The concert of the Taunton Madrigal Society in November 1926 was a triumph. The ballroom in south-west England was "packed to overcrowding", wrote a local newspaper. Encores were plentiful. Yet the event ended in a minor key. The choir badly needed tenor singers, explained one of its members. Perhaps some in the audience might like to join?

1926年11月，汤顿牧歌协会举办的音乐会大获成功。 据当地报纸报道，英格兰西南部的那个舞厅“人满为患”。 加演曲目众多。 然而，这场活动却以低调的方式收尾。 该协会的一名成员解释说，合唱团急需男高音歌手。 或许现场观众中有人愿意加入？

"All my life tenors have been the smallest section," says Will Todd, a British composer. But the shortage of tenor singers is worsening. The lack of high men's voices, which add colour and harmony to many choral works, is a growing problem for amateur and church choirs. Given the enormous scale of choral singing, it is a problem for music in general.

英国作曲家威尔·托德表示：“我一生中，男高音始终是人数最少的声部。” 但如今，男高音歌手短缺的问题正日益加剧。 许多合唱作品中，男高音那高亢的嗓音为作品增添了色彩与和声，但如今，这一嗓音的缺失正成为业余合唱团和教堂合唱团日益严重的问题。 鉴于合唱演唱的规模庞大，这一问题对整个音乐界而言都是一大挑战。

Germany has at least 45,000 choirs, about 60% of them linked to churches. A poll for the German Music Council found that 8% of adults sing in a group or publicly—more than play in bands or orchestras. Women outnumber men two to one. Roughly the same sex ratio prevails in Europe, America and even Nigeria.

德国至少有45,000个合唱团，其中约60%与教堂有关联。 德国音乐委员会的一项民意调查发现，8%的成年人会参加合唱团或在公众场合演唱，这一比例高于玩乐队或管弦乐队的比例。 女性人数是男性的两倍。 在欧洲、美国甚至尼日利亚，性别比例大致相同。

When men do join singing groups, they often avoid the tenor section. The tenor voice is "a cultivated sound", says John Potter, author of a book on the subject. A man with no vocal training is more likely to have the range of a baritone (a high bass). It does not help that the tenor voice is associated with operatic stars such as Luciano Pavarotti, who could powerfully sing high notes that no amateur can easily reach. And the tenor line in classical choral music can be difficult, with many unexpected notes and alarming leaps.

当男性加入合唱团时，他们往往会避开男高音声部。 约翰·波特是该主题相关书籍的作者，他表示，男高音嗓音是“一种经过培养的声音”。 未经声乐训练的男性更可能拥有男中音（高男低音）的音域。 而且，男高音嗓音与卢西亚诺·帕瓦罗蒂等歌剧明星联系在一起， 他们能轻松唱出业余歌手难以企及的高音，这无济于事。 此外，古典合唱音乐中的男高音声部往往难度较大，有许多意外音符和惊险的跳跃。

Sonja Greiner, director-general of the European Choral Association, sings in a German choir that has four or five tenors out of about 45 singers—half as many as would be ideal. Even the most prestigious amateur choirs, which can pick their singers, have grown lopsided. The Orpheus Choir was founded in Glasgow in 1906 with 66 singers, including 15 tenors. Today its new incarnation has 79 singers including 14 tenors. All but one of the tenors are over the age of 60.

欧洲合唱协会总干事索尼娅·格雷纳所在的一个德国合唱团有约45名歌手， 其中只有四五个男高音，仅为理想人数的一半。 即便是那些可以挑选歌手的最负盛名的业余合唱团，也出现了失衡现象。 奥菲斯合唱团于1906年在格拉斯哥成立，当时有66名歌手，其中包括15名男高音。 如今，其新阵容有79名歌手，其中包括14名男高音。 除了一名男高音外，其余男高音年龄均超过60岁。

The pipeline is worryingly narrow. Many adults learnt to sing at school or in churches. But school choirs are at least as unbalanced as adult ones: a large study of American high schools by Kenneth Elpus of the University of Maryland found a sex ratio of seven girls to three boys. Matt Hill of Creighton University, who leads several choirs in Nebraska, points out that many churches have dropped choirs for "praise teams" with electric instruments and microphones.

后备力量令人担忧地薄弱。 许多成年人是在学校或教堂学会唱歌的。 但学校合唱团的性别失衡程度至少与成人合唱团一样严重： 马里兰大学的肯尼斯·埃尔普斯对美国高中进行的一项大型研究发现，性别比例为七名女生对三名男生。 内布拉斯加州几支合唱团的指挥马特·希尔指出，许多教堂已经放弃了合唱团， 转而采用配备电乐器和麦克风的“赞美队”。

In many choirs, a few women routinely sing the tenor part. That no longer attracts the spluttering outrage it once did. But conductors rarely see tenorines, as they are known, as a perfect substitute. When sung by women, low tenor notes can sound dark and underpowered. Some choir leaders, including Mr Hill, ask female alto singers to help the tenors with high notes and male basses to help with low ones. (He may also ask the sopranos, often the heftiest section in a choir, to dial it back a bit.)

在许多合唱团中，一些女性会常规演唱男高音声部。 这已不再像过去那样引发激烈的愤怒。 但指挥们很少将女男高音（即女性演唱男高音声部）视为完美的替代品。 女性演唱低音男高音时，声音可能会显得低沉无力。 包括希尔在内的一些合唱团指挥会请女中音歌手协助男高音演唱高音，请男低音歌手协助演唱低音。 （他还可能会请女高音歌手，她们往往是合唱团中最庞大的声部，稍微收敛一些。）

A more drastic solution is to rewrite music, or to write new music differently. The standard format for choral music is SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass). Publishers have arranged even revered choral works such as Mozart's Requiem for SAB voices (soprano, alto, bass) or SAM (soprano, alto, men). Mr Todd, who asks choirs that commission pieces from him about their balance of voices, tries to avoid dividing tenor lines into a higher and a lower part, as earlier composers often did.

一个更激进的解决方案是改编音乐，或以不同的方式创作新音乐。 合唱音乐的标准格式是SATB（女高音、女中音、男高音、男低音）。 出版商甚至将莫扎特的《安魂曲》等备受推崇的合唱作品改编为SAB（女高音、女中音、男低音）或SAM（女高音、女中音、男声）声部。 托德在创作受合唱团委托的作品时会询问合唱团的声部平衡情况， 他尽量避免像早期作曲家那样将男高音声部分为高音和低音两部分。

This is wise, given choirs' demographic difficulties. But the loss of a voice is audible all the same. At one point Ms Greiner's choir in Germany had just three tenors—too few to survive an outbreak of the common cold. The choir tried using SAB arrangements, but found it unsatisfactory. The parts seemed too low for the remaining tenors but too high for the basses. As soon as the situation improved slightly, it happily reverted to the traditional arrangements. Four or five tenors is barely enough.

鉴于合唱团的人口结构难题，这样做是明智的。 但失去一个声部的影响仍然显而易见。 有一次，格雷纳所在的德国合唱团只有三名男高音，人数太少，一旦有人感冒就难以维持。 合唱团尝试采用SAB声部编排，但发现效果不尽如人意。 对于剩下的男高音来说，声部似乎太低，而对于男低音来说又太高。 情况稍有好转，合唱团就欣然恢复了传统编排。 四五个男高音也仅仅是勉强够用。

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