Alto, in Music, is properly the same as Counter Tenor (q.v.), the male voice of the highest pitch (now principally falsetto), and not the lowest female voice, which is properly contralto, though in printed music the second part in a quartet is always entitled alto. See CONTRALTO.
Alto
Chambers's Encyclopaedia, Volume 1: A to Beaufort, p. 199
Source scan(s): p. 0214