Canine Cantata: "Wachet Arf!", S. K9

Animal vocalists once enjoyed great popularity, but their distinctive singing styles were imitated so extensively by human vocalists (especially opera singers) that they lost their uniqueness and were gradually completely supplanted by their two-legged and more easily toilet-trained rivals. During the heyday of the ?animal opera? in the eighteenth century, composers wrote idiomatic but demanding arias not only for dogs (we have already noted the presence of a houndentenor in the cast of The Stoned Guest), but for cats, frogs, donkeys, and other animals as well. Now, however, although one may still hear an occasional swan song, the music world seems to have no interest whatsoever in what was once a flourishing genre, and finding adequate soloists for revivals of these works is a difficult task indeed. Add to this the fact that engaging an animal to perform in a P.D.Q. Bach piece usually results in extended litigation with the A.S.P.C.A., and the reader may begin to appreciate the problems involved in resurrecting a work such as Wachet Arf!