Reg Boyle wrote:
>
> from Linda.
> >In renaissance music the tenor ("holder") was the voice which was
> >singing the cantus firmus, the plainsong melody, often in long notes; it
> >didn't designate any particular range. The expression "contra-tenor"
> >dates from the same period,
>
> Thank you Linda, you have just supported my arguement.
> No examples of the period of which you speak are in existance
> (I assume),
You're joking, of course?
> so of course it is quite safe to choose the term to
> describe anything you like because there is no possible way
> of proving or disproving it. This is an old trick!
>
> Do you hold any reference that purports to prove that current
> day CTs are identical to those voices used for the purpose
> you describe in the renaissance period? Reg.
No, of course not, because these designations were not about voice
types, they were in reference to their function, if you like, in the
scoring of the piece. Widely used throughout renaissance polyphony, but
nothing whatever to do with timbre, tessitura or absolute range. They
didn't fach in those days, and it was way before the birth of opera as
we know it.
I don't know what Purcell called his soloists in pieces like Come Ye
Sons Of Art, without looking it up (though I will if you insist, but we
could all do that) - I doubt if he was calling them counter-tenors, more
likely altos, but if you re-read my post, women singers at that pitch,
as well as lower boy singers, were also described as "altos" throughout
most of the 20th-century, and rather than appear to be masquerading as
one of them, Deller and co decided to borrow a suitable term from
earlier music.
Searching for "Contratenor", I found the following,
http://216.147.109.215/enc005.html
which seems to bear out most of what I have been trying to say.
Incidentally (from another thread) I was once told that the term GAY for
homosexual was an acronym for Good As You. This may well have been
coined after the fact, as it were, but maybe someone could come up with
the real meaning of the acronym COUNTERTENOR? There's a T for tenor in
there, and I _think_ I can see an R for Reg... have fun.
>
> "One must have loved a woman of genius
> to comprehend the happiness of loving a fool."
>
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
--
Linda ff, Cambridge
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