Johannes Gallicus

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Johannes Gallicus , also Johannes Cartusiensis (* around 1415 in Namur ; † 1473 or 1474 in Parma ) was a Franco-Flemish music theorist and monk of the Carthusian Order in the early Renaissance .

Live and act

After his basic musical training in Namur (today the provincial capital in Wallonia Belgium) Johannes Gallicus went to Italy to continue his studies. There the future English composer John Hothby was one of his fellow students. At the University of Pavia he defended a doctoral thesis ( dissertation ); in this context the following Latin argumentative sentence has been handed down:

"... mihi coram oratione sua Papiae, quae Ticinum olim appellabatur, exposuit, volens opus suum a doctoribus comprobatum iri, cum ea quae optabat assequutus est, non reprehendisse Marchetum" (John Hothby. Excitatio quaedam musicae artis per refutationem, ed A. Seay, Rome 1964, page 51 et seq.).

In the first half of the 1440s, Gallicus joined the Carthusian Order in Mantua . Before 1446 he attended lectures in Mantua with Vittorino da Feltre (1378–1446) on the work Musica of the ancient philosopher and music theorist Boëthius (around 480-524). This profoundly influenced Gallicus' music theory thinking. The following Latin comment has been passed down from him:

"Cum ad Italiam venissem ac sub optimo viro, Magistro Feltrensi, musicam Boetii diligenter audissem, qui me prius musicum aestimabam vidi necdum veram huius artis practicam attigisse practicam. Veram namque practicam musicae funditus tunc ignorabam, haec est: universa, quae scripta sunt hic et e puro forte Boetii prorsus exhausta velle scire ”(Johannes Gallicus. Ritus canendi, ed. By A. Seay. Colorado Springs 1981, volume 1, page 78).

During the tenure of Pope Pius II (1458–1464) he wrote the extensive music-theoretical work Libellus musicalis de ritu canendi . There is evidence that Gallicus taught in Parma in the last decade of his life; there the historian and music theorist Niccolò Burzio (around 1453-1528) was one of his students. Gallicus then died in Parma in 1473 or 1474.

meaning

The music-theoretical thinking of Johannes Gallicus was consistently aimed at the restoration of "authentic church music", which goes back to his preoccupation with Guido von Arezzo (around 992 to around 1050) and Boëthius. He saw Boëthius for the first time as a mediator of ancient Greek music theory and sees it in a historicizing way. From this attitude arises his persistent polemic against Marchetus de Padua , which he accuses of deviating from the teachings of Guido von Arezzo and Boëthius.

In connection with the Musica enchiridadis scholias , Guido von Arezzo and the key doctrines of the tenth to twelfth centuries, his writing “Vera quamquam facilis” deals in the first part with tone letters, Dasia symbols, intervals , church tones and their differences, in the second part the solmization .

In his major work "rite Canendi" he goes in the first part to the emergence of the sound system treats the monochord , the ancient genera , the fourth -, fifth - and octave - species , the ancient keys and the letters notation; In the second part he has included his above-mentioned treatise “Vera quamquam facilis” and added a treatise on the simplex contrapunctus . His other work, "Tam admirabilis", of which his authorship is questionable, explains the elementary arithmetic in the first part and in the second part the proportions on which the current tone system is based.

Works (writings)

  • “Vera quamquam facilis ad canendum atque brevis introductio” (probably from the 1440s or 1450s), quoted as an independent script in Franchino Gaffurio's “Theoria musicae” (1492), later included in the “Libellus musicalis” (see below).
  • "Libellus musicalis de ritu canendi vetustissimo et nuovo" (between 1458 and 1464), handed down in a manuscript that was written between 1473 and 1478 by Niccolò Burzio.
  • "Tam admirabilis quam tacita et quietissima numerorum concinentia" (authorship and date of origin questionable).
  • The "Tractatus de musica plana", often attributed to Gallicus since François-Joseph Fétis (1784–1871), according to today's view of musicologists, does not come from him.

Literature (selection)

  • C. Adkins: The Theory and Pratice of the Monochord , Dissertation at the University of Iowa 1963
  • A. Seay: Johannis Octoby: Tres Tractatuli contra Bartholomeum Ramum , Rome 1964 (= Corpus scripturum de musica No. 10)
  • G. Massera: Figure e momenti della esperienza teoretica musicale in Italia durante il Quattrocento , Parma 1965
  • GG Allaire: Les Sensibles Hausses dans la musique polyphonique avant 1600 , Causmiaceum No. 9, 1979, pages 48-73
  • Cl. V. Palisca: The Impact of the Revival of Ancient Learning on Music Theory , in: Congress report of the International Musicological Society Berkeley 1977, Kassel 1981, pages 870-878
  • Same: Humanism in Italian Renaissance Musical Thought , New Haven / Connecticut 1985, pages 7 and 280-283
  • Fr. Rempp: Elementary and sentence theory from Tinctoris to Zarlino , in: Fr. Zaimer (editor): Antikenrezeption und Satzlehre, Darmstadt 1989, page 65 and following
  • WK Kreyszig: Franchino Gaffurio's Teorica musice (1492): Edition, Translation, and a Study of Sources , dissertation at Yale University, New Haven / Connecticut 1990
  • Klaus-Jürgen Sachs: The cryptogram of Johannes von Soest: attempting an interpretation through musical symbolism , in: Festschrift for Klaus Hortschansky, published by A. Beer and others, Tutzing 1995, pages 9-19

Web links

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  1. ↑ The Music in Past and Present (MGG), Person Part Volume 7, Bärenreiter and Metzler, Kassel and Basel 2002, ISBN 3-7618-1117-9
personal data
SURNAME Gallicus, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cartusiensis, Johannes; Mantuanus, Johannes
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Music theorist and Carthusian monk of the early Renaissance
DATE OF BIRTH around 1415
PLACE OF BIRTH Namur
DATE OF DEATH 1473 or 1474
Place of death Parma