Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In medieval music, the highest voice-part in part-writing, corresponding to the modern soprano or treble.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • ‘Quod est inferius est sicut quod est superius, et quod est superius est sicut quod est inferius, ad perpetranda miracula rei unius.’

    The Poet Prince KATHLEEN MCGOWAN 2010

  • The Credo appears in four different manuscripts; the text is written under each voice, except for the Las Huelgas manuscript, where it appears only under the superius line.

    Archive 2009-04-01 Lu 2009

  • Objects of higher order presuppose founding objects; you can also say that the superius supervenes on its inferiora.

    Salvation Santa 2009

  • The objects of the more simple representations can be seen as the foundation of the complex object, which is always an object of higher order, a superius, because it is founded by the founding objects (inferiora).

    Salvation Santa 2009

  • Clemens used the tunes as cantus firmi either in the tenor or the superius.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Lu 2009

  • I would like to think that The Tallis Scholars allow themselves to be influenced by the music they sing - like in this album, with it's lower superius parts that steer away from the characteristically stratospheric soprano sound lending themselves to a gentler, mellow tone backed up by the use of high-tenors on the Altus.

    Archive 2009-05-01 Lu 2009

  • This song, whose melody (in the superius) features in the Chansonnier de Bayeux (a collection probably compiled in Normandy around the years 1490 to 1495) was itself published by Andrea Antico in 1503.

    Archive 2009-04-01 Lu 2009

  • The four-voice Salve regina, sub-titled ‘Diversi diversa orant’, incorporates seven Marian antiphons, each of the lower voices freely paraphrasing two plainsong antiphons in succession while the superius unfolds the Salve.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Lu 2009

  • His mastery of traditional polyphonic techniques is demonstrated by his five-part Salve regina constructed on the popular melody Adieu mes amours, and his large-scale cantus firmus setting of the superius of Ockeghem's Fors seulement, as well as his canonic motets Ista est speciosa and Per lignum crucis.

    Archive 2009-05-01 Lu 2009

  • In the Missa ‘Je suis desheritée’, uncharacteristic of Gombert in several respects, the superius of the model is literally quoted with doubled note-values in the first two sections of the Credo.

    Archive 2009-06-01 Lu 2009

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