as well as for much spectacular harmonising. It also became apparent that these male singers who managed to sing so high in the stratosphere had exactly the same effect on women that Farinelli once had. They gasped, they sighed and they swooned in the aisles. It seemed that the high voice did things to people.
Real men did not necessarily sing low.
The artist formerly known as Prince was by no means the first to exploit ambiguity in the human voice, but he has certainly been very successful at it. His bizarre falsetto is neither male nor female and yet somehow he manages (all three foot one of him) to deliver songs about sex and associated activities as if he's the very cat's pyjamas. This is certainly quite an achievement when you think about it, and perhaps he only manages to carry it off because of the transcendent quality of music and the singing voice in particular. A much better singer, however, is Jimmy Scott. Scott really has a womanly voice and is one of the greatest interpreters of jazz and popular ballads still recording today. As a child he suffered from Kallman's Syndrome, a hormonal imbalance which meant that his voice never properly broke. The condition could have been treated but his mother was understandably worried about what, in those days, were experimental drugs. And so Scott stands on stage as a very small man in an oversized tuxedo, his hands held out in a dramatic pose, his face contorted and a truly astonishing sound filling the hall. Tears roll down his cheeks. The audience too is in pieces. It is a heartbreaking sound.
It was however in the street corner world of doo-wop that the actual falsetto singer was most appreciated. His was the voice that set the whole ensemble on fire and produced the most impressive and crowd-pleasing effects. Anthony Gourdine, known as Little Anthony, fronted his group The Imperials with a voice which, like Prince's falsetto, was neither male nor female. In fact Little Anthony sang with a child's voice, maybe even a cartoon child's voice, full of quite absurd melodrama lifted from the great high tenor sobbers like Clyde McPhatter of The Dominoes and later of the Drifters.
The Imperials' hits such as Tears on My Pillow led to further success for singers who could also manage to get up there. Listening to Frankie Valli, it seems quite incredible that teenagers interested in motor-bikes and the opposite sex could possibly connect with this unnatural wail, but they did.
And it was the same story with The Beach Boys. Certainly it sounded great but it looked very odd indeed - the huge bulk of Brian Wilson taking the top notes like some kind of overgrown 11-year-old. But as usual, we learned everything far too late. The very reason we felt that urgent need to get sacked from the school choir was that we were ferociously embarrassed to sound anything like Brian Wilson. But if you watch old footage of the Beach Boys, it's Wilson who everyone is screaming at.
Many of the great singers have several voices at their command and will break into their falsetto when a certain emotional impact is called for. Marvin Gaye and Al Green have a near perfect understanding of it.
Smokey Robinson and Curtis Mayfield use the high voice to achieve a wonderful intimacy with the listener. Roy Orbison took things to operatic heights. Van Morrison used it in one of his most delicate songs - Crazy Love - and Bono too has it cracked, employing it as yet another weapon in his vocal arsenal. The only place you won't find a proper falsetto (except for yodelling) is in country music - that Pauline place where men are men and women have long hair.
I wonder what Paul would make of me listening to a lot of long-haired men singing like women? He would probably write a letter to The Irish Times.