ALTA CAPELLA
. A standard grouping of musical instruments in the late Middle Ages. The alta capella
was employed by 15th-century courts and cities to provide haute musique (“loud music”)
for dancing, ceremony, and enter
A late 15th-century ball (Burgundy, ca.
1469–70), with an alta capella
consisting of two shawms and slide
trumpet. MS fr. 5073, fol. 117v.
Courtesy of the Bibliothèque de
l’Arsenal, Paris.
tainment. The ensemble was typically made up of three or four minstrels who played
shawms, slide trumpets, sackbuts, and bombardes. Until late in the 15th century, much of
the repertory of alta musicians was improvised; one instrumentalist played the cantus
firmus (frequently a standard basse danse tune), while the others improvised counterpoint
around it.
J.Michael Allsen
[See also: BASSE DANSE; MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS]
Brown, Howard Mayer. “Alta.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley
Sadie. London: Macmillan, 1980, Vol. 1, pp. 292–93.
Duffin, Ross W. “The trompette des menestrels in the 15th-Century alta capella” Early Music
17(1989):397–402.
Polk, Keith. “The Trombone, the Slide Trumpet, and the Ensemble Tradition of the Early
Renaissance.” Early Music 17 (1989):389–97.
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