High Life

HIGH LIFE 115 在欧洲音乐史上，天主教教会向来是推动发展的动力。女性在十九世纪前一 直被禁止在教堂内演唱，故童声合唱团在礼拜音乐中所扮演的角色尤其重要。童 声合唱团一般包含女高音、女低音、男高音及男低音等四声部，但维也纳儿童合 唱团只设女高音及女低音二声部。合唱团团员来自世界各地，年龄介乎九至十四 岁之间。顺带一提，男孩变声的平均年龄为十三岁半。 维也纳儿童合唱团每年在全球各地演出约300场音乐会，为兼顾学业和世 界巡回演出，合唱团分为四个分队，全以历来与合唱团紧密合作的作曲家命名， 包括布鲁克纳、海顿、莫扎托和舒伯特。曾指挥维也纳儿童合唱团的名家多不 胜数，仅奥地利籍指挥即有才高八斗的沃尔夫冈·阿马多伊斯·莫扎特、创办维 也纳新年音乐会的前团员克莱门斯·克劳斯、二十世纪最伟大指挥家之一的赫伯 特·冯·卡拉扬及刚于2016年逝世的复古演奏风格大师尼古拉斯·哈农库特， 令人赞叹不已。 For long periods in European history, the Catholic Church was the driving force behind musical development and since female singing in churches was prohibited until the 19th century, boys choirs played a particularly important role in liturgical music. A standard boys choir usually encompasses the four voice types of soprano, alto, tenor and bass, but curiously, the Vienna Boys Choir features only sopranos and altos. Hailing from all corners of the world, its century of choristers is aged between 9 and 14, as 13.5 is the average age when a boy’s voice “breaks”. Divided into four touring choirs named afterAustrian composerswhowere closely connected to the Choir, namely Brucknerchor, Haydnchor, Mozartchor and Schubertchor, the Vienna Boys Choir typically performs 300 concerts around the world per year. The list of conductors under whose baton the Choir has performed is seemingly endless and the Austrian cohort alone includes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Clemens Krauss, himself an old boy, Herbert von Karajan and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who sadly passed away in 2016.