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(b Noyon, July 10, 1509; d Geneva, May 27, 1564). French theologian, one of the leaders of the Reformation in Switzerland.

In 1523 he studied theology in Paris, then studied law in Orléans in 1528 and in Bourges in 1529. In 1531 he returned to Paris to complete his classical studies, publishing a commentary on Seneca’s De clementia in the following year. Between 1528 and 1533 he became converted to reformed doctrines and in 1533 he had to leave Paris when the Lutheran sect at the university was proscribed by the court. He went to Basle at the end of 1534 and began work on his Christianae religionis institutio; in the dedication of the first edition (1536) to François I he called for toleration of Protestants. In 1536 he stayed for a short time at the court of Renée of France in Ferrara, and there met Clément Marot. On his way back to Strasbourg he went to Geneva, where the reformer Guillaume Favel persuaded him to help with the organization of the Church. However, in ...

(b Fontaines-lès-Dijon, 1090; d Clairvaux, 1153). French theologian, reformer and mystic. He was educated at Châtillon by the canons of St Vorles. In 1112 or 1113 he entered Cîteaux, and in 1115, in obedience to his abbot, St Stephen Harding, he left it to found Clairvaux, which was to become one of the most famous houses of the Cistercian order. Bernard was its first abbot, ruling over it until his death. Many of his written works were designed for delivery in the chapter house before his own monks. His influence, however, extended far beyond the confines of Clairvaux. He travelled throughout Europe, from Speyer to Palermo and from Madrid to Bordeaux, crossing and recrossing the Alps and the Pyrenees. He made active contributions to synods and councils, notably at Troyes (1128), Pisa (1135), Sens (1140) and Reims (1148). At Troyes he was responsible for establishing the Order of the Knights Templar and he may have been the author of their Rule. He supported Pope Innocent II against the antipope Anacletus II at the disputed election after the death of Honorius II in ...

(d Sens, 1222). French theologian and prelate . He was a master of theology at the University of Paris; his best-known pupil later became Pope Innocent III. Pierre received ecclesiastical preferment, becoming a canon of Notre Dame in Paris, Archdeacon of York (1198), Bishop of Cambrai (1199) and Archbishop of Sens (1200). He led the council at Paris in 1210 which forbade the public teaching and private reading of Aristotle's works on natural history. As archbishop Pierre was a respected familiar of King Philip Augustus. Of his works, including sermons and commentaries, very few have survived. An Office of the Assumption, used at Sens until the 17th century, and the Office for Circumcision are attributed to him.

It is on the latter that his musical reputation is founded. In 1198 Cardinal Peter of Capua, papal legate for France, addressed a letter to the Bishop and cathedral chapter of Paris concerning the Feast of Fools which traditionally took place on the Feast of Circumcision and which had become the focus for much abuse. This document, an attempt to regulate the celebration of the feast, sets guidelines including prescriptions for processions and the performance of liturgical items ‘in organo, vel triplo, vel quadruplo’. Reference to ‘quadruplo’ at once suggests the four-voice compositions of Parisian composers associated with Notre Dame. Other works of the Notre Dame repertory are, furthermore, associated with Sens; it seems possible that Pierre, who is named among the other members of the chapter, responded to the cardinal's letter by writing an Office for the Feast of Circumcision, and by taking the decrees on musical practice with him to Sens....

(b Eisleben, Nov 10, 1483; d Eisleben, Feb 18, 1546). German theologian and founder of the Lutheran Church. He influenced all 16th-century church reformers to a greater or lesser extent by his writings and activities but, unlike some of them, Luther gave an important place to music.

Luther was the son of a fairly prosperous Thuringian miner, who wanted his son to become a lawyer. He was sent to appropriate Latin schools in Mansfeld and Magdeburg, and to the Georgschule in Eisenach. In 1501 he entered the University of Erfurt, where he took the bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Then, following his father’s wishes, he began to study law, but unexpectedly entered the local Augustinian monastery and in 1505 became a monk. In April 1507 he was ordained priest and celebrated his first Mass a month later. Three years later he was commissioned to visit Rome to plead the cause of the reorganization of the Augustinian order. While there he was shocked by the commercialism and worldliness of the Italian clergy....

(b 1542; d Mantua, 1612). Italian Jewish physician and writer on Hebrew antiquities. He discussed music, at great length, in his final work Shil ṭei ha-gibborim (‘Shields of Heroes’; Mantua, 1612), in which he glorified the ancient Temple, its architecture, its liturgy and its music. Ten of the 90 chapters are devoted to music. Portaleone conceived the music of the Levites after Italian Renaissance practices and humanist music theory: thus the discussion turns on polyphony, lute tablatures, contemporary instruments (in analogy to ancient ones, which are described in considerable detail), modes, the doctrine of ethos, simple and compound intervals and the differentiation between consonance and dissonance. He maintained that music in the Temple was a learned art, acquired after a rigorous course of training; it was notated, thus meant to be preserved; its performance was based on written sources. Portaleone acknowledged Judah Moscato as his teacher, although he noted that they conceived music differently: whereas Moscato spoke, generally, of number, harmony and ‘science’, treating music for its cosmological and spiritual connotations, his pupil was concerned with ...

[Alexander] (Thomas Parke)

(b Southsea, June 3, 1892; d Midhurst, Jan 18, 1982). English writer on music. He was educated at Bradfield College and the RAM (1910–13), where he studied chiefly the organ, harmony and composition, and was organist and choirmaster at Frensham parish church and briefly at Farnham. During World War I he served in India, Egypt and Palestine. In 1919 he was appointed music lecturer to London County Council evening institutes. In 1920 he joined the Gramophone Company's educational staff, first as a lecturer and later as its head. In 1930 he entered the Collegio Beda, Rome; he was ordained priest in 1934 and held an appointment at Westminster Cathedral. Though he returned to professional life in 1938 his experiences of Catholic church music, particularly Gregorian plainchant, led him to write a number of books on the subject. In 1940 he joined the Gramophone Department of the BBC, and after the war was appointed chief producer of music talks on the Home and Third Programmes. He developed a highly individual manner as a broadcaster and gave many illustrated talks, which he continued even after his retirement from the BBC in ...

(b Rio de Janeiro, Feb 4, 1696; d Salvaterra, Portugal, Jan 31, 1759). Portuguese writer on music. Before becoming a calced Carmelite his name was José Pereira de Sá Bacon. He studied at Olinda (Brazil) and at Coimbra, there obtaining the doctorate in theology on 17 May 1725...

[Nikolaus]

(b Erfurt, Aug 31, 1609; d Erfurt, April 5, 1680). German writer on music and organist. He spent his whole life at Erfurt. He attended the St Michael Lateinschule until 1621, when he transferred to the Protestant Ratsgymnasium, which was at that time noted for its fostering of music. One of his teachers there was Liborius Capsius, director of the collegium musicum and an important Erfurt University professor. He matriculated at the university in 1626, took his bachelor’s degree in 1628 and became a Master of Philosophy in 1629. He then became organist at the Protestant Thomaskirche and at the Catholic church of the Neuwerk monastery. From 1632 to 1635 he was Kantor and teacher at the Protestant school of preaching and also studied theology. In 1635 he was ordained and became deacon (in 1638 pastor) of the Kaufmannskirche in succession to Joseph Bötticher, who had won a good reputation as a musician. In ...

(b Voznesensk, Kostroma province, 5/Sept 17, 1838; d Kostroma, 8/Dec 21, 1910). Russian writer on church music . Voznesensky graduated from the Kostroma Seminary in 1860 and from the Moscow Theological Academy in 1864. He served as teacher of chant in the Kostroma Seminary until 1883, when he became an inspector of the Riga Seminary until 1894; he then served as head priest of the cathedral of the Trinity, Kostroma. In the late 1880s and in the 1890s he published several volumes of studies dealing with the different varieties of chant in Russian churches. His works are basically compilations, and eclectic in nature. He did only a minimal amount of original research on the historical evolution of Russian chant, but he was among the first in Russia to investigate the melodic traditions of south-western Russian provenance from the 17th and 18th centuries preserved in Western staff notation. He translated into Russian a treatise of the ‘method’ of the Greco-Slavonic chanting originally written in Latin by Ioan de Castro (Rome, ...