(It., ‘high’; Fr. alto; Ger. Alt).
Term, derived from the Latin altus (the vocal part lying above the tenor), now applied to a singer whose voice lies in the region f–d''. It first became common in partbooks (especially of secular music) printed in the second half of the 16th century. In the 16th–18th centuries alto parts were sung by men (falsettists, castratos or high tenors) in sacred music; only in secular music were they sung by women. The terms ‘alto’ and ‘contralto’, often used interchangeably, derive from the same source, the late 15th-century Contratenor altus, or part above the tenor. In English usage a distinction is sometimes drawn between alto and contralto voices in solo singing, the former referring either to a boy or (more often) a falsettist, the latter to a female voice, although in practice this distinction is too often blurred to be useful. (See Contralto and Countertenor.) The Castrato voice in this range was called ‘contralto’. The term alto continues to be applied to both the male and the female voice of this range in choral music.
OWEN JANDER/ELLEN T. HARRIS