On 9/3/07, John Howell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I ran across something similar in a 17th or 18th century context > (18th, I think, and English), with the soprano written very high. > Turned out that the only credible answer was to assume that it was > intended for, but not labeled for, male chorus.
I can tell you from my experiences with Sibelius software, voice ranges were somewhat different back in the period your discussing. For those that aren't aware, Sibelius will change the color to a shade of red when the note falls outside of what the normative range of a voice or instrument is. When I first started to use the software, I asked my editor about this. I was told that basically the vocal range of the 18th century was a bit larger than what the software considers "normal" by current standards. I have been working on a cantata by Graupner, "Nun danket ..." where the bass singer was apparently not able to perform, so the tenor's part was composed at a very low range, in fact most of the notes for this tenor part show up in red on my Sibelius score. I know Andrew Parrott suggested Vivaldi's Gloria was written for an all girls chorus and suggested the bass parts were sung by transposing their parts up an octave (or who knows, maybe even higher). There's a great recording of this on Virgin Classics I believe. Kim Patrick Clow _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
