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(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 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....

(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

(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 ...

(bap. Oxford, May 24, 1688; bur. Oxford, Jan 7, 1741). English organist and music copyist, son of Richard Goodson. He was baptized at the church of St Cross. He succeeded his father as professor of music at Oxford and as organist of Christ Church. Goodson was listed as choirboy at Christ Church from 1699 to 1707 and as singing-man from 1712 to 1718; Thomas Ford ( GB-Ob MS Mus.e.17) stated that he was appointed organist of Newbury on 24 August 1709. He matriculated on 3 March 1714 and graduated BMus on 1 March 1717. A number of manuscripts in Christ Church and the Bodleian Library, Oxford, contain music copied by him, but he does not appear to have been a composer, unless two anonymous works in his hand – an act song, Festo quid potius die ( Ob MS Mus.Sch.C.143, Och Mus 37, 1142b), and an incomplete Ode for St Cecilia's Day, ...

[Niklas]

(b Altdorf, nr Nuremberg, 1500; d Joachimsthal [now Jáchymov], West Bohemia, May 15, 1561). German writer of hymn texts and melodies. From 1518 to 1560 he was schoolmaster, organist and Kantor in Joachimsthal. Johann Matthesius, Luther’s first biographer and headmaster of the Latin school there from 1532, was also, until 1565, minister of the church; Herman was associated with him both as a close friend and as a colleague, and thus came into contact with the Reformation from an early date. As early as 6 November 1524 Luther wrote to him as ‘viro pio et erudito’. Herman’s importance lies in his hymns, which were published in several volumes. He wrote both text and music, but most melodies are used for several texts. His poems are rhymed syllabic verses with no fixed metre. His Sunday Gospels, which retell Bible stories in rhymed stanzas, remained models for a succession of works of the same type well into the 17th century. In his endeavours to express Christian beliefs in the form of hymns Herman’s texts are close to those of Luther. Though never attaining the poetic force of the latter’s work, many have retained their place in the standard German Lutheran hymn repertory: above all ‘Lobt Gott, ihr Christen alle gleich’, ‘Erschienen ist der herrlich Tag’, ‘Die helle Sonn leucht jetzt herfür’, ‘Hinunter ist der Sonnen Schein’ and ‘Wenn mein Stündlein vorhanden ist’. Many of his melodies show clear affinities with folk music: in particular the traditions of ...

(Fredrik )

(b Gagnef, Dalarna, Feb 23, 1887; d Stockholm, April 10, 1955). Swedish composer, church musician and teacher. He served as organist in Gagnef from the age of 14 and studied at the Swedish Royal Academy of Music, where he graduated as a church musician (1906) and a music teacher (1908), and where he studied composition with Ellberg and Hallén. Subsequently he conducted at Sondershausen and made other journeys abroad. He was organist at the Trefaldighetskyrka, Stockholm (1906–14), and at the Engelbrektskyrka (1914–55). At the same time he taught music in Stockholm high schools and harmony at the conservatory (from 1919, as professor from 1936). In 1926 he was made a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music, of which he was a board member (1937–9 and 1945–55).

Lindberg came from a family with deep roots in Dalarna: several of his ancestors had been peasant violinists, and he himself was steeped in folk music, from which he took many of his themes. He became prominent in the Young Swedes group (...

( Robert )

( b London, May 15, 1883; d London, Feb 28, 1949). English church musician, teacher and composer . He won a Goss Scholarship to the RAM, where he took prizes in composition and organ playing. In 1899 he was appointed organist of Kemsing Parish Church. He moved to Christ Church, Newgate Street (1903), and then to St Peter's, Eaton Square (1913). He was made an FRCO (1902) and took the DMus at Oxford (1914). An association with St Paul's Cathedral had begun in 1903 with his appointment as second assistant, and in 1927 he was made organist at a time when the building was partially closed for restoration. He conducted the reopening ceremony (June 1930) and the thanksgiving service for the silver jubilee of King George V (6 May 1935), composing for each occasion a Te Deum. In ...

( fl 1624–43). Scottish musician . He graduated MA from Edinburgh University in 1624 and probably subsequently taught music in Edinburgh. His manuscript collection of psalm settings dated 1626 was known and described by Cowan, but has since disappeared. After Charles I’s Scottish coronation at Holyrood in 1633, regular choral services were re-established at the Scottish Chapel Royal; Millar was appointed Master of the Choristers in 1634 and in 1635 his fine edition of psalm settings was printed in Edinburgh. In this collection the 104 anonymous settings of the Proper Tunes are by Scottish composers of the late 16th century. Millar wrote in his preface: ‘I acknowledge sinceerely the whole compositions of the parts to belong to the primest Musicians that ever this kingdome had, as Deane John Angus, Blackhall Smith, Peebles, Sharp, Black, Buchan and others famous for their skill in this kind’. Some of these settings can be identified from other sources as wholly the work of Peebles, Buchan and Kemp. In many cases, however, Millar seems to have made ‘composite’ pieces by taking phrases from different settings and fitting them together (sometimes even transposing the parts) to form a more or less pleasing whole. This perhaps helps to explain Millar’s further comment in the preface: ‘collecting all the sets I could find on the Psalmes, after painfull tryall thereof, I selected the best for this work, according to my simple judgement’. In other sections of the book, certain settings of Common Tunes and psalms ‘in reports’, new to the ...

(b Höör, Jan 21, 1920). Swedish composer, church musician and teacher. After attending the Stockholm Musikhögskolan (1938–43) he took appointments as organist in Köping (1943–53) and at St Maria, Helsingborg (1953–62). He studied the organ and composition with Heiller in Vienna (1961–3), and in 1962 he was appointed precentor and choirmaster to the Oscar Parish, Stockholm. From 1965 to 1970 he taught choral liturgy at Uppsala University and at the Stockholm Theological Institute; he joined the staff of the Stockholm training college for music teachers in 1967 as a theory teacher. As a practising musician and composer he has brought new life to Swedish church music by attempting to break down the barriers between sacred and secular music. His compositions are often forceful and dramatically intense, with improvisation an essential ingredient. In the church operas his work has been pioneering....

[ConstantinosConstantine](Alexandros)

(b Constantinople [Istanbul], May 19, 1866 or 1874; d Athens, July 9, 1949). Greek musicologist, music teacher, cantor, and composer. He was crucial in organizing a systematic teaching of Byzantine music in Greece and in establishing a uniform repertory and mode of interpretation in all church rites. After studying philology and theology in Constantinople and serving there as a cantor and a music teacher, he moved to Athens in 1904 to organize a course of Byzantine music in the Conservatory of Athens, an institution fully adapted to German and French music education. Through his articles (mainly in the music periodicals Phorminx (1901–10) and his own Nea [New] Phorminx (1921–2)), his lectures, and the performances he gave with his students, he was successful in changing prevailing ideas and practices, spreading the concept of the importance of preserving the ‘original’ sources.

The influence of equal temperament over Byzantine music performance was another concern of his. He organized concerts with the string professors of the Conservatory instructing them to use unorthodox tunings. In collaboration with the mathematician Stavros Vrachamis he designed, for teaching purposes, a keyboard of 42 keys in each octave, capable of producing all scales of the Byzantine echoi. An organ and a few harmoniums were constructed in 1924 in G.F. Steinmeyer’s factory in Oettingen in Germany; they were funded by his student Eva Palmer-Sikelianos, the American wife of the poet Angelos Sikelianos. Psachos gave the instruments her name (...

(b Dresden, July 25, 1780; d Leipzig, March 7, 1842). German Kantor, composer and teacher . He was the nephew of Christian Ehregott Weinlig (b Dresden, 30 Sept 1743; d Dresden, 14 March 1813), who was an organist in Leipzig (1767–73), a renowned Kantor at the Dresden Kreuzschule from 1785 and a composer of sacred and instrumental music. He first studied and practised law (1797–1803), then took music lessons (especially in composition) with his uncle (1804–6) and with Stanislao Mattei in Bologna (1806). He was Kantor of the Kreuzschule from 1814 to 1817, and in 1823 moved from Dresden to succeed Schicht as Kantor of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig: Weber’s letter of recommendation for this position described him as deeply devoted to his art and gifted with profound insight. In Leipzig Weinlig set himself to maintain the great tradition of the Thomaskirche and raised the standard of performance to a high level. Among others, Mendelssohn praised his activity at the Thomaskirche, where Weinlig remained until his death. A learned and conscientious teacher, he numbered among his pupils Clara Schumann, E.F.E. Richter and Richard Wagner. Though Wagner studied with Weinlig for only about six months (beginning about ...

Member of Withy family

(b c1645; bur. Oxford, Dec 14, 1727). English cathedral singer, string player, music copyist, teacher, and composer, son of John Withy. From 1670 until his death he was a singing-man at Christ Church, Oxford. He played the violin in Edward Lowe’s act song ...

(b Stockton-on-Tees, Sept 18, 1763; d Wycliffe Rectory, nr Barnard Castle, Nov 24, 1829). English musician and inventor . Wright was instructed in music by his father, Robert, by John Garth and, as an articled apprentice, by Thomas Ebdon. On expiration of his articles about 1784, he succeeded Garth as organist at Sedgefield. In 1794 he married Elizabeth Foxton and set to music her operetta, Rusticity. In the ‘Advertisement’ to his Concerto for Harpsichord or Pianoforte (London, c1796), he promoted his invention of a pendulum for keeping musical time as more practicable than the timekeepers of Loulié, Sauveur and others. A model of the invention, owned by Wright’s granddaughter, Miss Edith Wright of Wakefield, was seen by Frank Kidson, when compiling his article for Grove’s Dictionary (3rd edn). In 1797 Wright succeeded his father as organist at Stockton. In 1817 he was organist at Kirkleatham near Redcar; but sometime after he returned to Stockton and remained there as organist, teacher and composer until his death....