Chiavette (plural of , "little clefs") is a system of standard combinations of

clef A clef (from French: 'key') is a musical symbol used to indicate which notes are represented by the lines and spaces on a musical staff. Placing a clef on a staff assigns a particular pitch to one of the five lines or four spaces, whic ...

s used in

polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice ( monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ...

music of the 16th through 18th centuries, differing from the usual ''chiavi naturali'' (the combination of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass clefs.) Typically, these clefs place each staff line a third lower than usual. (A second possible set of clefs, ''in contrabasso,'' places each staff line a third higher; this is less common outside of Franco-Flemish compositions.) Chiavette1

The first author to mention a standard set of high clefs is Silvestro Ganassi dal Fontego, in his 1543 ''Regula Rubertina'', chapter 22, which instructs the musician to transpose such music down a fifth. Other theorists, such as

Adriano Banchieri Adriano Banchieri ( Bologna, 3 September 1568 – Bologna, 1634) was an Italian composer, music theorist, organist and poet of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. He founded the Accademia dei Floridi in Bologna. Biography He w ...

(1601) and Picerli (1631), indicate to transpose down a fifth if there is no key signature, and a fourth if there is a flat indicated. By mid-century, Italian commentators only mention a transposition down a fourth, and still later the practice seems to have been to transpose downward by a third to account for the high pitch of Italian organs. The Austrian theorist Johann Baptist Samber (1707), meanwhile, gave as his rule to transpose downward by a fourth if the bass is notated in F3, but a fifth if it is notated in C4. The practice of transposition does not seem to have been universal;

Thomas Morley Thomas Morley (1557 – early October 1602) was an English composer, music theory, theorist, singer and organist of late Renaissance music. He was one of the foremost members of the English Madrigal School. Referring to the strong Italian inf ...

implies that music ought to be sung in the key in which it was written while

Michael Praetorius Michael Praetorius (probably 28 September 1571 – 15 February 1621) was a German composer, organist, and Music theory, music theorist. He was one of the most versatile composers of his age, being particularly significant in the development of ...

indicates the choice to transpose or not depends on the ensemble. Banchieri (1609) indicates that instrumental music should be read at pitch, in the higher clefs, while singers use the ''chiavi naturali'' at the written pitch. This set of higher clefs was only given the name ''chiavette'' in the eighteenth century, by Girolamo Chiti (1718), by which time the practice itself had largely disappeared; by the mid-seventeenth century, most composers had adopted more flexible notational practices. It continued to linger in Rome, however, and was used at the papal chapel into the nineteenth century. Performance of pieces written in ''chiavette'' approximately a fourth lower than notated often results in a more consistent set of ranges across a given collection, although this is not always reflected in modern performing editions and recordings.

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