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The musical termalto, meaning "high"in Italian (from Latin:altus), historically refers to thecontrapuntalpart higher than thetenor and its associatedvocal range. Infour-partvoice leading alto is the second-highest part, sung inchoruses by either low women's or high men's voices. Invocal classification these are usually calledcontralto and male alto orcountertenor.
Inchoral music formixed voices, "alto" describes the lowest part commonly sung by women. The explanation for the anomaly of this name is to be found not in the use of adultfalsettists in choirs of men andboys but further back in innovations in composition during the mid-15th century. Before this time it was usual to write a melodiccantus orsuperius against atenor (from Latintenere, to hold) or 'held' part, to which might be added acontratenor, which was incounterpoint with (in other words, against = contra) the tenor. The composers ofOckeghem's generation wrote two contratenor parts and designated them ascontratenor altus andcontratenor bassus; they were respectively higher and lower than the tenor part. From these derive both the modern terms "alto" (and contralto) and "bass".
According toThe New Grove Dictionary of Opera (1992), the term "alto" refers to singers whose voice encompasses thepitches of thenotesf tod″ (seeHelmholtz pitch notation). The singer of this voice type is more often described, for a female, as a contralto; for a male, as a countertenor (or in early French music ashaute-contre) or afalsetto singer. Acastrato may also sing in this range.[1]
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The contralto voice is a matter of vocal timbre andtessitura as well as range, and a classically trained solo contralto would usually have a range greater than that of a normal choral alto part in both the upper and lower ranges. However, the vocal tessitura of a classically trained contralto would still make these singers more comfortable singing in the lower part of the voice. A choral non-solo contralto may also have a low range down to D3 (thus perhaps finding it easier to sing the choral tenor part), but some would have difficulty singing above E5. In a choral context mezzo-sopranos and contraltos might sing the alto part, together with countertenors, thus having three vocal timbres (and two means of vocal production) singing the same notes.[2]
The use of the term "alto" to describe solo voices is mostly seen in contemporary music genres (pop, rock, etc.) to describe singers whose range is lower than that of a mezzo-soprano but higher than that of a true contralto, and is very rarely seen in classical music outside of soloists in choral works. In classical music, most women with an alto range would be grouped within mezzo-sopranos, but many terms in common usage in various languages and in different cultures exist to describe solo classical singers with this range. Examples include contralto, countertenor,haute-contre, andtenor altino, among others.
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InSATB four-part mixed chorus, the alto is the second-highest vocal range, above thetenor andbass and below thesoprano. The alto range in choral music is approximately fromF3 (the F below middle C) to F5 (the second F above middle C). In common usage, alto is used to describe thevoice type that typically sings this part, though this is not strictly correct. Alto, like the other three standard modern choral voice classifications (soprano, tenor and bass) was originally intended to describe a part within ahomophonic orpolyphonic texture, rather than an individual voice type[3] and the terms alto andcontralto are not interchangeable nor synonymous.
Although some women who sing alto in a choir are contraltos, many would be more accurately calledmezzo-sopranos (a voice of somewhat higher range and differenttimbre). Men singing in this range arecountertenors, although this term is a source of considerable controversy,[citation needed] some authorities preferring the usage of the term "male alto" for those countertenors who use a predominantlyfalsetto voice production (boys singing in their natural range may be termed "boy altos"[4]).
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