Marcelo Araujo wrote:

>Have anyone ever heard a recording of Schumann's 'Dichterliebe' rendered by
>a countertenor?

*shudder* Nope.

>Yesterday I bought one, sung by countertenor Paul Esswood, from the
>infamous label 'Hungaroton'...Could Lieder be transposed for another
>voice or should it be forbiden?

Transposing Lieder is fairly common practice.  Most Schubert songs were
originally written with a tenor voice in mind.  Obviously, they are in
the repertoire of sopranos, mezzos, tenors, and baritones (I don't know
many who transpose the songs to bass range, since this would cause some
very muddy piano writing).  There have been recordings of Winterreise by
Brigitte Fassbaender (a mezzo), Matthias Goerne (a baritone), and Peter
Pears (a tenor).  Naturally, they adjust the songs to better fit their
ranges.  For many songs, Schubert also left multiple versions in various
keys (Erlkonig exists in at least 4 versions that I've seen).  For the sake
of keeping the piano accompaniment in a flattering register, the typical
"limit" for transposing a song down is a major third (I'm sure there are
exceptions to this, but none spring immediately to mind).  Since sopranos
can usually negotiate songs written in tenor range, they usually don't
transpose them.  The problem is that their voice will naturally sound
an octave higher, thus robbing the song of many interesting interactions
between piano and voice in the same register.  The same would happen for
a countertenor.

Cheers,

Marcus Maroney
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