Howard, You seem not to have read the mailings (yet again) and have therefore missed the entire point. As David Hill points out (have you bothered to read his paper?) the voice generally expected when the songs were composed was soprano/tenor. As he says, the male alto, to take David Van Oijan's personal preference, was certainly around but in England "was not deployed as a solo voice outside of a cathedral, collegiate or courtly chapel......."
Of course anything is possible as entertainment (men in tights etc) but it ought not to masqerade as period performance - as still appears to be happening. Indeed, Hill also tell us it was precisely this misconception (that male altos sung solo lute songs in Olden Times) that was the starting place for his paper..... To repeat: Have you anything constructive to add to the exchange? Martyn --- On Fri, 2/12/11, howard posner <howardpos...@ca.rr.com> wrote: From: howard posner <howardpos...@ca.rr.com> Subject: [BAROQUE-LUTE] Re: Transposing lute tablature on sight [was Re: A=392] To: "Baroque lute Dmth" <baroque-lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Date: Friday, 2 December, 2011, 15:21 On Dec 2, 2011, at 12:29 AM, Martyn Hodgson wrote: > Have you anything constructive to add to the exchange? No; once you've told us that transposition is unnecessary because almost half the singers who'd want to sing the music can do it without transposition, you've said it all. -- To get on or off this list see list information at [1]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
