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(b Genoa, c1600; d after 1640). Italian theorist. A Franciscan, he was chaplain and musician to Cardinal Franz von Dietrichstein, Prince-Bishop of Olomouc and governor of Moravia. Before 1629 he probably taught music at the seminary at St Oslowan and from 1629 at the newly established Loretan seminary at Nikolsburg (now Mikulov), the cardinal’s principal residence. He returned to Italy in 1632. His treatise Regulae contrapuncti excerptae ex operibus Zerlini et aliorum ad breviorem tyronum instructionem accommodate (St Oslowan, 1629/R), which in spite of its Latin title and dedicatory letter is written in Italian, was conceived as a textbook of counterpoint for his seminarians. It is an entirely unoriginal and conservative compendium of the most elementary rules concerning the use of consonances and dissonances, derived, according to the title, ‘from the works of Zarlino and others’.

(b New York, Nov 20, 1955). American musicologist. She studied at Yale University (BA 1977), and subsequently at Munich and Princeton, where she took the doctorate in 1984 with a dissertation on Wagner's Parisian Tannhäuser. She joined the faculty at Princeton in 1984, and was appointed professor there in 1991. She has also held visiting positions at the University of California, Berkeley, the Free University of Berlin and Harvard University. She was awarded the Dent medal in 1993. Abbate's primary interests are the history of opera, particularly Wagner, music and language and the metaphysics of musical performance. Her work centres on systematic criticism of methods in operatic interpretation, musical semiotics and narrative, the concept of voice in music, and music and gender. Her later research involves operatic performance and vocal power as a motif in music, philosophy and literature from the Enlightenment to the 20th century.

[Petrus Abailardus]

(b Le Pallet, nr Nantes, 1079; d Saint-Marcel, nr Chalon-sur-Saône, April 21, 1142). French philosopher, poet and musician of Breton origin. After studying philosophy in Paris, he taught dialectic at the cathedral school. His love affair with Heloise, the young niece of Canon Fulbert, brought him fame as a musician. However, after they had secretly married in 1118 Fulbert had Abelard castrated. Heloise became a nun and he became a monk at St Denis. His highly original scholastic method and his restless and blunt nature aroused opposition to his teaching; principal among his opponents was Bernard of Clairvaux. After condemnation by the Council of Sens in 1140, Abelard found support from Peter the Venerable, Benedictine Abbot of Cluny.

Abelard’s songs are few beside his numerous theological and philosophical writings. Heloise’s testimony suggests that his love songs must have been important from both a literary and a musical point of view. In a later letter (probably revised by Abelard) she declared that he had ‘the gift of poetry and the gift of song’; he ‘composed quite a number of metrical and rhythmic love songs. The great charm and sweetness in language and music, and a soft attractiveness of the melody obliged even the unlettered’. These songs, presumably in Latin, have all been lost: they have not been identified among the anonymous repertory....

(b New York, March 10, 1945). American music educator and scholar. He received degrees from the University of Connecticut (BS 1966, MA 1968) and the University of Maryland, College Park (PhD 1971). He served on the faculties of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (1972–5), Indiana University (1975–82), and Teachers College, Columbia University (1982–). At Teachers College he served as coordinator of music education, chair of the Arts and Humanities Department, and director of the Division of Instruction. He is coauthor (with C.R. Hoffer and R.H. Klotman) of Foundations of Music Education (1984, 2/1994) and coeditor (with L. Custodero) of Critical Issues in Music Education: Contemporary Theory and Practice (2010). He wrote chapters for the Handbook of Music Psychology (1980, 2/1996) and The New Handbook of Research on Music Teaching and Learning...

(b Halle an der Saale, Sept 19, 1906; d Kiel, Jan 4, 1996). German musicologist, daughter of Hermann Abert. She studied musicology with her father, Blume and Sachs as well as history with Friedrich Meinecke and philosophy with Eduard Spranger at the University of Berlin and took the doctorate there with a dissertation on Schütz’s Cantiones sacrae in 1934. She then became an assistant lecturer at the musicology institute at the University of Kiel, where she completed the Habilitation in 1943 with a work on Monteverdi and music drama. In 1950 she became supernumerary professor at the University of Kiel and in 1962 research fellow and professor. From 1949 to 1958 she was an editor of the first edition of Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart and from 1964 she was a member of the Zentralinstitut für Mozartforschung. She retired in 1971. Her main field of research was opera from Monteverdi to Richard Strauss, with special emphasis on Mozart, and her writings laid particular emphasis on sources, librettos, aesthetics and the relationship between speech and music. Although her approach to music scholarship was essentially conservative, her conclusions about Mozart's Lambach symphonies were later criticized for being based on stylistic analysis rather than source studies. At the age of 88 she published a short history of opera summarizing a lifetime of thought devoted to the subject....

(b Stuttgart, March 25, 1871; d Stuttgart, Aug 13, 1927). German musicologist. His father was court Kapellmeister at Stuttgart and composed operas, seven symphonies and other works. From 1890 to 1895 Abert studied classics and then music in Berlin under Bellermann, Fleischer and Friedlaender. He took the doctorate at Berlin in 1897 with a dissertation on Greek music, and in 1902 he completed his Habilitation at the University of Halle with a work on the basis of the aesthetics of medieval melody. He was appointed honorary professor in 1909 and reader in 1911. In 1920 he was appointed professor at the University of Leipzig (succeeding Riemann) and in 1923 he became professor at Berlin University (succeeding Kretzschmar). In 1925 he was elected an ordinary member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences at Berlin, the first musicologist to have earned this distinction.

Abert was one of the leading German musicologists of his generation, and he did much to increase regard for his subject among followers of more traditional university disciplines. His numerous distinguished pupils include his daughter ...

(b San José, Aug 24, 1943). Costa Rican composer, ethnomusicologist and baritone. He obtained a teaching diploma and the BA at the University of Costa Rica Conservatory, with singing as his special subject. During 1975–6 he lived in Paris, where he studied singing at the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Musique, Gregorian chant and choral conducting at the Catholic University and ethnomusicology at the Sorbonne. He taught at the Escuela de Artes Musicales of the University of Costa Rica (1976–90; director of the Escuela, 1983–7; dean of the fine arts faculty of the university, 1987–91). In 1994, with the painter Ronald Mills, he co-founded the Centro de Investigaciones y Documentación de Musica y de Artes Plásticas, researching the traditional music of Guanacaste and Limón provinces and of the Costa Rican indigenous people, conducting field studies in Costa Rica, Guatemala and Mexico, making recordings, publishing books and articles, and holding lectures and seminars....

(b Grossfurra, Thuringia, Oct 25, 1643; d Gotha, Feb 20, 1676). German composer and writer. After initially going to school in his native town he was sent in 1656 to Eisenach for three years. There he attended the town school, the staff of which included Theodor Schuchardt, a highly respected teacher of music and Latin. From 1659 to 1662 Agricola studied for his school-leaving examination at the Gymnasium of Gotha; the headmaster there was Andreas Reyher, who was the co-author of the Gothaer Schulmethodus, an educational work which set an example for the teaching of music too. In 1662–3 Agricola studied philosophy at Leipzig University and from 1663 to 1668 theology and philosophy at Wittenberg, where he was awarded a master's degree by the faculty of philosophy. His four recorded scholarly essays dating from this period are lost. He had begun to learn the fundamentals of music during his school years, and he may also have been a pupil of the Kantor of the Thomaskirche, Leipzig, Sebastian Knüpfer. He continued his musical training at Wittenberg, completing the study of composition under the guidance of Italian musicians resident there. Returning to his native Thuringia he was able to turn his musical abilities to good use in the Kapelle of the Schwarzburg-Sondershausen court until in ...

(b Schwiebus [now Świebodzin, Poland], c1486; d Magdeburg, June 10, 1556). German music theorist, teacher and composer. According to his own statements, he came from a peasant family and was largely self-taught in music. By 1520 he was in Magdeburg working as a music teacher. He became choirmaster of the Protestant Lateinschule in about 1525 and retained this position until his death.

Agricola was one of the earliest teachers of music to realize Luther's wish to incorporate music as a central component of Protestant education. His foremost aim in educating students and congregation was to present material as clearly as possible and to reach a large audience. It was for this reason that his early treatises were written in German rather than the customary Latin. His translation of the terms clavis (as Schlüssel), vox (as Stimme or Silbe) and scala (as Leiter) are still used today. His desire to relate music education to everyday life can be seen in his modernization of old-fashioned rules of harmonic and rhythmic proportions, which he related to commercial arithmetic, in particular the Rule of Three, which formed the most important component of arithmetic instruction in Latin schools. He was the only theorist to consider ...

(b Montevideo, August 4, 1940). Uruguayan composer, musicologist and teacher of Armenian parentage. He studied composition with Tosar (1955–7, 1966–9), the piano with Adela Herrera-Lerena (1945–59), conducting with Jacques Bodmer (1966–9), musicology with Ayestarán (1964–6) and electro-acoustic techniques with Henry Jasa (1961–3). In Buenos Aires he studied at the Instituto Torcuato di Tella with Gandini and Kroepfl (1969), in Venice with Nono (1970), at the Darmstadt summer courses with Ligeti, Aloys Kontarsky, Xenakis, Globokar and Christian Wolff (1970, 1974), and at various of the Latin American Courses for Contemporary Music with Mumma, Rabe and others (1971–89).

Aharonián has been influential as a teacher and as an organizer of activities in music and music education both in Uruguay and abroad. His teaching specializations range from composition, choral conducting and organology to analysis, musical folklore and music and society; he has taught mainly at the Uruguayan National University and the National Institute for Teacher Training, as well as privately. An assiduous participant and lecturer in seminars and workshops in Europe, the Americas and the Philippines, he has been a member of the executive committee of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music and of the presidential council of the ISCM, and the executive secretary of the Latin American Courses for Contemporary Music. He has received numerous awards from Uruguay and other countries for his work as a composer, musicologist and choral conductor, and commissions from France, Poland, Sweden and Germany....

(b Swanton Morley, Norfolk, bap. Jan 15, 1571; d Amsterdam, ?1622–3). English minister and psalmodist. He attended Cambridge University from 1586 to 1591, leaving without a degree. He was expatriated as a ‘Brownist’ in 1593 and settled in Amsterdam, where he became ‘teacher’ of the Ancient Separatist Church in 1596; in 1610 he founded an Independent church, becoming minister of it himself. He took the Calvinist position on predestination. He was the author of a number of controversial religious tracts, annotations, and translations of scripture. Many consider him one of the finest Hebrew scholars of his day. His Book of Psalmes: Englished both in Prose and Metre, with Annotations (Amsterdam, 1612, 4/1644; music ed. in ISAMm, xv, Brooklyn, NY, 1981) contains all 150 psalms in a new metrical version, together with prose translations and annotations. 48 are provided with monophonic tunes (six melodies are used twice and one three times). 21 of the 40 tunes are drawn from the Continental Reformed tradition, and 16 are from English sources (including three of the newer, short variety such as ...

(b Kiev, 19 Sept/Oct 1, 1898; d Moscow, July 28, 1960). Ukrainian musicologist and composer. He entered the Kiev Academy of the Russian Musical Society in 1911, but in 1914 he was exiled to the northern Olonets government by tsarist authorities. Returning eventually to Kiev he continued his musical education and worked illegally in courses for workers. At the Kiev Conservatory (reorganized by Glier on the basis of the old academy) he studied composition with Glier and Boleslav Yavorsky, and graduated in 1920 from the piano class, where he had studied with Khodorovsky and Heinnich Neuhaus. In the same year he graduated from the Institute of National Economy.

Al′shvang began teaching in public classes on music history in 1919, and in the same year he was appointed head of the Soviet Military Music School in Kiev. From 1923 he taught at the Kiev Conservatory and at the Valery Bryusov Institute of Literature and Fine Arts in Moscow. From ...

[Erik]

(b Ilmajoki, Feb 2, 1911; d Tampere, Sept 2, 1996). Finnish musicologist and folklorist. He studied at Helsinki Conservatory (1929–36) and under A.O. Väisänen at Helsinki University (MA 1942), where he took the doctorate in 1956 with a dissertation on the polska in Finland. His extended fieldwork on folk music and instruments in Finland and Sweden resulted in a collection of over 10,000 melodies (now in Tampere University library). After teaching music at Helsinki Conservatory (1951–7) and lecturing at Helsinki University (1957–62) he held a research grant from the State Humanities Committee (1962–75). He was professor of folk research at Tampere University (1975–7) and director of the university folk research institute (1977–81). He was active in many folk music research organizations. A list of his writings is included in the Festschrift Kentältä kentälle: juhlakirja Erkki Ala-Könnin 70 - vuotispäiväksi 2.2.1981...

[Ottavio Felice Gaspare Maria]

(b Montegiorgio, Ascoli Piceno, Nov 16, 1881; d Montegiorgio, Dec 28, 1928). Italian musicologist, conductor and composer. He studied the piano, organ and composition at the Liceo Musicale di S Cecilia, Rome, where he gained his diploma in 1906 and was from 1912 professor of aesthetics and music history. He also graduated in 1907 from Rome University with a thesis on the Italian oratorio, subsequently expanded into an important book. His scholarly writings – notably those on Italian laudi spirituali and on Carissimi – in general helped to lay the foundations of modern Italian musicology. As a conductor he specialized in choral music, and in 1926 he founded the Madrigalisti Romani. He also fought hard for the improvement of Italian music education. His most ambitious composition, the opera Mirra, is eclectic and uneven, but shows technical enterprise – not least in the brief use of a specially constructed ‘pentaphonic harmonium’, in which the octave was divided into five equal parts (cf Indonesian ...

(Ludwig)

(b Cologne, Nov 17, 1902; d Basle, Oct 19, 1996). American musicologist and pianist of German origin. After schooling in Cologne he was awarded a music teacher's diploma by the Austrian State Commission in 1930. He studied musicology at the University of Vienna (1933–8), and took the doctorate in 1938 with a dissertation on acoustical psychology. He also studied privately with Schenker. In 1940 he emigrated to the USA, later becoming an American citizen, and was active as a conductor, teacher, accompanist and répétiteur. He held teaching posts at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music and Art (1947–53) and the University of California at Los Angeles (1953–6) before his appointment in 1956 as professor of music at the California State University at Los Angeles, where he taught until his retirement in 1970 as professor emeritus. He frequently served as accompanist to distinguished singers such as Elisabeth Schumann, Pinza and Fischer-Dieskau, and assisted Lotte Lehmann in her art-song courses. Albersheim was one of the first to write on the importance of the theories of Heinrich Schenker, whose influence is occasionally reflected in his writings. He wrote mainly on acoustics and the psychology of hearing, as well as its relationship to musical aesthetics....

(b Magdeburg, March 31, 1902; d Kiel, Jan 20, 1961). German musicologist. He studied at the Essen Conservatory (1913–21), at the University of Münster and (1921–5) at Berlin with Wolf, Abert, Sachs and von Hornbostel. From 1925 to 1937 he held various teaching posts, organized music festivals in Bremen (1929), Essen (1931) and Aachen (1933), and was active in the Reichsverband Deutscher Tonkünstler und Musiklehrer. After a short period as choral adviser to the Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, he joined the Staatliche Institut für Deutsche Musikforschung, Berlin, in 1939, becoming professor there in 1940 and director in 1941. In 1942 he was elected a member of the Senate of the Preussische Akademie der Künste, representing on that body the interests of musicology.

After the war he became director of the Landesinstitut für Musikforschung, Kiel, in 1947, where he remained until his death, becoming professor at the University of Kiel in ...

(b Philadelphia, July 8, 1899; d Philadelphia, July 6, 1984). American musicologist and music librarian. He studied Romance languages and literature at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received the BA in 1921, the MA in 1925 and the PhD in 1931, and at the University of Copenhagen from 1922 to 1923. He taught both French and music at the University of Pennsylvania from 1923 until 1970, when he retired as emeritus professor of music. From 1937 he was curator of the university library, which was renamed the Otto E. Albrecht Music Library on his retirement. He also held several government positions, serving on the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees for Bavaria (1945–6), as chief of the publications section for the United States Military Government in Hesse (1947) and in Russia as specialist in musicology for the Department of State (1961).

Albrecht's historical interests included music in America to ...

(b Klosterneuburg, nr Vienna, Feb 3, 1736; d Vienna, March 7, 1809). Austrian composer, teacher, theorist and organist. From the age of seven he served as a choirboy for the Augustinians in Klosterneuburg, where he learnt the organ and figured bass from the dean, Leopold Pittner. His studies in composition under G.M. Monn (if accurately reported by Albrechtsberger's pupil Johann Fuss) must have taken place during this period. As a student and choirboy at Melk Abbey from 1749 until 1754, he received a thorough training in composition and organ from Marian Gurtler, the regens chori, and Joseph Weiss, the abbey's organist. After a year of study at the Jesuit seminary in Vienna he worked as an organist in various provincial localities: Raab (now Győr, Hungary), 1755–7; Maria Taferl, near Melk, 1757–9; and Melk Abbey, 1759–65, where he succeeded his former teacher Weiss. His precise place of employment in ...

(b Évora, Dec 27, 1917). Portuguese musicologist. He studied music at the Évora Seminary and in Rome at the Pontificio Istituto di Musica Sacra, where he obtained the licentiate in 1951. From 1940 he taught music and conducted the choir at the Évora Seminary; he also taught at the Centro de Estudios Gregorianos, Lisbon, where in 1966 he succeeded Mario Sampayo as conductor of the Polyphonia, a choir devoted to the interpretation of early music (particularly Portuguese). In 1974 he resigned from both posts. He was made canon of the Évora Cathedral Chapter, where he was active as mestre da capela, in 1957 and was granted the honorary doctorate by the University of Évora in 1988. He has contributed to the encyclopedia Verbo and to various national journals, and has taken part in many conferences, both national and international. His publications may be divided into three fields: transcriptions of Portuguese polyphonic music, catalogues of Portuguese musical archives, and diverse writings on the history of Portuguese music, particularly in the cathedrals. His transcriptions are always extremely accurate and faithful to the originals and, at the same time, practical for choral use. His catalogues, though seldom including musical incipits, are complete, detailed and clear, and form the greatest list of musical sources in Portugal....

(b Northborough, MA, Sept 5, 1830; d Madison, WI, Dec 9, 1889). American classical scholar, teacher, editor, and writer. Allen is best known musically as an editor of Slave Songs of the United States (New York, 1867), also edited by Charles Pickard Ware and Lucy McKim Garrison, who were white collectors of black music.

Allen graduated from Harvard in 1851, subsequently studied in Europe, and returned to the United States in 1856. In 1863 he began an eight-month stint as a teacher on St Helena Island in South Carolina, home to former slaves who remained after plantation owners left in 1861. Here, Allen gained first-hand experience of slave singing that contributed to the detailed explanations of his 36-page prologue to Slave Songs. In 1867 Allen was appointed chair of ancient languages at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he remained until his death.

Allen’s interest in philology is evident in the many pages of the prologue to ...