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Article

Abrahamsen, Erik  

John Bergsagel

(Schack Olufsen)

(b Brande, Jutland, April 9, 1893; d Copenhagen, Feb 17, 1949). Danish musicologist. After studying at the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music (1910–13), where he graduated as an organist, he was organist and choirmaster at the Luther Church (1914–24) and head of the music division of the Copenhagen Royal Library (1916–21). As a student he attended Hammerich's lectures in music history at Copenhagen University (there was no degree course in music history until 1915) and in 1917 he became the first MA in musicology in Denmark, graduating with a dissertation on the transition from Catholic to Protestant liturgy in Denmark in the 16th and 17th centuries. During his years at the Royal Library he began to study its large collection of Latin liturgical fragments on the basis of which he tried to reconstruct the Danish medieval liturgy and to provide a demonstration of Peter Wagner’s theory of the two traditions, Roman and Germanic, of Gregorian chant. He submitted this as a doctoral dissertation to the university in ...

Article

Adorno, Theodor (Ludwig) W(iesengrund)  

Max Paddison

(b Frankfurt, Sept 11, 1903; d Brig, Switzerland, Aug 6, 1969). German writer on music and philosopher. The son of a businessman of Jewish extraction, Oscar Alexander Wiesengrund, and a professional singer of Catholic Corsican origin, Maria Calvelli-Adorno della Piana, he adopted his mother's name in the 1920s, initially as Weisengrund-Adorno, dispensing with the hyphen in 1938. In 1937–8 he also wrote briefly under the pseudonym Hektor ‘Rottweiler’.

Strongly influenced by Ernst Bloch's Vom Geist der Utopie and Georg Lukács's Theorie des Romans while still at school, and having had a musical upbringing, with piano, violin and composition lessons from an early age, in 1921 he went on to study philosophy (with Hans Cornelius) at the University of Frankfurt with musicology, sociology and psychology as subsidiary subjects, continuing composition studies with Bernhard Sekles and piano with Eduard Jung. During his student years he became friendly with the philosopher Max Horkheimer and the literary critic Walter Benjamin, who both had considerable influence on his development. Three years after starting university he took the doctorate with a dissertation on Husserl (...

Article

‘Abd al-Qādir  

Owen Wright

[ibn Ghaybī al-Marāghi]

(b Maragh; d Herat, 1435). Timurid composer, performer and theorist. He first rose to prominence in the service of the Jalā’irid rulers of Iraq and Azerbaijan, al-Ḥusayn (1374–82) and Aḥmad (1382–1410). After the conquest of Baghdad by Tīmūr (1393), most of his career was spent in Samarkand and, especially, Herat, at the courts of Tīmūr and of his successors al-Khalīl (1404–9) and Shāh Rukh (1409–47).

‘Abd al-Qādir was one of the most important and influential theorists of the Systematist school. His most substantial surviving works are the Jāmi‘ al-al ḥān (‘Compendium of melodies’), largely completed in 1405 and revised in 1413, and the slighter Maqāṣid al-al ḥān (‘Purports of melodies’), which covers essentially the same ground and probably dates from 1418. Written in Persian, which was by then the language of culture, these works proved particularly influential among later 15th-century theorists; but although both thoughtful and highly competent, on the theoretical side they may be regarded as, essentially, restatements and amplifications of the theory elaborated by ...

Article

al-Rajab, al-Ḥājj Hāshim  

Christian Poché

(b al-A‘zamiyya, June 1921). Iraqi ethnomusicologist and sanṭūr player. The focus of his studies has been on the maqām. He became interested in this in the 1930s after hearing the singing of the masters Muḥammad al-Qundarjī (d 1945) and ‘Abbās aL-Shaykhalī (1881–1967) and in 1937 began learning the maqām himself. In about 1949 he started lessons on the san ṭūr with Sha‘ūbī Ibrāhīm Khalīl (b 1925) and founded a chamber ensemble, al-shalghīal-baghdādī, in 1950. He has widely researched the maqām, making it publicly known with his writings and by touring widely with his chamber ensemble. He is also an expert on manuscripts and has published annotations of treatises by classical authors.

Mukhtārāt al-Abūdhiyya al-‘Iraqiyya [Selections of Iraqi Abūdhiyya] (Baghdad, 1949) al-Maqām al-‘Irāqī [Al-Maqām Al-Iraqi: studies in the classical music of Iraq] (Baghdad, 1961, 2/1983) al-Abūdhiyya [The Abūdhiyya] (Baghdad, 1962) Ḥall Rum ūz Kit...

Article

Albersheim, Gerhard  

Saul Novack

(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....

Article

Aldrich, Putnam C(alder)  

Paula Morgan

(b Swansea, MA, July 14, 1904; d Cannes, April 18, 1975). American musicologist and harpsichordist. After receiving the BA from Yale University in 1926, Aldrich went to Europe, where he studied the piano with Matthay in London and the harpsichord with Landowska in France. He returned to the USA to take the MA at Harvard in 1936 and the PhD there in 1942, working with Apel and Leichtentritt. From 1936 to 1944 he was director of the Boston Society of Ancient Instruments.

He began his teaching career in 1942 at the University of Texas, where he taught until 1944. He was on the staff of Western Reserve University (1946–8) and Mills College, Oakland, California (1948–50). In 1950 he was appointed professor of music at Stanford University, where he taught until his retirement in 1969.

Aldrich combined his scholarly interests with an active career as a harpsichordist. In particular he wrote on the performing practice of early music and the musical ornamentation of the 17th and 18th centuries. His study of the rhythm of 17th-century Italian monody examines notational problems encountered by present-day performers and editors of this music and furnishes provocative, sometimes controversial solutions....

Article

Alexiadis, Minas  

George Vlastos

(b Athens, Feb 17, 1960). Greek composer, musicologist, and keyboard player. Born into an artistic family, he took up jazz and free improvised music. During the period 1977–84 he took his first lessons in composition with Yannis Ioannidis while he also studied law at the University of Athens. Thereafter he continued his studies in composition at the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule (now Robert Schumann University, Düsseldorf) with Guenther Becker until 1986. Having a background both in jazz and electronic music, he showed an interest in the echo effect. Thus, in his early works (dating from the mid-1980s) he developed a heterophonic technique, which he called the ‘technique of linear heterophonic modulations’. In his music he makes extensive use of ancient Greek tetrachords, melodic ramifications, and modal structures deriving from the Greek and other non-Western traditions. Until 1994 his writing was abstract and rhythmically complex, while his later works are more conventionally structured and use consonant sonorities. His output includes operas, vocal music, works for orchestra, works for solo instruments, chamber music, incidental music, electronic music, ballet music, and music for films. Among his major works are the opera ...

Article

Allorto, Riccardo  

Carolyn Gianturco and Teresa M. Gialdroni

(b Mosso Santa Maria, nr Biella, Jan 31, 1921). Italian musicologist. He took diplomas in piano at the Parma Conservatory (1942) and in choral music at the Turin Conservatory (1948), and studied music history with Della Corte at Turin University, where he took an arts degree (1946). He subsequently taught music history in the conservatories of Bolzano (1950–51), Parma (1951–5) and Milan (1954–88); he has edited the journals Almanacco musicale italiano (1954–5), Ricordiana (1955–7) and Musica d’oggi (1958–63) and has been vice-director of Enciclopedia della musica Ricordi (1960–64). He has been a consulting editor for Ricordi since 1964. Music education is one of his major interests: he became director of the series Manuali di Didattica Musicale and Canti nel Mondo (Ricordi) in 1965, and editor of Educazione musicale...

Article

Amat, Joan Carles  

Craig H. Russell

revised by Monica Hall

[Carles y Amat, Joan]

(b Monistrol de Montserrat, c1572; d Monistrol de Montserrat, Feb 10, 1642). Catalan theorist, guitarist and physician. Biographical information about Amat is drawn mainly from research carried out in 1918 by José Vilar (Revista Ilustrada Jorba, 1925, and Pujol, 1950). Although baptismal records are missing, Vilar placed Amat’s birth at around 1572, and this date is confirmed by a letter included in some editions of Amat’s treatise, which states that Amat was 67 in 1639. Amat himself said that he was born in Monistrol, naming his parents as Joan Carles and Joanna Amat. Amat received the doctorate in medicine at the University of Valencia, probably in 1595, and may have spent some time in Lérida. In 1600 he married Mónica Ubach Casanovas; they had no children. He was made municipal physician at Monistrol in 1618, performed a similar function at the nearby monastery of Montserrat, and occupied several other municipal offices. At the time of his death he had just started a period as mayor....

Article

Amigo, Cristian  

Robert Paul Kolt

(b Santiago, Chile, Jan 2, 1963). American composer, guitarist, ethnomusicologist, educator, and producer of Chilean birth. He immigrated to the United States as a child and studied guitar with Joseph Torello, Vincent Bredice, Lou Mowad, and George Aguiar. Amigo enrolled at Florida State University (1980) where he studied classical guitar with Bruce Holzman and William Carter and was active as a performer of popular music. In 1986, he moved to Los Angeles, earning a degree in political science from California State University, Northridge (BA 1995) and degrees in ethnomusicology (MA 1988, PhD 2003) from the University of Calfornia, Los Angeles. He studied in Los Angeles with Kenny Burrell, Gary Pratt, Harihar Rao, and wadada leo Smith. Amigo also performed with African, Arabic, funk, hard rock, free jazz, jazz, and reggae groups, and worked as a session guitarist for Hans Zimmer, Mark Mancina, Jay Rifkin, and Les Hooper, among others....

Article

Andrews, Dwight  

Lawrence Schenbeck

(b Detroit, MI, Sept 24, 1951). American composer, theorist, and jazz saxophonist. He attended public schools in Detroit, including Cass Technical High School, where he studied jazz and led his own band, the Seven Sounds. He continued his education at the University of Michigan (BMEd 1973, MA 1974) and at Yale University (MDiv 1977, PhD music theory 1993). Andrews was ordained as a minister in 1978, serving as Yale University campus chaplain and as faculty member in the Music Department and Department of African American Studies for more than a decade. During that period he met Lloyd Richards, director of the Yale Repertory Theatre, and playwright August Wilson. Andrews became resident music director (1979–86) for the company and contributed original music scores to a number of Wilson’s plays, including Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Fences, The Piano Lesson, and Seven Guitars...

Article

Arkad′yev, Mikhail Aleksandrovich  

Marina Raku

(b Moscow, March 15, 1958). Russian musicologist, pianist and composer. In 1978 he entered the Gnesin Academy of Music, where he studied the piano with A.V. Aleksandrov and the theory of music with Yu.N. Kholopov, M.G. Kharlap and L.A. Mazel′. He completed his postgraduate studies there on the piano in 1988. In 1992 he began teaching at the Russian Academy of Choral Art in Moscow, becoming professor of the piano department in 1995. He is well known for his concert playing activities, as a soloist and ensemble player, and as an accompanist to the baritone Dmitry Hvorostovsky. His compositions include works for the piano, chamber and choral music, and a Missa brevis for mixed choir and organ, which is recorded on CD. He was made an Honoured Artist of Russia in 1995.

Arkad′yev's scholarly interests include the issues of time, rhythm and articulation in music. He gained the doctorate in ...

Article

Arma, Paul  

Vera Lampert

[Weisshaus, Imre]

(b Budapest, Oct 22, 1905; d Paris, Nov 28, 1987). French composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist of Hungarian birth. He studied the piano at the Budapest Academy of Music with Bartók (1921–4), whose advice on composition he often sought in later years and who kindled his love for folksong and collection. (In a lecture given at Harvard in 1943, Bartók spoke of Arma’s textless song for solo voice on one pitch with variations of vowel sound, dynamic and rhythm.) Arma began his career as a member of the Budapest Piano Trio (1925–6). Between 1924 and 1930 he gave many recitals in Europe and the USA and lectured on contemporary music at American universities. He settled in Germany in 1931, and for a time he led the musical activities at the Dessau Bauhaus, lecturing on modern music and experimenting with electronic music produced on gramophone records. Later he lived in Berlin and Leipzig, where he conducted several smaller choirs and orchestras. The advent of the Nazi regime in Germany forced his move to Paris, where he made his permanent home. At first he was associated with the RTF, notably as founder-director of the Loisirs Musicaux de la Jeunesse (...

Article

Babitz, Sol  

Paula Morgan

(b Brooklyn, NY, Oct 11, 1911; d Los Angeles, Feb 18, 1982). American musicologist and violinist. He was largely self-taught after leaving high school. His violin teachers included Carl Flesch and Marcel Chailley; his interest in performing practice was aroused by the writings of Arnold Dolmetsch and encouraged by Igor Stravinsky, whose string parts Babitz edited for many years. From 1933 to 1937 he was a violinist with the Los Angeles PO, then, until 1952, he played with Hollywood studio orchestras. From 1941 to 1962 he was an editor for International Musician. In 1948 he was a co-founder of the Early Music Laboratory, an organization which promotes historical accuracy in performance through the publication of bulletins and demonstration tape recordings. Babitz was concerned with a number of aspects of performance which he believed contribute to an accurate 17th- and 18th-century style. These aspects include clear articulation, use of metric accents, rhythmic freedom within the beat and a lighter tone. He also worked for the modernization of violin fingering to facilitate the performance of works by such contemporary composers as Schoenberg and Stravinsky....

Article

Baines, Anthony C(uthbert)  

Philip Bate

(b London, Oct 6, 1912; d Farnham, Surrey, Feb 2, 1997). English musicologist, conductor and instrumentalist, brother of the double-bass player and composer Francis Baines. During his education at Westminster School (King’s Scholar, 1925–30), his musical talents became evident, encouraged by the school director of music, C. Thornton Lofthouse. In 1930 he went to Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied natural sciences and graduated with honours in chemistry in 1933. The award of an open scholarship to the RCM changed the direction of his career, and after two years’ study devoted mainly to the bassoon he joined the LPO as third bassoon and double bassoon in 1935. This appointment (interrupted by six years’ army service) continued until 1948 and led to his election as assistant conductor in 1949. The following year he became associate conductor to the International Ballet Company, but remained a regular conductor of the LPO Schools Concerts. Between ...

Article

Bardd y Brenin  

Article

Barenboym, Lev Aronovich  

Ada Benediktovna Schnitke

(b Odessa, 18/Jan 31, 1906; d Leningrad, June 25, 1985). Russian musicologist, pianist and teacher. He studied the piano with G.M. Biber and composition with V.A. Zolotaryov at the Odessa Conservatory (1920–25) and mathematics at Odessa University (1922–5). He later completed his musical studies with F. Blumenfel′d at the Moscow Conservatory (1925–30). He taught in a music school in Odessa (1923–5), and worked at the Moscow Central School of Music from 1930 and in the Moscow Music Department of the Commissariat for Public Education (1930–31). Concurrently he was deputy chairman of the piano and methodology section of the State Institute for Musical Sciences in Moscow. From 1931 to 1939 he taught at the Moscow Conservatory, where he ran a class for the piano and the methodology of piano teaching. He was appointed senior scientific officer at the Science Research Institute for Music attached to the Moscow Conservatory in ...

Article

Bartók, Béla  

Malcolm Gillies

(b Nagyszentmiklós, Hungary [now Sînnicolau Mare, Romania], March 25, 1881; d New York, Sept 26, 1945). Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist and pianist. Although he earned his living mainly from teaching and playing the piano and was a relentless collector and analyst of folk music, Bartók is recognized today principally as a composer. His mature works were, however, highly influenced by his ethnomusicological studies, particularly those of Hungarian, Romanian and Slovak peasant musics. Throughout his life he was also receptive to a wide variety of Western musical influences, both contemporary (notably Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg) and historic; he acknowledged a change from a more Beethovenian to a more Bachian aesthetic stance in his works from 1926 onwards. He is now considered, along with Liszt, to be his country’s greatest composer, and, with Kodály and Dohnányi, a founding figure of 20th-century Hungarian musical culture.

At the time of Bartók’s birth, Nagyszentmiklós was part of the northern end of the ethnically diverse southern Hungarian province of Torontál. There, his father, also Béla Bartók (...

Article

Barvyns′ky, Vasyl′ Oleksandrovych  

Virko Baley

(b Tarnopol′, 8/Feb 20, 1888; d L′viv, June 9, 1963). Ukrainian composer, musicologist, pianist and teacher. He took piano lessons first at the K. Mikuli Music School (1895–1905) and with W. Kurtz (1905–06) at the conservatory in L′viv. During the same period he studied jurisprudence at Lemberg University, and from 1907, philosophy at the University of Prague. In Prague Barvyns′ky studied musicology with Z. Nejedly and O. Hostinsky, the piano with I. Holfeld and composition with Vítězsláv Novák (1908–14), who exerted a powerful influence on him. From 1915 to 1939 Barvyns′ky taught at, and was director of, the Lysenko Music Institute in L′viv, and also taught at the conservatory there (1939–41 and 1944–8). A prolific organizer, he initiated and took part in many musical activities in L′viv and became a member of the editorial board of the journal ...

Article

Baudoin, Philippe  

André Clergeat

(b Algiers, Feb 14, 1941). French pianist, arranger, leader, and musicologist. He discovered jazz following a period of classical piano studies. In 1962 he moved to Paris and performed in amateur bands, and in 1966 he became a professional musician. As house pianist at the Jazz O’Maniac he accompanied Albert Nicholas, Bill Coleman (1971–2), and Benny Waters (1971–3), as well as Benny Carter, Jo Jones, Illinois Jacquet, Buddy Tate, Slam Stewart, Stephane Grappelli, Vic Dickenson, Cat Anderson, and others. From 1976 to 1979 he was co-director, with Marc Richard, of the Anachronic Jazz Band, which aimed to present modern jazz themes with a traditional New Orleans jazz orchestration, as may be heard on Anachronic Jazz Band, i–ii (1976, 1978, Open 02, 09). From 1979 to 1983 he led the Happy Feet Quintet, with which he recorded the album Happy Feet and Friends (...