Pre- and Early Medieval (before 800)

(bc1080; dc1150). Music theorist active in England. He studied in Tours, probably taught in Laon, travelled in Sicily, southern Italy and the Crusader states, but apparently spent much of his life in the south-west of England. He translated Arabic scientific texts into Latin and wrote original works of considerable literary merit, perhaps in his role as a tutor in an episcopal or royal court: one such text was addressed to the future King Henry II. Adelard dealt with music as an integral part of the Quadrivium. In the ...

(b 988/9; d Jerusalem, 1034). French monk, composer of liturgical music and scribe. He was associated with the abbey of St Martial in Limoges. Born into a family with strong ties to the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Limoges, Adémar was pledged as an oblate to the abbey of St Cybard in Angoulême, probably before ...

(b Eleusis [now Elefsina], 525 bce; d Gela [now Terranova], Sicily, 456 bce). Greek tragic poet. He wrote about 80 dramas, tragedies, and satyr plays, of which eight, all tragedies, have survived.

Probably the earliest of Aeschylus’s plays was the Persians (472 bce...

(b Spain, 769; d Lyons, 840). Frankish ecclesiastic. He came as a youth to Gaul, taking up residence in the monastery of St Polycarp near Narbonne. He was ordained in 804 and named bishop of Lyons in 816, where he remained for the rest of his life, except for a period of exile in Italy during the years 835–8 because he had sided with the sons of the emperor Louis the Pious against their father; his temporary replacement as administrator of Lyons was his rival ...

A term used in the Gallican rite for the Trisagion. See Gallican chant, §7, (iii).

In the Byzantine rite, an anonymous Kontakion chanted in honour of the Virgin and performed while the congregation stands. The Akathistos possibly dates from the 6th century and continued in use despite the liturgical changes of the 8th century when the performance of entire kontakia...

Handbooks transmitting the 14th- and 15th-century chant melodies of the Byzantine rite. Alternative names are anthologion anoixantarion, anthologia, psaltikē and mousikon. Akolouthiai manuscripts contain within a single volume a collection of monophonic chants, both Ordinary and Proper, for the psalmody of Hesperinos and Orthros, and settings for the three Divine Liturgies (...

(b Lesbos, c620 bc; d after 580 bce). Greek lyric poet. The earlier tradition of sung poetry on Lesbos had been choral, religious, impersonal; now choral lyric faced the challenge of monody. In contrast to the impersonality of the earlier poets, Alcaeus wrote as an individual, describing in an intensely personal manner his chequered political fortunes. Many of his poems, however, were amatory or convivial, consisting of drinking-songs and after-dinner verses (...

(fl c. 630 bce). Greek lyric poet. He was possibly a native of Sardis in Lydia. Alcman spent his entire professional life in Sparta. This city was then startlingly different from the grim barracks state that it had been and would again become: its citizens cultivated art, poetry, music, and dance with intensity and brilliance. The poet himself commented on this: ‘To play well upon the lyre weighs evenly with the steel’, that is, military valour (Edmonds, frag.62)....

(b Northumbria, c735; d Tours, May 19, 804). Anglo-Saxon scholar, writer and poet. Little is known about Alcuin's early years, but he was educated at the cathedral school in York, which, under the guidance of magister, and later archbishop, Aelberht (d...

Chant of the Mass in the Western Church and of the Divine Liturgy in the Eastern Church.

The alleluia of the Mass is a Proper chant sung during the Fore-Mass after the gradual (see Gradual) except on liturgical occasions associated with penitence and fasting (most notably during Lent), and on ones associated with sorrow (such as the Requiem Mass), when it may be replaced by the ...

(b nr Metz, c775; d ?Metz, c850). Writer on liturgy and chant. He was probably educated under Alcuin at the monastery of St Martin in Tours, and served as archbishop of Trier from 809 and 814. In 813 he travelled to Constantinople at the behest of Charlemagne, returning the next year, apparently by way of Rome. He then began his literary activity, probably at Aachen. His longest and most significant work, the ...

(b Trier, c340; d Milan, 397). Saint, bishop and Doctor of the Church. He was the son of the Roman prefect of Gaul, and embarked upon a successful political career, being named consular governor of Liguria and Aemilia in about 370. While yet unbaptized he was elected Bishop of Milan by popular acclaim on 7 December 374. Together with Augustine and Jerome he is acknowledged as one of the three great Latin Church Fathers of the 4th and 5th centuries. He was primarily a public figure, however, unlike Augustine, the philosopher, or Jerome, the scholar; he consolidated the position of the Church against the powerful Arian heresy and the counter-attacks of paganism....

(b Teos, c.570 bce; d 490 or 485 bce). Greek lyric poet. An Ionian by birth and upbringing, he spent his professional life in the service of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, and later at Athens under the patronage of Peisistratus’s son Hipparchus. His poetry reflects the gay, sophisticated atmosphere of the courts where he was musical arbiter; underlying it is the cultural heritage of his native Ionia, especially the distinctive tradition of lighthearted monody....

In Greek and Byzantine theory, the octave (or double octave) and singing in octaves.

A term used by Homer to describe performers of epics (e.g. Phemius and Demodocus in the Odyssey) who sang and accompanied themselves on the Phorminx or kitharis ( see Kithara ). The language, musical accompaniment and details of performing practice of the aoidoi were transmitted orally, and their formulaic practice is believed to underlie the hexameter poetry of the ...

Ancient Greek god. The origins of Apollo remain uncertain. In myth he is the child of Leto and Zeus. His worship may have come into Greece from Macedonia; or possibly it travelled westward from Asia Minor. Often he was termed ‘Lykeios’: if the epithet means ‘wolf-god’, he may originally have been a god of shepherds. This hypothesis would explain an active concern with music. It leaves unexplained the fact that he is constantly shown in art and literature with the kithara or lyra rather than the shepherd’s panpipes (syrinx) or the aulos, although several Greek writers did associate him with reed-blown instruments (e.g. Euripides, ...

The application of the methods of archaeology to the study of music. Setting out from the analysis of archaeological findings, however acquired, archaeomusicology reconstructs the music and musical life of early cultures and ethnic groups that can often be dated very far back in time (Buckley, ...

(fl ?650 bce). Greek iambic and elegiac poet. He was a native of the Ionian island of Paros. ‘I am the squire of lord Ares’, he sang, ‘and skilled in the lovely gift of the Muses’ (Edmonds, frag.1). More artist than military man, he expressed both the external world and his responses to it in a remarkably personal tone....

(fl first half of the 4th century bce). Mathematician, music theorist and inventor. A friend of Plato, he may have been taught by Philolaus, the first man known to have publicized Pythagorean discoveries widely. Although no extended writing by Archytas survives, fragments attributed to him are contained or summarized in the works of others. He may have been the first author to establish the subjects of the Quadrivium (geometry, arithmetic, astronomy and music). He also expounded a theory of acoustics that associated pitch with the speed of sound as it passed through the air, noting that sounds arriving swiftly and strongly appear high-pitched, whereas those arriving slowly and weakly appear low-pitched (Diels, 47b1)....