Loading…
Loading…
The bass voice part of an early part-book set.
Printed as the label of the bass part in Renaissance part-books and on the lowest staff of modern editions, which may add a modern voice designation such as Bass.
The bassus supplies the harmonic foundation and shapes the cadences; in Renaissance style it moves by leaps of a fourth or fifth more often than the upper voices, especially at cadences. In editions, keep the label alongside modern clefs and voice types. When writing in the style, give the bassus the roots of cadential sonorities but keep it a singing line, not a bare support.
Bassus is one of 1755 terms in the Gradus musical dictionary: the words, abbreviations and instrument names that appear in printed scores, plus the vocabulary composers use to talk about them.
Browse the full dictionary →