Critic or Journalist

[Spangenberg, Wolfhart]

(b Mansfeld, probably before 1570; d Buchenbach, nr Freiburg, before Oct 1636). German theologian and writer. The first two names of his pseudonym are equivalents of Wolfhart Spangenberg, his original name, and Andropediacus derives from the name of his birthplace. He was the son of Cyriac and grandson of Johann Spangenberg. His father having been obliged to leave his position as court preacher at Mansfeld in 1574 because he supported Matthias Flaccius's substantialist view of Original Sin, he spent his earliest years at, among other places, Strasbourg, from 1578, and Schlitz, near Fulda, from 1581 and came under his father's influence in theological and artistic matters. He matriculated at Tübingen University on 5 April 1586 and took the bachelor's degree in 1588 and master's degree in 1591. He too was an adherent of Flaccianism, which hindered his career as a theologian. In 1595 he followed his father to Strasbourg, where he gained citizenship and earned his living as a proofreader. In ...

(b Seville; fl 1628–33). Spanish writer. He was a member of the Trinitarian order in Seville. Between 1628 and 1633 he wrote several pseudo-historical works on local and religious topics as well as one pertaining to music: El psalterio de David: exortación, y virtudes de la música, y canto, para todo género de gentes, en particular para los eclesiásticos, y obligación que tienen de cantar, o rezar las divinas alabanzas con toda atención, y devoción (Jerez de la Frontera, 1632). This is a curious mixture of legend and history. The first part traces music from classical and biblical times up to and including the medieval period, the second treats of its various uses, not only religious but also military, social, educational and recreational. Arellano mingled ancient fable with contemporary anecdote and drew fanciful analogies between the realms of music and religion. His book is of particular interest as a compendium of the kind of material used in the traditional ‘praise of music’ (...

(b Orléans, c1670; d Paris, 1745). French dramatist. After writing four tragedies for the Thé âtre Français, she is thought to have collaborated with the Abbé Pellegrin, who gave her advice, on several librettos: Les fêtes de l’été (1716), set by Montéclair, and Le judgement de Pâris...

[Caspar Bartholin Secundus ]

(b Copenhagen, Sept 10, 1655; d ?Copenhagen, June 11, 1738). Danish anatomist, doctor of medicine, and polymath. Scion of a famous family of doctors and natural philosophers, he began medical studies with his father in 1671 and three years later was appointed professor of philosophy by King Christian IV. He then travelled for several years, and working in Paris with the anatomist Joseph Guichard Duverney, he first described ‘Bartholin’s glands’ in a cow. Returning to Copenhagen, he took up medical practice and taught medicine and anatomy. In 1678 his father conferred on him the doctorate in medicine. Among his writings on various scientific subjects, in De tibiis veterum, et earum antiquo usu libri tres (Amsterdam, 1677, 1679) he discussed the wind instruments of antiquity. Like many of his publications this one was based mostly on previous authors’ work rather than first-hand research, but it was influential, for example being cited uncritically by Filippo Bonanni (...

(b Novellara, nr Reggio nell'Emilia, 5 Feb or Nov 1582; d Ancona, March 9, 1659). Italian dramatist. He spent his first years in Novellara with his relative Camillo Gonzaga. He was trained at the court of Ferrara and Modena where he lived with his brother Guidobaldo (a writer of tragedies) and then at the Collegio Borromeo in Pavia. Despite an offer of service with the Este family he established himself in Ancona (c1604), retaining his residency when he entered the service of the Medici in Florence. He was a member of various academies (including the Intrepidi of Ferrara, the Gelati of Bologna and the Umoristi of Rome); in Ancona he founded the Accademia dei Caliginosi (7 Jan 1624) and organized the activities of the public theatre of the ‘Arsenale’.

Bonarelli's works were performed in various Italian cities and in Vienna, for which court he provided opera-ballettos, pastorals, ...

(b Pont-de-Vaux, Ain, April 24, 1633; d Paris, May 4, 1691). French lawyer and man of letters. He is often confused with his great-grandson, Charles-Emmanuel Borjon de Scellery (c1715–95). He was active in the law courts of both Dijon and Paris and is known chiefly for his writings on jurisprudence. He also composed poetry (noëls ‘en patois bressan’), published after his death and later set to music, and is credited with Traité de la musette, avec une nouvelle méthode, pour apprendre de soy-mesme à jouer de cet instrument facilement, et en peu de temps (Lyons, 1672, 2/1678/R), which describes an instrument in vogue throughout France at the time and includes examples of music collected by the author.

(b Albi, 1618; d Paris, July 22, 1688). French dramatist . Over a period of 50 years he wrote 23 plays, 14 of them tragedies, the rest machine-plays and comedies. He wrote the libretto for one opera, Méduse (C. H. Gervais, 1697); mainly in alexandrine verse, its plot revolves around Medusa’s love for Perseus and her jealous reaction to his love for Ismene. Boyer viewed Méduse as a tragedy set to music–a play to which intermèdes were added and in which spectacle was an important element. There are similarities with Metastasian drama in his plays Artaxerce, Porus, ou La générosité d’Alexandre and La mort de Démétrius; the last is echoed in Metastasio’s Antigono rather than Demetrio. Boyer’s Agamemnon was the source for the opera Cassandre (1706, Paris; music by Bouvard and Bertin de la Doué, libretto by Lagrange- Chancel), and Ulysse shows parallels with Rebel’s opera of the same name (...

(fl 1689–1702). Spanish theologian. A Jesuit priest, he taught theology at the royal college of his order in Salamanca and was the author of several works on moral and theological questions. His Discurso theológico sobre los theatros y comedias de este siglo (Salamanca, 1689), a vigorous attack on moral grounds on the theatre of his day, is frequently quoted for its account of contemporary Spanish stage music. He describes its beauties with great eloquence, suggesting that they may have been inspired by the Devil, and elaborates in suspiciously vivid terms on its power to arouse amorous feelings. It is unlikely that he can be identified with the Ignacio Camargo who in the 1660s composed some 40 vocal works ( E-V ).

(b Wotton, Surrey, Oct 31, 1620; d London, Feb 27, 1706). English amateur musician and diarist. As a musician, he admitted ‘to some formal knowledge, though to small perfection of hand’. He began the study of music at Oxford in 1639, and though mention of the art obtrudes less in his diary than in that of Pepys, his objective reporting affords an invaluable insight into 17th-century musical life. His long continental journey (1641–7) yields disappointingly little information, though in Italy he enthused about opera, castratos, and music at the Chiesa Nuova in Rome. He received theorbo lessons from ‘one Signor Alessandro’ in Rome late in 1644. He probably brought from Italy numerous printed sets of Italian madrigals and manuscripts. The Evelyn Collection at the British Library includes motets by Carissimi, Dering and Alessandro Grandi (i), together with his own attempt at an alman which he called ...

[Mazzaferro, Giorgio]

(b late 16th century; d before 1647). Italian humanist and writer on music. In 1640, under the pseudonym of Giorgio Mazzaferro, he wrote a Discorso sopra la musica antica, e moderna (in I-Rli ). In the wake of the Florentine Camerata he here proclaimed the superiority of ancient music, in which poetry and music were one, over modern music, where such unity had been lost: in the former, ‘the poetry was sung simply, in a way consistent with its nature, so that everyone could understand and appreciate the words, rhythm and metre of the poetry’, whereas in the latter, vocal music had been ‘crippled’ by the introduction of imitation, canons, ‘strained passages’ and ‘repetitions’. One of the many ‘imperfections’ of modern music was that it had become more than ever ‘soft and lascivious’. Ancient music ‘had its rules, which no-one might violate, so that its propriety and fitting processes might be preserved’. From such a moralistic posture he deplored the spread of the new monodic style to liturgical, or at least church, music: a most serious defect was that there was no difference between ‘a song serenading a lady and one serving to honour God in church, a despicable abuse unworthy of Christian virtue’. Pietro della Valle, to whom the ...

(b Chios, Sept 13, 1564; d Rome, Dec 28, 1637). Italian writer on music. His father, the Genoese governor of Chios, brought the family to Rome after the Turks conquered the Aegean island in 1566. There he made a fortune in banking, which gave his son the means to pursue a lifelong passion for art. Giustiniani was one of the most discerning patrons of his time: an early supporter of Caravaggio and Poussin, he also published one of the first illustrated guides to an art collection, the Galleria Giustiniana (Rome, 1631). Here he assembled engravings of the statues on display at his villa in Bassano di Sutri (now Bassano Romano), near Viterbo.

Giustiniani’s importance for music rests on his Discorso sopra la musica of 1628, which describes musical trends in Italy during the previous half century. While it is concerned primarily with Rome, such leading centres as Ferrara and Florence are not forgotten. His narrative places changes in musical style as early as ...

( fl 1743–67). Italian theatre chronicler . His Catalogo di tutti drammi per musica (Venice, c 1745) lists operas staged in Venice from 1637 to 1745; some copies have handwritten or printed additions up to 1752. Based on earlier works by Ivanovich and Bonlini, Groppo’s catalogue goes beyond these in including a list of the Venetian banquet plays. The detailed bibliographic information he gives on the librettos suggests that it was meant to be used as a guide for collectors. It is not known whether the various other catalogues announced in the book were ever printed, but the Catalogo purgatissimo (MS, 1741–67, I-Vnm ), a forerunner of the printed version and in large part copied from Bonlini, contains indexes of intermezzos. He also wrote Notizie generali de’ teatri della città di Venezia (1766), supplemented by an essay on Greek and Roman theatre buildings by the French theatre historian Nicolas Boindin....

(fl 17th century). Spanish writer on the guitar. He is known only as the author of a short treatise on the five-course guitar entitled Arte de la guitarra, which survives as the first four folios of an undated manuscript ( E-Mn 5917) copied by D. Macario Fariñas del Corral. The first two folios are incomplete and the treatise contains no music. The text is divided into ten rules, several of which refer to a table of guitar chords now lost. It employs Castilian rasgueado notation, in which the chords are represented by the numbers 1–9, the sign ‘+’ and the letter P, the same system as that used by Briçeño and Ruiz de Ribayaz. The ninth rule explains the signs and symbols of mensural notation and the tenth includes four sketches of the guitar, showing the instrument with ten pegs (which suggests double strings on all five courses) and nine frets. (M.J. Yakeley and M. Hall: ‘El estilo castellano y el estilo catalan: an Introduction to Spanish Guitar Chord Notation’, ...

(b Quedlinburg, Saxe-Anhalt, bap. June 2, 1611; d Sülzhayn, Harz Mountains, July 31, 1673). German theologian and writer on music. He was educated in the schools of Quedlinburg, including the Lateinschule, where he studied with Henricus Baryphonus. A scholarship from the town enabled him to enrol at the University of Helmstedt, where he spent three years studying theology. In 1634 he became Kantor at Schwanebeck (south of Helmstedt), thus beginning a long career as Kantor and minister in a number of Protestant churches in the Harz Mountains region, including periods as Kantor at Einbeck (1635–43) and Osterode (1643–4), rector and later vicar at St Alexandri, Einbeck (1644–57) – from 1647 he was simultaneously pastor at neighbouring Negenborn (Holzminden) – and finally as pastor at Sülzhayn (see Liebminger for additional biographical details). He wrote his only known work, Gründliche Einführung in die edle Music oder Singe Kunst...

(b ?Kiel, 1643; d Hamburg, May 20, 1721). German organist and writer, son of Jakob Kortkamp. He studied under Weckmann from 1655 until about 1661, and later in the 1660s he served for a short time as organist at the Jakobikirche, Hamburg, under Christoph Bernhard. His main posts – though they were not important ones – were as organist at two other Hamburg churches, the Maria-Magdalena Kloster (1669–1721) and St Gertrud (1676–1721). His only known composition is a jigg. He also arranged for organ a Magnificat secundi toni by Weckmann and wrote the alto and tenor parts of a cantata by Bernhard. His importance lies in his manuscript chronicle of north German music from 1291 to about 1718, written between 1702 and 1718 (it is now in D-Ha ). This gives invaluable accounts of north German organs and their sounds, as well as information about the lives and works of organists, clergy and Kantors, notably in the 16th and 17th centuries. The information he gave on the men whom he and his father knew personally, such as Hieronymus and Jacob Praetorius, Weckmann and Bernhard, is particularly important....

(b Florence; fl 1690–98). Italian writer. Between 1690 and 1696 he was in Warsaw in the service of the nuncio Andrea Santa Croce, and in 1697 he was in Vienna in the same role. He was in London in 1698 as a correspondent of the Tuscan court, a post he held from 1693. He may have been related to Giovanni Battista Lampugnani (ii). Two of his drammi per musica are known: Per goder in amor ci vuol costanza (1691; music by Viviano Augustini) and the pastoral Amor vuol il giusto (1694; composer unknown). They were written for the weddings of King Jan Sobieski’s children. Lampugnani also wrote two oratorio texts in the manner of Arcangelo Spagna: Il transito di San Casimiro (1695; composer unknown) and La caduta d’Aman (1697; music by Raniero Borrini).

(b Żmudź district, Lithuania, c1596; d Sept 11, 1670). Polish-Lithuanian writer on music. He was a Jesuit and studied philosophy and classical languages at the Vilnius Academy, 1619–22. He taught at the Jesuit colleges of Płock, Nieśwież, Braniewo and Kroża, and also from 1635 at the Vilnius Academy, of which he was pro-rector from 1655 to 1657. In addition to numerous writings on rhetoric and classical languages, he published (anonymously) three musical treatises. Ars et praxis musicae is a practical handbook on the singing of Gregorian chant; it was known to Brossard and has been cited in many subsequent lexicographical writings on music. The Graduale introduces new polyphonic sections to the mass Ordinary and contains revisions of Polish hymns.

(b Rouen, 1674; d Rouen, Nov 10, 1707). French writer on music. He was educated by the Jesuits and studied philosophy and law before assuming his father’s post as Keeper of the Seals of the Parliament of Normandy in 1696. Spurred on by the appearance of the Paralèle des italiens et des françois (1702) of his Normandy neighbour, François Raguenet, Le Cerf brought out in 1704 the Première Partie of his Comparaison de la musique italienne et de la musique françoise modelled on the writings of Claude and Charles Perrault. In a series of three dialogues conducted by a count, a countess and a chevalier (representing Le Cerf’s own voice), he began to limn out the musical aesthetic prevailing in France during the late 17th century. Taking Raguenet’s Paralèle (which is, in fact, a rejection of French music and its practice in favour of Italian counterparts) as a point of departure, Le Cerf espoused a simple, rational, ‘natural’ art over one based primarily on sensual beauty, an art that finds its expression in the ideals represented in the music of Lully. A review appeared in the ...

( b Carentan, Normandy, 1595; d Paris, 1665). French writer . He settled in Paris, where he published his first poems, including the Poésies burlesques, in 1647. Some years later he obtained the patronage of Marie d’Orléans, Princess of Longueville, who became the Duchess of Nemours when she married. She granted him a pension of 350 livres and lodgings in her residence. Loret began producing a rhyming gazette for her: a weekly letter in diary form, giving an account of the news at court and in the city in octosyllabic verse. It first appeared on 4 May 1650 and closed on 28 March 1665, on Loret’s death. It came out in manuscript until 1652; a printing licence was granted in 1655, and it appeared under the title La muze historique from 1656 onwards. Loret’s verses in themselves are mediocre, but they are of interest for the information they provide. Loret had several correspondents, and his sources are varied. There are many letters concerning music at court, with accounts of various ballets, the latest Italian spectacles, the Molière-Lully collaboration and concerts; there are letters on church music, describing many ceremonies, and accounts of music-making among both the nobility and the prosperous middle class. Many performers are mentioned and several of the letters concern the lives of musicians or concerts given in their homes, either to publicize their own or their friends’ works or to display their talents as instrumentalists....

( b Lyons, March 9, 1631; d Paris, Jan 21, 1705). French writer . Menestrier studied at the Jesuit Collège de la Trinité in Lyons and subsequently taught rhetoric there, having joined the Jesuit order in 1646. He later taught at Chambéry, Vienne (Isère) and Grenoble before being recalled to the college at Lyons. It was during this latter stay there that he developed the special interest in the history and organization of public festivals and ceremonies that occupied him for most of his life. This interest resulted not only in his organizing such events (for example on the occasion of the visit of Louis XIV to Lyons in 1658, an event which is known to have included student performances of ballets devised by Menestrier, and for the beatification of François de Sales at Annecy in 1662), but also in his publishing a series of works dealing with their details. His studies in heraldry, in imagery and decoration, in stage design and construction, in the writing of occasional poetry and ballets, and in the theatrical use of music and dance are all notable. In ...