EX. 12-4B The Caput melismaAlthough the sources that include the anonymous Caput Mass retain the nomenclature of voice-parts
with which we are familiar, scribes in the mid-fifteenth century responded to the newly standardized,
newly stratified four-part texture by adopting a new nomenclature, as shall we from now on. The now-
obligatory voice that stays consistently below the tenor, like the more accustomed “nonessential” voice
above it, was now thought of as a second contratenor—a voice written against the tenor and (functionally
if not literally) “after” it—rather than a second tenor. To distinguish the two contratenors, one was called
“high” (altus) and the other “low” (bassus).
No one reading this who has ever sung in a chorus will fail to appreciate the significance of this new
nomenclature. The term contratenor altus metamorphosed into the Italian contralto, and contratenor
bassus into contrabasso—terms that have long since been anglicized as “alto” and “bass.” Moreover,
once the word “high” became standard for a voice that was not in fact the highest one singing, the highest
voice (till now the cantus or the triplum) became known as the “top voice”—superius, from which the
word soprano is derived. And now we have our full familiar range of voice parts—soprano, alto, tenor,