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Åkerberg, (Carl) Erik  

Kathleen Dale

revised by Axel Helmer

(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

Article

Alcman  

Warren Anderson

revised by Thomas J. Mathiesen

[Alkman]

(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).

As the trainer of a choir of girls who sang and danced at Spartan religious festivals, Alcman wrote maiden-songs (see Partheneia), which brought him particular fame. Extensive portions of one of these have survived (PLouvre E3320); the lines recreate with great immediacy the half-humorous, half-impassioned rivalry of his young choristers. For solo performance he composed proöimia, preludes to the recitation of Homeric poetry (see Terpander...

Article

Aldomar, Pedro Juan  

Isabel Pope

revised by Tess Knighton

[Pere Joan]

(fl 1506–9). Iberian composer. A native of Barcelona, he became maestro de capilla at the cathedral there on 19 January 1506. By 1 March 1508 he was appointed singer in the Aragonese royal chapel of Ferdinand V. He appears to have stayed there less than six months and in summer 1509 he succeeded the theorist Juan de Espinosa as ‘master of music’ at Toledo Cathedral; he held this position for only about a year, after which his name disappears from the records. Three villancicos by him appear in the Cancionero Musical de Palacio. It is interesting that these songs are copied in close proximity to two pieces by Pedro de Lagarto, another composer active at Toledo Cathedral. At least one of Aldomar's songs, ¡Ha Pelayo, qué desmayo!, enjoyed considerable popularity: a four-voice version is found in a collection printed in Venice in 1556. His song style is typical of that of the villancico in about ...

Article

Alnaes, Eyvind  

Peter Andreas Kjeldsberg

revised by Martin Anderson

(b Fredrikstad, April 29, 1872; d Oslo, Dec 24, 1932). Norwegian composer, conductor and organist. He studied with Peter Lindeman (organ) and Iver Holter (harmony, counterpoint and composition) at the Christiania Music and Organ School (1888–92), and was then a pupil of Reinecke (composition) and Ruthard (piano) at the Leipzig Conservatory (1892–4). Appointments as organist followed in Drammen (1895–1907) and Oslo (1907–32), where he served at the cathedral from 1916; his First Symphony was completed during a course of study in Berlin in 1897. He was one of those responsible for the foundation of the Norsk Komponistforening, of which he was president from 1921 to 1923. As a member of the Koralbokkomiteen (1922–6) he harmonized most of the melodies in the chorale book of the Norwegian Church, and he edited preludes to all of the chorales. He was active as a choir-conductor, leading the Håndverksangforening (...

Article

Amato [D'Amato, De Amato, Di Amato], (Epifanio) Vincenzo  

Paolo Emilio Carapezza and Giuseppe Collisani

(b Ciminna, nr Palermo, Jan 5, 1629; d Palermo, July 29, 1670). Italian composer. His family were connected with the princely houses of Ventimiglia and Gambacurta. His younger brother Paolo, author of Teatro marmoreo della marina (Palermo, 1682), was one of the greatest Italian architects. His sister or cousin Eleonora was the mother of Alessandro Scarlatti; deputizing for the parish priest of S Antonio Abate, Palermo, Amato personally baptized her daughters. He spent his life at Palermo. Entering the Seminario dei Chierici in adolescence, he obtained a degree in theology and took holy orders. From 1652 he directed music at the church of S Maria del Carmine and from 1665 until his death he was maestro di cappella at the cathedral. He was commissioned by S Maria del Carmine to compose two Passions (one according to St Matthew, the other according to St John). These are not oratorio Passions but liturgical works; recitatives and ...

Article

Ambleville, Charles d’  

Denise Launay

revised by James R. Anthony

(b Burgundy, late 16th century; d Rouen, July 6, 1637). French composer. All that is known of his life is that in 1626 he was procureur of the Compagnie de Jésus at Rouen. He left only musical works, from which we may infer that he was director of music of one of the colleges of his order. His Octonarium sacrum (1634) is a set of five-part verses for the Magnificat, using all eight tones; they are fugal and closely resemble similar pieces by Formé. Two years later he published his Harmonia sacra in two complementary volumes for four and six voices respectively. It includes works for double choir in a distinctly modern style originating in Italy that had already been adopted in France by several composers, Du Caurroy and Le Jeune notable among them; each volume also contains several masses and motets for a single choir. The double-choir works are for liturgical use and comprise psalms, motets and hymns. In his preface d'Ambleville states that they may be performed according to the forces available, for example by two groups – one of four soloists, the other a six-part chorus – by a soprano and bass duet from each choir or by a solo soprano, the missing voices being replaced by instruments or, failing them, by organ alone. He normally wrote either in fauxbourdon style (which he also called ‘musica simplex’) or contrapuntally, including fugal textures (‘musica figurata’), which he handled skilfully. Apart from these Latin works he was also, according to Gastoué (p.264), the composer of the music published in ...

Article

Armstrong, Sir Thomas  

Bernard Rose

(Henry Wait)

(b Peterborough, June 15, 1898; d ? Olney, Bucks, June 26, 1994). English organist, conductor, composer and educationist. He was trained by Haydn Keeton, organist of Peterborough Cathedral, where he was assistant organist, 1915–16. He then studied at the Royal College of Music and Keble College, Oxford. He became successively assistant organist of Manchester Cathedral (1921–2) and organist of St Peter's, Eaton Square, London (1922–8); during the later period he studied at the RCM with Holst and Vaughan Williams. He took the Oxford DMus in 1929. From 1928 to 1933 he was organist of Exeter Cathedral. In 1933 he was appointed organist of Christ Church, Oxford, and remained there until he was appointed principal of the Royal Academy of Music in 1955, a post from which he retired in 1968. He was knighted in 1958. While organist of Exeter Cathedral he was also director of music to the University College of the Southwest and this experience stood him in good stead at Oxford, where he achieved success as a tutor and lecturer and – in succession to Hugh Allen – as conductor of the Bach Choir and the Orchestral Society....

Article

Gaffurius [Gafurius], Franchinus  

Bonnie J. Blackburn

[Lanfranchinus][Gafori, Franchino]

(b Lodi, 14 Jan 1451; d Milan, 24 June 1522). Italian theorist, composer, and choirmaster. At home in both speculative and practical music, he was the first theorist to have a substantial number of his writings published, and his influence can be traced for more than a century, both in Italy and abroad.

Much of our knowledge stems from the contemporary biography by Pantaleone Malegolo, printed in the De harmonia: Gaffurius was born in Lodi to the soldier Bettino from Almenno in the territory of Bergamo and to Caterina Fissiraga of Lodi. He began theological studies early, at the Benedictine monastery of S. Pietro in Lodi Vecchio (where he was still present in September 1473) and was ordained priest in late 1473 or 1474. His first instructor in music was Johannes Bonadies (or Godendach); Malegolo implies that this was in Lodi, where he briefly returned to sing in the cathedral on Ascension Day, ...

Article

Millar, Edward  

Kenneth Elliott

( 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 ...

Article

Sakellarides, Ioannis  

Katy Romanou

(Theophrastou)

(b Litochoro, Pieria, Greece [then, Ottoman Empire], 1854; d Athens, Greece, 15 December 1938).Greek cantor, choral conductor, arranger of church music, music teacher, and composer. He studied philology at the University of Athens and was instructed in both Byzantine and Western music. He taught music in schools and in private lessons. From 1904 to 1907 he taught H.J.W. Tillyard the New Method of Byzantine notation.

In the controversy called ‘The Music Question’ (whether church music should preserve its monophonic texture and neumatic notation or become homophonic notated in stave notation), Sakellarides was an enthusiastic exponent of the second option. Gifted with a flexible tenor voice, he attracted large congregations in central Athenian churches, including the cathedral, performing his own versions of liturgical chant, the product of his elementary knowledge of harmony. He attracted also wrathful criticism from purists.

Collaborating with Athens University professor Georgios Mistriotis, founder in ...