Contratenor

Abstract This chapter explores the various ways a contratenor can manifest. After a discussion of the anonymous Je mercie d’amours les dieux, Busnoys’ Bel Acueil is given as an example of a piece in which the voices change their roles with each line. There follows a discussion of works at the beginning of the century where another composer seems to have composed a substitute contratenor. This leads to a discussion of mid-century works that have a contratenor in the same range as the tenor and another in a lower range. The chapter ends with the various different versions of the contratenor in Ockeghem’s L’aultre d’antan, with the clear conclusion that the later versions of the contratenor are just clumsy attempts by later arrangers to make Ockeghem’s brilliant contratenor more staid.