A treble dilemma

Having heard Benjamin Britten's Ceremony of Carols being performed by the college trebles, with some outstanding singing by two of my ex-tutees, it seems that Choral singing exemplifies the content of the Book of Ecclesiastes that there is a time for everything - a time to mend and a time to break! I find it rather hard that the beautiful crystal clarity of the voice of the boy has to vanish during the time of deep uncertainty called adolescence. You can spend five years training your voice only for it to succumb to the ravages of the hormonal storm about to break.

I nearly brought in a pair of garden shears the next day, but thought again. For me, the treble voice is suffused with this tragedy: that to continue to exist the boy must undergo an operation that renders him broken just for the sake of the beauty of his voice, or else to lose that glorious voice that inspires and brings tears to the eyes of the faithful in order to live a normal human life, but possibly without the ability to express the worship of God in that voice.

There are some simply ravishing pieces of music for the castrato singer, but is it enough to justify destroying a young man's life just so that he can make such a beautiful sound. Clearly the choirmasters of the renaissance thought so, but we know that it is not the case - we cannot justify such a crippling action. The tragedy is that we cannot have both. But then perhaps we are being greedy and clinging to things of beauty which pass away so that a newer beauty can take its place.

The song of a life well-lived walking humbly with God has a music that can surpass the glories of the human voice, though it takes a person well versed in this music to hear it.