Agricola(real name, Sore), Martin

Agricola(real name, Sore), Martin, German music theorist, teacher, and composer; b. Schwiebus, Jan. 6, 1486; d. Magdeburg, June 10, 1556. He settled in Magdeburg in 1519–20, where he taught music privately and at a parish school. About 1525 he became choirmaster at the Protestant Latinschule. He embraced the Lutheran faith and became one of the earliest Protestant school musicians in his homeland. His Ein Sangbüchlein aller Sontags Evangelien (Wittenberg, 1541), a fine setting of German Protestant songs for 2 and 3 Voices arranged in accordance with the church calendar, is the earliest such collection of its kind. His posthumous collection of 54 3- and 4-part instrumental works publ. as the Instru-mentisch Gesenge (Wittenberg, 1561) is a valuable source on early German instrumentalists. Among his other works were a Magnificat tertü toni, motets, hymns, and sacred songs. His theoretical writings include Ein kurtz deudsche Musica (Wittenberg, 1528; 3^rd ed., 1533, as Musica choralis deudsch; abr. Latin version, 1539, as Rudimenta musices), Musica instrumentalis deudsch (Wittenberg, 1529; 5^th ed., enl, 1545; Eng. tr., 1994), Musica figuralis deudsch (Wittenberg, 1532; includes the suppl. Büchlein von den Proportionibus), Scholia in musicam planarti Venceslai Philomatic (n.p., 1538; includes the suppl. Libellus do octo tonorum regularium compositione), Quaestiones vulgatiores in musicum (Magdeburg, 1543), and Musicae ex prioribus editis musicis excerpta (Magdeburg, 1547).

Bibliography

H. Funck, M. A.: Ein frühprotestantischer Schulmusiker (Wolfenbüttel, 1933).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire