Religious or Ritual Musician

(b Alessandria, March 20, 1851; d Alessandria, May 2, 1894). Italian organist and composer. He began his musical studies with his stepfather, Pietro Cornaglia. From 1868 to 1871 he attended the Milan Conservatory, studying the piano with Antonio Angeleri and composition with Lauro Rossi and Mazzucato. His graduation exercise, the cantata Caino e Abele, won the first prize and a medal of honour. He toured abroad as a concert pianist, but from 1880 until his death was organist at the cathedral in Alessandria, where he also founded a school of composition, singing and piano, and conducted concerts for the Associazione filarmonica alessandrina. He composed three operas, Isabella Spinola (1877, Milan), Maria di Warden (1884, Venice) and Una partita a scacchi (1892, Pavia), the latter based on Giuseppe Giacosa's popular comedy. In these works, which did not have much success, Abbà Cornaglia remained uninfluenced by the innovatory tendencies of the ‘Scapigliatura’ and of Catalani and by the new ...

(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 Città di Castello, Jan 26, 1595; d Città di Castello, ? after March 15, 1679). Italian composer and teacher. He travelled to Rome with his brother Guidobaldo, an artist, in 1623 and 1625 (Andrae, 17–19), and was employed at S Giovanni in Laterano from January 1627 to May 1629. According to his verse autobiography (in I-Rvat ) he served there ‘seven years and some months’, or from 1622, but neither this nor his statement that he held earlier positions in Città di Castello and at the Gesù in Rome have been confirmed. He subsequently served as maestro di cappella at the cathedrals of Città di Castello (June 1629 to May 1632, December 1635 to November 1640 and May 1677 to March 1679) and Orvieto (December 1632 to 1635). In Rome his principal tenures were at S Maria Maggiore, where he trained boy sopranos (...

[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 c1420; d 1497). English church musician. He was noted as a fine singer and skilful organist. After service in the household of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (until 1447), and as a lay clerk of Eton College (1447–51), where he was one of the four clerks specially responsible for singing polyphony in the college chapel, he became a clerk of the Chapel Royal in 1451, and Master of the Choristers there from 1455 to 1478. His duties included teaching the boys to play the organ and to sing plainsong and improvised polyphony; also it seems probable that he was instrumental in the introduction about this time of the use of boys’ voices in composed polyphony. The award to him in 1464 of a Cambridge MusB reflects his eminence in the musical profession – he is the earliest known recipient of this degree – while the patronage of Bishop Bekynton brought him valuable sinecures in the diocese of Bath and Wells. His last years were spent as a resident of Sanctuary Yard, Westminster Abbey....

(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 ...

(Johannes Clemens)

(b Sommersell [now Nieheim], Westphalia, April 17, 1904; d Berlin, Dec 21, 1997). German composer and organist. After studying with Wilhelm Schnippering at the Lehrerseminar (Büren), he studied church music in Münster with Werner Göhr and Fritz Volbach (1924–5). In 1925 he went to Berlin where he pursued further study with Alfred Sittard and Max Seiffert at the Akademie für Kirchen- und Schulmusik and attended Wilhelm Middelschulte’s organ masterclasses. He also studied Gregorian chant at the Benedictine abbeys of Gerleve and Beuron. In 1928 he became a lecturer at the Berlin Akademie, where in 1936 he was promoted to professor. After the war he was appointed to the post of ordinarius for Catholic church music at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where, for a time, he was also deputy director. He served as the organist at St Hedwig’s cathedral in Berlin from 1934 until its destruction in ...

(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 ...

(Emanuel)

(b Stockholm, Jan 19, 1860; d Stockholm, Jan 20, 1938). Swedish composer, organist and conductor. He attended the Swedish Royal Academy of Music (1882–6), studying counterpoint and composition with J. Dente, and was a pupil of Franck in Paris (1887–8). In Stockholm he was coach at the Royal Opera (1888–90), organist at the synagogue (1890–1928), music teacher at Norrmalm’s grammar school (1895–1923) and teacher at Richard Anderssons Musikskola (1897–1909). From 1886 he conducted several choirs, including the Bellman Choir (1895–1926), which he also founded, and the Philharmonic Society (1900–03). Åkerberg’s compositions often approach the style of Swedish folk music, especially the ballads Kung Svegder and Prinsessan och Svennen. They are technically sound but conventional.

MSS in S-Skma, Svenska Tonsättares Internationella Musikbyrå

(fl first half of the 11th century). Arab musician and writer. The son of an eminent musician, he became a prominent singer at the Cairo court of the Fatimid caliph al-Ẓāhir (1021–36), and was still active as a teacher in 1057. His music treatise, completed after 1036 and entitled Ḥāwī al-funūn wa-salwat al-maḥzūn (‘Compendium of the arts to comfort sad hearts’), is of particular interest in that it deals with various topics of little concern to other authorities. Written from the perspective of a cultured musician rather than that of a philosopher-theorist, it calls upon a literary tradition of writing about music, and its historical content is frankly derivative, even if of interest for the implication of continuity with the court music of 9th-century Baghdad. But it is wide-ranging in its treatment of contemporary practice, dealing not only with such basics as mode and rhythm, but also with such matters as the normal sequence of events in performance, deportment and etiquette, the materials and construction of the ‘...

(b Plymouth, bap. Jan 28, 1740; d Walsall, bur. March 27, 1791). English organist and composer, eldest son of John Alcock (i). As a chorister under his father at Lichfield Cathedral, he deputized for him from the age of 12, and from 1758 to 1768 he was organist and master of the song school at Newark. In 1766 father and son both went to Oxford, the former to take the DMus degree and the latter the BMus degree which he gained with a setting of Pope’s Messiah (in GB-Ob ). His final appointment, at St Matthew’s, Walsall, followed in 1773, not long after his father had opened a new organ there. His published compositions include church music, songs and cantatas, together with convivial and instrumental music (including a duet for two bassoons or cellos). A volume of anecdotes, The Instructive and Entertaining Companion (Wolverhampton, 1779; ?unique copy 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 Astigarraga, Guipúzcoa, 1893; d Seville, Dec 7, 1970). Spanish composer and organist. He studied with Donostia and others in San Sebastián, with Otaño at the Comillas Seminary, and in Paris with Eugène Cools. In 1919 he was appointed maestro de capilla at Orense Cathedral and then organist at Seville Cathedral, where he became ...

(b Ballersbach, nr Herborn, March 1588; d Gyulafehérvár [Weissenburg, Transylvania; [now Alba Julia, Romania], Nov 9, 1638). German theologian, encyclopedist and music theorist. From 1608 he taught at the Calvinist academy, Herborn, where J.A. Komenský was among his pupils. Following the disruptions of the Thirty Years War, he transferred to Gyulafehérvár in Transylvania in 1629–30. His liberal strand of Calvinist thought is reflected in his theological understanding of music: he tolerated secular music (both polyphonic and instrumental) alongside strictly regulated church music as long as it was committed to the spiritual purpose of all music. Classifying music among the mathematical disciplines, he treated it briefly in a series of mathematical textbooks and most extensively in his masterwork, the largest, most comprehensive and systematic encyclopedia assembled to that time (1630). Like that of most of the 37 disciplines handled in the work, his treatment of music is derivative, and its chief importance lies in its comprehensiveness, systematic presentation, wide distribution and easy accessibility within the encyclopedia as a whole. Like Erycius Puteanus and David Mostart, he favoured seven-syllable solmization series (...

(b Alach, nr Erfurt, May 27, 1584; d Erfurt, Feb 12, 1640). German composer. He was sent to school at Erfurt in 1590 and went on to study theology at the university there in 1598, gaining the bachelor’s degree in 1599 and the master’s degree in 1603. He taught at Erfurt from 1600, beginning at the Reglerschule; from 1601 he was Kantor at St Andreas and from 1607 was also rector of the school connected with it. He abandoned teaching in 1609 and became a pastor: he worked in the parishes of Ilversgehofen and Marbach, near Erfurt, until 1610 and then moved to Tröchtelborn, near Gotha, where he stayed until 1621 and was probably also Kantor. He published most of his music during these years. He was likened to Orlande de Lassus as an ‘Orlandus Thuringiae’ and he himself was conscious of living at a time of great musical activity: as he wrote in the preface to his ...

(b Norwich, Aug 15, 1836; d Durham, Feb 10, 1908). English cathedral organist, teacher and composer. After training as a chorister at Norwich Cathedral (1846–8) and at Rochester Cathedral (1848–50) Armes became pupil-assistant to J.L. Hopkins at Rochester (1850–56). He was subsequently organist of Trinity Church, Gravesend (1855–7), St Andrew’s, Wells Street, London (1857–61), Chichester Cathedral (1861–2) and Durham Cathedral (1862–1907). He took the Oxford BMus in 1858 and DMus in 1864. He was resident examiner in music at the University of Durham from 1890 and became its first professor in 1897; he was examiner at Oxford from 1894. During the 1880s Armes collated and indexed the four sets of manuscript partbooks surviving at Durham. These contained the service music together with separate organ parts of a wide repertory from Tallis to Purcell, formerly used in the cathedral. He composed three oratorios, various anthems, services and other church music....

(b Detroit, MI, Feb 19, 1803; d New Haven, CT, Dec 23, 1881). American author of hymn texts and hymnbook compiler. The son of a missionary to the Native Americans, he was educated at Yale University and Andover Theological Seminary. While at Andover he compiled a small pamphlet containing 101 missionary hymns, three of them his own: entitled Hymns and Sacred Songs; for the Monthly Concert (Andover, MA, 1823), it was intended for use at missionary prayer meetings and was the first such collection to be published in the United States. In 1825 Bacon was ordained and became pastor of the Center Church, New Haven, where he served until he joined the faculty of the Yale Divinity School in 1866. In 1833 he published in New Haven a revision of Timothy Dwight’s edition of Isaac Watts’s Psalms and Hymns, to which he appended the collection Additional Hymns, Designed as a Supplement to Dwight’s Psalms & Hymns...

(bap. Sunningwell, Oxon., June 23, 1700; d after 1758). English psalmodist and singing teacher . He was a farmer's son. One of the first itinerant singing teachers to engrave and print his own music, he was arguably the ‘father’ of the fuging-tune, which became popular in England and America during the late 18th century. A psalmody book, apparently produced in the mid-1720s, has not survived, but four later publications, all undated, make a substantial contribution to our knowledge of country psalmody. The different editions had identical titles, but the use of separate engraving plates meant that contents could vary according to the purchaser's requirements. The music, which Beesly collected but may not have composed, exemplifies the bare harmony and unresolved dissonance of much early Gallery music. Although a few previous examples exist, his claim that the 20 new psalm tunes were ‘Compos'd with veriety of Fuges after a different manner to any yet extant’ is fully justified; his tune to Psalm viii was widely reprinted....

(b Immecke, nr Meinerzhagen, 1536; d Dortmund, Aug 6, 1609). German theorist, teacher and Kantor. He was educated first in Münster and Dortmund, and later at Cologne University where he received the MA in 1560. After serving as teacher, Kantor and administrator for several years in various schools, mainly in Dortmund, he took up a post in 1567 as Kantor at the famous Reinoldi School there; he became Rektor in 1582 in succession to his former teacher and long-standing friend and colleague, Johann Lambach. His work in this post was widely acclaimed and in 1587 he was made Comes Palatinus by Emperor Rudolf II.

He is important for his treatise Erotematum musicae, originally published in 1573 under the title Musicae erotematum, and subsequently reprinted three times. The treatise, of the musica practica type, presents the fundamentals of music in question and answer form. For his formulations Beurhaus borrowed considerably, as was customary in a treatise of this kind, from other German theorists of the time, notably Agricola, Faber (both Gregor and Heinrich), Figulus, Galliculus, Ornithoparchus, Wilfflingseder and Zanger....

(b Westcliff, Essex, March 29, 1906; d Boston, March 10, 1977). American organist of English birth. He studied at the RAM in London. After touring the USA in 1929 as the soloist in an ensemble, he took up residence there in 1930 and became an American citizen in 1937, initially holding church and teaching positions before embracing a career as a recitalist, broadcaster and recording artist that did much to popularize the concert organ and organ music as well as the artist. From 1942 to 1958 he broadcast weekly solo programmes over a nationwide radio network. Originating in the Germanic (now Busch-Reisinger) Museum at Harvard University, these recitals on an Aeolian-Skinner ‘classic style’ organ brought the sound of organ mixtures, mutations and Baroque reeds, as well as the music itself, to many listeners for the first time. Biggs was meanwhile an indefatigable public performer. A product of both activities was the extensive series of recordings, made in the USA and in many European cities, including the ‘Historic Organs of England’, the ‘Mozart Organ Tour’ and the award-winning ‘The Glory of Gabrieli’, the Handel organ concertos (recorded at Great Packington), various Bach projects, and others with instrumental ensembles. Biggs published editions of early music and performed new works (by Hanson, Piston, Quincy Porter, Sowerby and others, with particular emphasis on those for organ and orchestra). His career was marked, then, by interest in organ music of all eras and in many kinds of organs most suitable to its interpretation, and by unfailing energy in performance. He played with most major American orchestras, and in ...