A hermaphrodite note is a chromatically lowered sixth scale step in a major key (A♭ instead of A in C major, for instance). Joseph Riepel (1709–1782) seems to have associated major with masculine, minor with feminine. When discussing the Fonte, he criticizes a version in which the major segment includes a chromatically lowered sixth scale step as “a wrong hermaphrodite” (“ein verkehrter Zwitter”), although “it pleases hundred connoisseurs” (“Er gefällt hundert Kennern”; Riepel, 1755: 103).
See also The Fonte: The Basics.
Select Bibliography
Gjerdingen, Robert O. Music in the Galant Style (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Riepel, Joseph. Anfangsgründe zur musicalischen Setzkunst — II. Grundregeln zur Tonordnung (1755).