Heroes of the concert hall

Before getting down to some hard iconoclasm, let me first declare that to me all tenors, no matter what music they sing, nor even how well or badly they sing it, are heroes. Not because they tend to get heroes’ parts, but simply because of what they do, physically. Never blessed with much of a singing voice myself — even my speaking tone is rather rasping, which may or may not explain why Radio Three hasn’t been in touch lately — I view tenors with a mix of deep envy and utter amazement. Since puberty — with the exception of the occasion when, in order to help out my hall of residence in the inter-hall music competition at Exeter University, I rather ill-advisedly sang the countertenor top line in Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices before the doyen of all choir trainers and our judge, Sir David Willcocks — I’ve never been able to sustain any note higher than middle E, and that for only a second or two before the onset of what feels like tonsillitis.