Alta cappella
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An alta cappella or alta musica, haute musique or just alta was a kind of town wind band found throughout continental Europe from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries, which typically consisted
Early 17th-century Flemish alta cappella, drawing by Denis van Alsloot. Instruments are (from left to right): a bass dulcian, an alto shawm, a treble cornett, a soprano shawm, a second alto shawm and a tenor sackbut.
A re-created wait in York
Modern reconstruction of a fifteenth-century slide trumpet
Two shawms of the fifteenth-century type
Tower music
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Tower music is a musical performance from the top of a tower. It can also designate the music composed for or played in such a performance.
Alta cappella
…English cities in the 1500s had town waits, as did rich individuals and institutions. In 1571, London ordered its waits to play "upon their instruments upon the turret at the Royal Exchange every Sunday and holiday toward the evening" (with winter break, between September and late March, excepted). These may have been…
An alta capella playing from a tower.
A c. 1425 picture showing a "Turner" (Türmer, in modern German) named Peter.
The Neukirche (New Church), Leipzig in 1749
Tower music on Easter morning, 1890 illustration