Hucbald

Hucbald von Saint-Amand ( Hucbaldus Elnonensis ) (* around 840 Fleurus , ( Flanders ); † June 20, 930 in Saint-Amand Abbey ) was a monk and one of the earliest music theorists in the West.

Hucbald (also called Hubaldus) studied in the monastery of Saint-Amand, where his uncle Milo held an important position. After a surprising success as a musician, he had to leave the monastery and founded his own school in Nevers . After studying in St. Germain d'Auxerre, however, he returned to his home monastery of Saint-Amand from 872 onwards. There he succeeded his uncle (with whom he had reconciled) as head of the convent school. Between 883 and 900 he worked as a reformer of music schools in various places, including St. Bertin and Reims . In 900 he returned to Saint-Amand, where he stayed until his death in 930.

The only work that is clearly attributed to him today is De harmonica institutione (probably around 880). In it he dealt with the hexatonic scale and the eight modes (keys). He also wrote numerous saints' lives, poems and liturgical hymns.

After the publication by Gerbert von Hornau (in Scriptores de musica ) he was long thought to be the author of other - very important - music theory works ( Musica enchiriadis , Scholia enchiriadis, De alia musica ); however, these were only written about two generations after his death. The authorship is unclear, as an author in the specialist literature Pseudo-Hucbald is mentioned. These writings had a major influence on the development of high medieval music in the West: in them the early forms of polyphonic music-making (Organum and Diaphonia) were treated in detail for the first time. Characteristic for this are the parallel fifths and octave doubling. In De alia musica a new notation with 18 different pitches was introduced, in which the syllables of the sung text were arranged on horizontal lines. This was the first time that the musicians could see the rise and fall of pitch in whole and semitones. Here, too, the first seven letters of the Latin alphabet were used to denote sounds (a preliminary stage of solmization ).

literature

• Yves Chartier: L'oeuvre musicale d'Hucbald de Saint-Amand: Les compositions et le traité de musique . Bellarmine, Saint-Laurent (Québec) 1996, ISBN 2890077322 (French)
• Hucbaldi Carmina . In: Poetae Latini medii aevi 4.1: Poetae Latini aevi Carolini (IV). Part 1 . Published by Paul von Winterfeld . Berlin 1899, pp. 261–275 ( Monumenta Germaniae Historica , digitized version )
• Heinrich Bellermann:  Hucbald the bald head of St. Amand . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1881, pp. 275-277.