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Examples

  • Like Du Fay, Regis employed two musically and liturgically related chants; however, rather than presenting these successively in the tenor alone, he had them sound simultaneously in the tenor and bassus.

    Archive 2009-04-01 Lu 2009

  • Catullus hath made of them one or two very artificiall and ciuil: but none more excellent then of late yeares a young noble man of Germanie as I take it Iohannes secundus who in that and in his poeme De bassus, passeth any of the auncient or moderne Poetes in my iudgment.

    The Arte of English Poesie 1569

  • But around 1450, or even before, composers and performers started to use a contratenor bassus, derived not from the discantus but from the tenor, beneath which they sang alternate 3rds and 5ths, beginning and ending with a unison or octave, and with the cadential octave preceded by a 5th; to the resulting tricinium a new kind of contratenor altus might also be added, by singing alternate 3rds and 4ths above the tenor, beginning and ending with a 5th, and with the cadential 5th preceded by a 4th see exx.3 and 4 below.

    Archive 2008-02-01 bls 2008

  • In the Staffarda Codex, Brumel’s composition, in the shape of a double canon like the four-part song by Josquin, appears only for two parts, bassus and altus; the other two voices, tenor and superius, proceed in canon over the bassus and altus respectively.

    Archive 2009-04-01 Lu 2009

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