Thank you for this David, I'm afraid I'm going to mention the dreaded 'e' word again: what evidence have you that the male alto ('countertenor') voice was used historically to perform lute songs?
You may care to read David Hill's recent paper in Early Music Review (no 144): 'All Fur Coat and No Knickers - Did countertenors ever sing lute songs before 1953?' Martyn --- On Thu, 1/12/11, David van Ooijen <davidvanooi...@gmail.com> wrote: From: David van Ooijen <davidvanooi...@gmail.com> Subject: [BAROQUE-LUTE] Re: Transposing lute tablature on sight [was Re: A=392] To: "Baroque Lute List (E-mail)" <baroque-lute@cs.dartmouth.edu> Date: Thursday, 1 December, 2011, 10:22 On 1 December 2011 11:08, Martyn Hodgson <[1]hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote: > Further to this, all the sopranos and tenors I have worked with have found the early lute song repertoire well within their comfortable range: why would you wish to transpose the lute part at all? I see. I work a lot with an altus, so I have to transpose most of the lute songs, and many of the continuo songs; somehow we always end up in f-minor ... |-(. To add to that, he likes to keep his options open for a concert: a little higher or lower depending on the condition of the voice. And I accompany in many lute song workshops. I prepare transpositions, but somehow the right one is always missing, so I bodge myself through the first read/sing through (can be _very_ embarrassing), but get better along the way. So much better that I don't bother to write out the transposition for the concert at the end of the workshops. It's a skill that comes through practise, obviously. But with the advent of computer score making (Finale in my case) I find my transposing skills deteriorating. Still, to be a good accompanist, I feel one should be able to transpose, at least good enough for first rehearsals. David - Messiah tonight, no transpositions -- ******************************* David van Ooijen [2]davidvanooi...@gmail.com www.davidvanooijen.nl ******************************* To get on or off this list see list information at [3]http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html -- References 1. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=hodgsonmar...@yahoo.co.uk 2. http://us.mc817.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=davidvanooi...@gmail.com 3. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html