The missing link Options

[linda.ff]

Slightly off-topic (possibly!) I noticed that the mass setting we did this morning (Victoria Christus Ascendens - quite enough of a challenge in the limited rehearsal time we had) stated at the top that it was originally published using alto clefs. That would have been fun.

If you get a "serious" academic edition of early music, there's usually a prefix clef showing the original clefs for each part.

The way music used to be printed meant that leger lines were difficult which possibly explains the penchant for multiple clefs...

When I was at university we were having to do wekly harmony/counterpoint exercises "reconstructing" (ie putting in the remaining parts as we felt they should fit) 5-part Palestrina etc in which as a rule the three inner parts used alto/tenor clefs

I'm sure it was very good for the flexibility of the brain, but it's one skill I've never had to use in all the years since!

But looking at some of the Kalmus miniature scores, which are occasionally facsimiles of orogonal editions, even as recently as the middle of the 19th century, I do see some of the soprano parts written in the soprano clef (C on the bottom line) I think even Brahms was using this, though without finding the relevant score I couldn't be sure.