A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Alto

ALTO (from the Latin altus, high, far removed). The male voice of the highest pitch, called also counter-tenor, i.e. contra, or against the tenor. In the 16th and early part of the 17th centuries the compass of the alto voice was limited to the notes admissible on the stave which has the C clef on its third line ; i.e. to the notes a sixth above and a sixth below 'middle C.' Later however this compass was extended by bringing into use the third register of the voice, or 'falsetto,' a register often strongest with those whose voices are naturally ' bass.' The falsetto counter-tenor, or more properly counter-alto, still to be found in cathedral choirs, dates—if musical history is to be read in music—from the restoration of Charles II, who doubtless desired to reproduce at home, approximately at least, a class of voice he had become accustomed to in continental chapels royal and ducal. The so-called counter-tenor parts of Pelham Humphreys his contemporaries and successors, habitually transcend those of their predecessors, from Tallis to Gibbons, by at least a third. The contralto part is properly written on the stave which has C on its second line; it consequently extends to the eighth above middle C and the fourth below. This stave is now obsolete, and the part for which it is fitted is, in England, written either on the alto stave, for which it is too high, or on the treble stave for which it is too low. On the continent the stave which has the C clef on the first line is sometimes used for it. For the female alto voice see contralto.

[ J. H. ]