Religious or Ritual Musician

[Piero]

(b Florence, c1480; d after 1545). Italian theorist and composer. Nothing is known of Aaron’s early training, his teacher, or his career before 1516. He claims to have had ‘the greatest friendship and familiarity’ with Josquin, Obrecht, Isaac, and Agricola in Florence (most likely between 1487 and 1495, and not necessarily at the same time). By 1516 he was a priest in Imola, where he wrote his first book, Libri tres de institutione harmonica, translated into Latin by the humanist Giovanni Antonio Flaminio. A contemporary poem by Achille Bocchi praises Aaron for rescuing music ‘from squalor and dismal neglect’. By March 1520 he was a singer in Imola Cathedral and from the next year a chaplain; he was also paid by the city to teach music to those who wished to learn. His career in Imola ended abruptly in June 1522 when he was wounded in a factional uprising and his chapel in the cathedral destroyed (Blackburn, forthcoming). By ...

(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 Genoa, c1600; d after 1640). Italian theorist. A Franciscan, he was chaplain and musician to Cardinal Franz von Dietrichstein, Prince-Bishop of Olomouc and governor of Moravia. Before 1629 he probably taught music at the seminary at St Oslowan and from 1629 at the newly established Loretan seminary at Nikolsburg (now Mikulov), the cardinal’s principal residence. He returned to Italy in 1632. His treatise Regulae contrapuncti excerptae ex operibus Zerlini et aliorum ad breviorem tyronum instructionem accommodate (St Oslowan, 1629/R), which in spite of its Latin title and dedicatory letter is written in Italian, was conceived as a textbook of counterpoint for his seminarians. It is an entirely unoriginal and conservative compendium of the most elementary rules concerning the use of consonances and dissonances, derived, according to the title, ‘from the works of Zarlino and others’.

(b Città di Castello, Jan 26, 1595; d Città di Castello, ? after March 15, 1679). Italian composer and teacher. He travelled to Rome with his brother Guidobaldo, an artist, in 1623 and 1625 (Andrae, 17–19), and was employed at S Giovanni in Laterano from January 1627 to May 1629. According to his verse autobiography (in I-Rvat ) he served there ‘seven years and some months’, or from 1622, but neither this nor his statement that he held earlier positions in Città di Castello and at the Gesù in Rome have been confirmed. He subsequently served as maestro di cappella at the cathedrals of Città di Castello (June 1629 to May 1632, December 1635 to November 1640 and May 1677 to March 1679) and Orvieto (December 1632 to 1635). In Rome his principal tenures were at S Maria Maggiore, where he trained boy sopranos (...

(b Salon-de-Provence, bap. Feb 24, 1674; d after 1733). French composer. He was the son of Jean Abeille, a royal notary, and may have been a choirboy at the collegiate church of St Laurent in Salon-de-Provence. From 1699 to 1700 he was maître de chapelle of the primate’s church of St Trophime, Arles; from 31 March 1713 until 17 October 1713, when he was succeeded by François Pétouille, he was vicaire de choeur and maître de musique at the royal parish church of St Germain-l’Auxerrois in Paris. No further details of his life are known.

His most important compositions were two volumes of the Psalms of David translated into French by Antoine Godeau, Bishop of Vence, dedicated to Mme de Maintenon and intended for the use of the young ladies at St Cyr. The 150 psalms are set with considerable skill and variety: the earlier ones are short and simple, but the later ones, in three parts alternating with ...

[Petrus Abailardus]

(b Le Pallet, nr Nantes, 1079; d Saint-Marcel, nr Chalon-sur-Saône, April 21, 1142). French philosopher, poet and musician of Breton origin. After studying philosophy in Paris, he taught dialectic at the cathedral school. His love affair with Heloise, the young niece of Canon Fulbert, brought him fame as a musician. However, after they had secretly married in 1118 Fulbert had Abelard castrated. Heloise became a nun and he became a monk at St Denis. His highly original scholastic method and his restless and blunt nature aroused opposition to his teaching; principal among his opponents was Bernard of Clairvaux. After condemnation by the Council of Sens in 1140, Abelard found support from Peter the Venerable, Benedictine Abbot of Cluny.

Abelard’s songs are few beside his numerous theological and philosophical writings. Heloise’s testimony suggests that his love songs must have been important from both a literary and a musical point of view. In a later letter (probably revised by Abelard) she declared that he had ‘the gift of poetry and the gift of song’; he ‘composed quite a number of metrical and rhythmic love songs. The great charm and sweetness in language and music, and a soft attractiveness of the melody obliged even the unlettered’. These songs, presumably in Latin, have all been lost: they have not been identified among the anonymous repertory....

[Hua Yanjun]

(b Wuxi, Jiangsu province, Aug 20, 1893 or Nov 3, 1898; d Dec 4, 1950). Chinese folk musician. The illegitimate or adopted son of Daoist priest and musician Hua Qinghe in the city of Wuxi, Hua Yanjun also became a Daoist musician, performing in ritual instrumental ensembles and mastering several instruments, including pipa four-string lute and erhu two-string fiddle.

With Hua Qinghe’s death in the mid-1920s, Hua Yanjun inherited a small amount of property. However, visits to local brothels resulted in his contraction of gonorrhoea, leading eventually to blindness. At about this time, Hua appears to have become an opium smoker. Unable now to take part in Daoist ensembles, Hua, under the name Abing, became a street musician, specializing in extemporized songs based on local news. He also performed pipa, erhu and the three-string lute sanxian. Abing has typically been described as the archetypal Chinese folk musician; following political and social trends in China, he has been portrayed at various times in articles, books, film and an eight-part TV series as working-class revolutionary, romantically inspired composer and Daoist musical craftsman....

(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 ...

(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....

[Vojtěch; Wojciech]

(b ?Libice, Bohemia, c956; d nr Danzig [now Gdańsk], April 23, 997). Czech bishop, missionary, martyr, and saint. He belonged to the powerful Slavník family and was baptized Vojtěch, taking the name Adalbert at his confirmation. Educated at Magdeburg, he was consecrated Bishop of Prague in 983. Owing to opposition he twice resigned the see and travelled to Rome, returning each time to Prague. In Italy he became a Benedictine (989) and visited Monte Cassino; he founded the first Benedictine houses in Bohemia (Břevnov, 993) and Poland (Międzyrzecz, c996), and visited Hungary as a missionary. He was canonized in 999 and venerated particularly in Bohemia, Poland, Hungary, and Prussia; for a list of Offices, hymns, and sequences connected with his cult, see Morawski.

The early biographies (ed. in MGH Scriptores, vol.4, 1841/R, pp.574–620; vol.15/2, 1888/R, pp.705–8, 1177, and by Hoffmann) offer no conclusive evidence that Adalbert was a musician. He has been credited, nevertheless, with the earliest vernacular religious songs of both Bohemia (...

(d St Victor, Paris, 1146). French writer of sequences. Previously thought to have died late in the 12th century but now known to have been active much earlier in the century, he was a seminal figure in the development of the sequence repertory. The first document with a probable reference to Adam is a charter of 1098 in which a ‘Subdeacon Adam’ appears among the signatories from Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. By 1107 he had risen through the ecclesiastical ranks to become Precentor; he signed his name ‘Adam Precentor’ throughout his life, even after he left the cathedral for the Abbey of St Victor in about 1133. He was a member of the reform party in Paris, who, with the support of the Augustinians at St Victor, attempted to impose the Rule of St Augustine upon the canons of Notre Dame; it was doubtless the failure of this attempted reform that prompted Adam's departure for St Victor. Adam worked with many influential figures: he would have been a colleague of Peter Abelard during his early years as cantor; he certainly knew and probably collaborated with the famous theologian Hugh of St Victor; and he may have taught Albertus Parisiensis, the man who succeeded him as cantor at the cathedral, and who is credited with a role in the development of the polyphonic innovations now attributed to Leoninus and his generation....

(b c1749; d after 1794). English composer, organist and cellist. According to his recommendation by Francis Hackwood to the Society of Musicians, on 1 February 1784 he was 35 years old, married with two children, organist of Brompton Chapel and a competent violinist, viola player and cellist. He performed as a cellist in the Handel commemoration concerts in 1784 and played in the band for the Academy of Ancient Music during the 1787–8 season. He probably also took part as a cellist in the concerts (held annually) at St Paul’s Cathedral for the relief of the clergy in 1785, 1789, 1790, 1793 and 1795.

From his extant published works it can be seen that Adams was a competent purveyor of small-scale vocal and instrumental works in the manner of Haigh, Osmond or Reeve. His music shows an awareness of changing styles: the early songs and canzonets accompanied either by harpsichord or orchestra with obbligato instrument are in the manner of Arne, giving way to a symphonic style like that of J.C. Bach or Hook in the three sonatas of op.4 (for piano or harpsichord with violin or flute accompaniment); his late sonata for piano duet shows some grasp of larger forms, and ...

(b London, Sept 5, 1785; d London, Sept 15, 1858). English organist and composer. At 11 years of age he began to study music under Thomas Busby. He became organist at Carlisle Chapel, Lambeth (1802), at St Paul's, Deptford (1814), and at St George's, Camberwell (1824). On his appointment to the newly rebuilt church of St Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet Street (1833), he retained the Camberwell post and he continued to hold both until his death. He was one of the most prominent organists of his time, and gave many performances of a kind that would now be termed ‘recitals’. He was much in demand at the openings of newly built organs, and from 1817 onwards he supervised and often took part in the periodic evening performances on Flight & Robson's giant ‘Apollonican’ in St Martin's Lane, London.

Adams was a master of the developing art of imitating orchestral effects on the organ. A typical recital of his, at the opening of the new Exeter Hall organ on ...

(b Mosonszentjános, April 20, 1789; d Buda, 1862). Hungarian composer. From 1800 to 1827 he was a church musician in Győr. In 1827 he went to Pest-Buda, where he became a founding member of the Táborsky String Quartet (playing second violin). In 1838 he became regens chori of the Mátyás church in Buda, a post he held until his death. His daughter Adél (1820–99) married Ferenc Erkel and his son Vince (1826–71) became famous as a piano virtuoso in France and Switzerland.

Alder wrote a quantity of vocal and chamber music, much of which was published in his lifetime: a set of variations on a Hungarian theme and a Grande Polonaise for string quartet; a sonata for violin and piano; various piano works, including a sonatina, an ‘easy and agreeable’ fantasia, a set of variations, and a rondo on a theme from Rossini's La Cenerentola...

(b Niederachen, nr Inzell, Upper Bavaria, Oct 1, 1729; d Salzburg, Dec 22, 1777). German composer and organist. His father, Ulrich Adlgasser (1704–56), was a teacher and organist. On 4 December 1744 he registered in the ‘Grammatistae’ class at Salzburg University, and in the same year he became a chorister at the Salzburg court chapel. His brothers Joseph (b 1732), later organist at Laufen, and Georg (b 1736) were also choirboys in Salzburg. While a student he sang and acted in several Schuldramen, including seven by J.E. Eberlin. He studied the organ and violin, and probably also received instruction in composition from Eberlin.

Adlgasser became court and cathedral organist in 1750, shortly after Eberlin’s promotion to the post of Hofkapellmeister. According to Leopold Mozart’s account of the Salzburg musical establishment (in Marpurg’s Historisch-kritische Beyträge, iii, 1757) Adlgasser’s duties also included the accompaniment of court chamber music on the harpsichord and composing for both the court and the cathedral. After ...

[Ailred, Ethelred]

(b ? Hexham, c1110; d York, 1167). English saint, theologian and historian. He was brought up in the household of David I of Scotland, and later became an officer (dapifer) there. He was professed a monk of the Cistercian house at Rievaulx in Yorkshire (1134); he became abbot of Revesby (1143), but later returned to Rievaulx as abbot (c1147). Early in his career he gained the respect and support of Bernard of Clairvaux. Music forms only a small part of his writings: the De abusu musice attributed to him by Vander Straeten (Grove3; GerbertS, i, 26) cannot be identified as his, but chapter xxiii of the second book of the Speculum caritatis, a work inspired by St Bernard, deals with the same topic. He questioned the use of organs and bells in church, unfavourably comparing the noise of the former to the human voice. His chief complaint, however, was against the use of a virtuoso, and indeed histrionic, performance style: ‘Why that contraction and effeminacy of the voice? … Now the voice is reduced, then it is broken, at one time it is forced, at another it is enlarged with a more expansive sound. … At times the entire body is agitated with gestures worthy of actors; the lips twist, the eyes roll, the shoulders play, the fingers move in response to every note’. He was a proponent of stylistic moderation in the performance of chant. Some of his words have been understood as descriptions of part-singing and hocket: ‘One voice joins us, another drops out, another voice enters higher, and yet another divides and cuts short certain intervening notes …. At times you might see a man with an open mouth, as if expiring with suffocated breath, not singing, and with a certain laughable hindering of the voice as if menacing silence’. Some of Aelred's statements resemble those of his contemporary John of Salisbury, and may provide some evidence of the cultivation and performance of complex polyphony in 12th-century England or on the Continent; yet his complaint may have been exaggerated....

(fl ?c1430). Composer, possibly Italian. He may have been active in Brescia, if that is indeed the origin of the manuscript I-Bu 2216, which contains his only known work. This is a Sanctus (ed. in MLMI, 3rd ser., Mensurabilia, iii, vol.ii, 1970, pp.86–8), written in major prolation, with two equal high voices in florid style over a tenor....

(b 1623–8; d Bologna, 1699, before 28 Jan). Italian singer, composer and instrument maker. He was an Augustinian monk who was employed from about 1649 as a soprano castrato at the Este court at Modena. On 13 November 1660 he was appointed to the choir of S Petronio, Bologna, with a stipend of 50 lire a month; he was discharged on 24 April 1662 but rejoined on 25 July 1663. In October 1665 he returned to Modena, where he succeeded Marco Uccellini as choirmaster of the cathedral. He vacated this post in November 1673 and by early 1674 was again living at Bologna. Between 1677 and 1681 he served as a singer in the cappella of Duke Francesco II of Modena. In 1685 he was made a member of the Accademia Filarmonica, Bologna, and seems to have spent his last years in or near that city. He wrote to the Duke of Modena in ...

(b c1580; d Siena, Jan 1642). Italian composer and theorist.

Agazzari’s parents were evidently of Sienese origin, and he himself settled in Siena as a boy and received his training there, perhaps from Francesco Bianciardi. He was organist at Siena Cathedral from 1597 to 1602, when he left to direct the music at the Collegio Germanico, Rome (1602–3). In 1604 he attended the celebrations marking the centenary of Siena’s Accademia degli Intronati. By 1606 he was maestro di cappella at the Seminario Romano, but returned to Siena in 1607 after being blacklisted by the Cappella Sistina. In the following years he was organist at Siena Cathedral on three different occasions: in 1609, 1611–17, and 1629–33; he also served for two short periods as music director at S Maria di Provenzano, Siena, 1617–19 and 1620–?1622. Not until February 1641 was he appointed maestro di cappella...

(fl 1599–1621). Italian composer. A monk, he is described on title-pages as ‘of Spoltore, Abruzzo’. Apart from eight motets (in RISM 1627²) all his music is either lost or incomplete. Into the latter category fall the Canzonette spirituali for three voices (Venice, 1599) and Il quinto libro dei motetti a 1–4 voci con una messa e vespero...