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Music of the western kingdoms of Tooro, Bunyoro and Nkore, including Kigezi.



Though closely related linguistically to the Ganda, the musical styles of the neighbouring kingdoms of Bunyoro and Tooro show a Nilotic influence that clearly parallels the degree of penetration into western Uganda by the Bito clans from the Nilotic north. At some point in the late 16th or the 17th century these invaders established a ruling hegemony, replacing the legendary Cwezi dynasty of the old kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara. Unlike the Bantu-speaking groups discussed in the previous section, duple metre rhythms similar to those in Nilotic music are used to accompany songs and dances. As a result, syllables of two morae are frequently compressed, and conversely short syllables are lengthened to fit the underlying metrical framework of the music. Accompanying rhythms are exemplified with rattles strapped around the lower-legs of dancers, sounding intricate rhythmic patterns against the crisp sounds of the short, single-headed, hand-beaten ntimbo drums for the popular orunyege dance style common to both Tooro and Bunyoro.

Further south in the former kingdom of Nkore, where pastoralist Hima people have moved into an area populated by Iru agriculturalists, the pastoralist influence seems to have produced slower and gentler tempos. The two principal dance genres, the men's ekitaaguriro and the women's ekizino dances of the Iru majority, call for a lightly beaten, continuous pulsation of sounds produced by raft-rattles, large water pots (tapped on their mouths with flat beaters made from banana fibre) or small drums. The pulsation is grouped into repeated patterns of eight beats that are accented variously. Male choral responses at the beginning of their ekitaaguriro dance take the form of prolonged low humming that imitates the lowing of cattle. The dance gestures of the men are marked by raised arms that symbolize the slowly waving long horns of their Nkore cattle, while their feet tap out polyrhythmic patterns. The more powerful and aristocratic Hima became the rulers of the kingdom and many of their cults and song texts are associated with cattle. Poorer Hima earn their living as herders and often live in temporary grass huts within pastures. The Hima entooro men's dance also consists of gentle arm-waving gestures, but it is performed while seated. While the Hima adopted the Bantu language of the Iru, Hima singing style (often admired and sometimes imitated by non-Hima) is extremely melismatic and thus quite distinct from Iru singing.

In 1993 the people of Nkore, unlike the Nyoro and Tooro, voted against the restoration of the kingship to the Hima royal family. Former musical institutions of the palace are likely to vanish, but the playing of one of the ensembles, the esheegu stopped-flutes, was not confined solely to the court and is still practised by a few teams of men in western Nkore. In the mountainous south-western corner of the country the Kiga, whose culture resembles that of the Iru in Nkore, shows less northern influence in their singing styles. Syllable timings in song are more like those of the Bantu peoples discussed above in §(4), but as in Nkore, Bunyoro and Tooro the accompanying rhythms are based on a duple division (see ex.3c).

This survey covers the more important and distinctive music styles in Uganda, but is necessarily incomplete. Table 1 lists many of the principal song-dance genres of most of the ethnic groups in Uganda, as well as the distribution of certain instruments and ensembles (for obvious reasons drums and most idiophones are not included). The information on instruments is based on Wachsmann's survey (Trowell and Wachsmann, 1953), and it must be noted that since the time of that survey some instruments have been adopted by other ethnic groups partly as a result of national education and cultural policies (see §IV below).

TABLE 1: Ethnic groups, Genres and Instruments

  Ethnic Group Main Genres Tumpet sets Flute sets (stopped) Cone flute sets harp lyre zither musical bow mouth bow fiddle lamello- phones flute xylophone

Plains Nilotic or Para-Nilotic

Karimojo Elilea, Ekimuormor, Edonga                                                    

                                 

Teso Atenusu, Emudiru, Aulero                                                                  

                                                 
  Tepeth Naleyo, Duk                                                                        

                                                 
  Laburor Bul, Olilia, Ocutu, Okeure,           T                                                        

Nilotic

Acholi Jwok, Burda, Apiti,       T 3                                                        
  Laracaraca, Dingi Dingi,                                                                          
  Lyel, Orak                                                                          
Lango Myel Rudi, Myel Jwok,                                                                    
  Okeme, Ikoce,                                                                          
Alur Osegu, Agwara     T 3                                                      
  Jwok, Adungu                                                                          
Adhola Myel Rudi, Myel Adhola,                                                                
  Myel Kalyel                                                                    
Gwere         R                                                            

                                                 

Sudanic

Lugbara                                                                      
Madi Osegu       3                                                          
Kakwa More, Mute, Bayiko                                                                          

                                                 

Bantu

Tooro Orunyege, Engabo, R   R   T                                                          
  Kalezi, Eriibi R   R                                                                    
Nyoro Orunyege, Icagoma, R   R   T                                                        
  Entogoro, Musenyo     (R)                                                                    
Nkore Ekitaaguriro, Ekizina         T                                                          
  Kagoma, Entooro                                                                          
Kiga Ekigaaniriro, Kakitari,           T/B                                                      
  Byongorero                                                                          
Ganda Baakisimba, Naukasa, R                                                              
  Amagungu, Embaga,                                                                          
Soga Tamenya Ibuga,                                                                          
  Irongo, Kiswezi,     R                                                      
  Mayebe                                                                          
Konzo Eluma, Nyamulere,       T/B                                                      
  Kikiibi, Kasai                                                                        
Masaba Mwaga (Embalu)         R                                                          
Amba Eluma         B                                                            

                                                 
‘Pygmy’ Mbuti Eluma         B                                                          
                                                                               

                                                 

Key: Zithers: T = Trough Zither; R = Raft Zither; B = Board Zither; Trumpet and Flute sets: R = Royal, associated with a palace; Musical bows: 3 = three string bow; Balciga musical bow: T/B (= both)

                                                 

                                                 

Uganda

III. Buganda

The kingdom of Buganda, on the northern shore of Lake Victoria and to the west of the Nile, was settled at an early date by independent clans of unknown origin. Other clans arrived later to form one nation, a conglomerate of 38 clans under the rule of the kabaka (king). Much of Buganda's musical history is embedded in the oral traditions that record the contributions of the clans to the musical life of the nation. The kingship was interrupted with the coup of 1966 when Muteesa II fled into exile, later dying in London. When the monarchy was reintroduced and Muteesa's heir, Ronald Mutebi (b 1955), was installed as 36th kabaka in 1993, the royal mujaguzo drums were sounded again at his coronation, but in the intervening years many of the former palace musicians had become very old or had died. A ‘cultural village’ has been created adjacent to one of the royal residences, where such traditional musical ensembles as are discussed below might flourish again, but too short a time has elapsed to assess the chances for success of such a revival.

Instruments.

Instrumentalists at the court are under the charge of two hereditary chieftainships, Kawuula and Kimomomera, whose main concern is the royal drums. Next to the royal drummers, the trumpeters were the most conspicuous. They took turns (ebisanja) to serve at the palace for periods of four to six weeks in the year. The amakondeere (trumpets) are made of bottle-shaped gourds and are side-blown. They form an ensemble of at least five instruments played in hocket, each instrument being named according to its position within the pentatonic system to which the set is tuned.

The trumpeters lived on the kabaka's land; a settlement of trumpeters was known as the ekyalo ky 'abakondeere (‘trumpeters' village’). It is believed that the amakondeere came from the east because of their association with the Mmamba (Lungfish) clan, who claimed to have come west across Lake Victoria. Another trumpet set, amagwara, was obtained from one of the neighbouring Bunyoro counties conquered in the 19th century. It was played at the palace on rare occasions and is an example of the accretion of a musical style in the wake of conquest. Certain important chiefs in the past were entitled to trumpet music at their homes. Few members of the former trumpet bands appear to have survived the interregnum period.

The same is true of the former players of the kabaka's ekibiina ky'abalere, a set of five or six notched flutes (endere) played with a quartet of drums (see fig. 2 below). Although it was less prestigious than the trumpet-sets, it still constituted a court ensemble. The akadinda, a large xylophone with up to 22 free keys (see Xylophone, fig.5), was the exclusive instrument of the kabaka. While few specimens are extant, the two villages from which the king's akadinda players were recruited continued to maintain and teach the royal repertory throughout the interregnum. The amadinda or entaala, a xylophone with 12 free keys, was widely played in the homes of important and well-to-do Ganda, and its popularity in school music programmes ensured the continuity of this tradition. As in the case of the akadinda, in the 1990s the previous kabaka's amadinda players and younger kinsmen still practised the repertory in their villages.

The entenga (drum-chime) rose to great social heights within two centuries. First played as a spectacle for country people, later providing entertainment for the priest of an influential spirit cult, it eventually found favour with a kabaka. It became part of the court ensemble to which several refinements were added, and was held in great esteem. When a kabaka wished to favour a chief publicly, he sent entenga to play for him. From the 1950s entenga were made and played at one of the country’s leading high schools, a sure sign that, as regalia, the drum-chime did not rank as highly as certain royal drums.

The music of the court is inseparable from the music of the Ganda people. An example of this may be seen in the role of the omulanga (harpist) who, besides satisfying the musical aspirations of all the community, also held a privileged position at court; he was the only performer who played in the quarters of the king's wives, and his relationship with his lord was as close as that of David and King Saul. Since the beginning of the 20th century there have been few harpists, a mere handful in a nation of some two million people.

Consort music is so important in Buganda that even eng'ombe, the individually made and owned animal-horn trumpets of the hunters, are often sounded together. Like the amakondeere and amagwara, the eng'ombe are side-blown; each has a small hole in the tip which when stopped yields a grace note less than a minor 3rd below the open note, an interval of critical importance in the speech of the Ganda. Unlike the trumpets used in proper sets, eng'ombe are not tuned in relation to each other. Because the hunters rely on horn-calls for coordinating the practical and ritual steps necessary for a successful hunt, the calls tend to follow in fixed sequences; in this sense the horns perform in consort and their sounds acquire ‘musical’ coherence.

In the 18th century Buganda turned its attention to the east bank of the Nile, which resulted in an influx of music from Busoga. A striking example of such borrowing against a background of political supremacy occurred in the second half of the 19th century, when the ntongooli (bowl lyre) of Busoga first attracted attention at the kabaka's court – where, initially, ntongooli players were a distinct group of Soga entertainers – and in time became a popular favourite under the name endongo. Despite their whole-hearted adoption of the instrument, the Ganda still apply the epithet eya Soga (‘of the Soga’) to the endongo. When harp playing became an esoteric art in Buganda, the bowl lyre predominated because it was free from the ties of tradition and in no way diminished the prestige of the harp.

From the beginning of the 20th century migratory labourers have come from abroad in large numbers, bringing their music with them. The most important instrument introduced in this migration, the box-resonated lamellophone, reached Buganda in two different forms, one from Rwanda and Burundi in the south-west and the other from the Alur in the far north-west, by way of Busoga. Labourers from the south-west also brought the gourd bow with tuning-noose, but it has not become established. Although the lamellophone is popular in Buganda, it is rarely played by the Ganda themselves but by immigrants who constitute half the population of some villages.

In 1906–7, a young musician, Eriya Kafero of Mityana, created the endingidi, a single-string tube fiddle that is the only Ganda bowed instrument. The invention was probably inspired by both the indigenous sekitulege (ground bow), a child's string instrument, and the foreign rebab, which was played by Arab travellers from the east coast of Africa introducing to Kafero the technique of bowing. Circumstances favoured the endingidi; like the bowl lyre, it was free from traditional ties and was used to accompany topical poetry. With the endongo it is still favoured by wedding musicians.

Social occasions are often marked by the use of a particular instrument or ensemble. Thus traditional wrestling matches require drumming on the engalabi, a tall, single-headed drum with an exterior profile reminiscent of an ancient cannon (fig.2). The monitor lizard-skin head, struck with bare hands, gives a crisp note. Spectators participate with long choral ostinatos at a remarkably slow tempo for Ganda music. The engalabi is also indispensable to the funeral rites during the stage at which the clan elders appoint a successor to the deceased; to attend the ceremony is okugenda mu ngalabi (‘to go where the ngalabi is’). This drum was of minor importance at the palace compared with the embuutu, a kettledrum with a wooden shell either in the form of an egg truncated at both ends (fig.3) or in a combined cylindrical and conical form, with a sharply angled profile where the lower conical section meets the upper cylindrical section.

Music for the baakisimba, the best-known Ganda traditional dance, at one time required a trio of two embuutu and an engalabi (figs.2–3), but during the 1980s extra embuutu drums were included in the ensemble as a drumming style from the Kooki tribe in south-western Buganda became popular among the semi-professional groups of drummers and dancers. Wedding feasts call for an ensemble in which the embuutu plays a major part. The ensemble, embaga, literally ‘the wedding feast’, consists of a bowl lyre, one or two spike tube bowed lutes, one or two notched flutes and an embuutu. The embuutu is also used for drumming emizira (clan slogans), phrases that name a clan ancestor or hero and recall important events in that clan's history.

Drum names can be confusing. For instance, musicians usually call certain embuutu drums baakisimba because of the role they play in that dance. A drum may have a proper name as if it were a person (virtually the rule for drums in the palace); others have names derived from their use at certain functions or their part in a certain ensemble; alternatively, they may be called by a generic term that identifies them by type. The word eng'oma (Ngoma) means ‘drum’, ‘feast’ or ‘dance’ in Ganda, as in many other Bantu languages.

Form.

The solo-chorus or antiphonal form, ubiquitous in Africa, is also practised in Buganda. Choral responses are disciplined and at times accompanied by hand-clapping. Instrumental music in several parts predominates, and the successive entry of parts is characteristic. Parts interlock like fingers of folded hands, and the only interval that is struck simultaneously is the octave. These features have been studied extensively in xylophone music, which is especially rewarding because it also demonstrates practices such as octave transposition and the existence of the miko, a modal system. Data on miko were first published by Kyagambiddwa (1955) and later studied by Lois Anderson (1968).

Luganda is a tonal language, and musicians claim that the tonal and accentual profile of the language determines the shape of the chanting. However, it is the poetry of the song texts that is of supreme importance; listeners attend to the words rather than to any other feature. In this sense it is justifiable to speak of parameters other than poetry as accompaniment. The text line is the unit of the song, each line usually of four and a half to five seconds' duration. People refer to a particular song by its opening line or lines, many of which are familiar to most Ganda. The performer's task consists of elaborating on the imagery in those lines; he executes his elaborations on different tonal frames, rather like vocal registers, thus producing complex and formal musical and poetic schemes. The manner in which these changes are applied can make the difference between an inspired and a pedestrian performance.

Poetic creation and the use of different tone levels is essentially improvisatory; the singer may use many stock phrases and exclamations to achieve continuity and to mark climaxes. The improvisation of a performer may be repeated on another occasion and eventually become a song in its own right. The various aspects of improvisation, especially those that lead to the creation of a new song, are termed ekisoko, a concept difficult to translate into a Western language. Ganda historians record the political and social circumstances out of which an ekisoko has sprung, even though it be centuries ago, and quote the model for the new ekisoko.

Patterns of accompaniment are likely to be rigidly fixed. It is impossible to say how conservative these patterns are and for how long they have remained intact; however, one has been recorded as having remained stable for over 25 years, and this single case may well be representative of most music in Buganda and may be valid for a much longer period. The music lends itself to notation in 3/8 or 6/8, but Kyagambiddwa has also published several transcriptions in 5/8. He believed that heroic songs of the past were sung in 4/4, a pattern he called biggu (‘witch-doctor's rattles’). The melodies are pentatonic, probably of the pen-equidistant variety, which tends to adapt to Western diatonic tuning. A study of xylophone and harp tuning processes provides an insight into the tunings themselves (Wachsmann, 1967; Cooke, 1992).

Uganda

IV. Modern developments

Western music continues to have an influence on Uganda's music. From the 1950s ‘Sunday’ composers, untrained in Western composition, turned mainly to choral music. The first commissioned composition was probably Mbabi-Katana's Te Deum for the ceremony at the High Court in Kampala on the occasion of Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953. Kyagambiddwa's Uganda Martyrs African Oratorio (1964) was recorded and widely performed in Europe. His technique is characterized by detailed vocal scoring, which closely follows the profile of the text in the traditional manner, with written instructions naming the particular dance style in which drummers might improvise an accompaniment for the chorus in each movement. Like Kyagambiddwa (1928–78), the Munyankore composer Benedicto Mubangizi (1926–95) frequently composed in his own vernacular, closely emulating at times the traditional singing style of his people and occasionally using traditional rhythmic accompaniments. His output was large and included six masses and 265 anthems and hymns. His hymnbook compilation Mweshongorere Mukama (Let us Praise the Lord) contained many of his own compositions and has become popular in Catholic churches throughout the diocese of Western Uganda. Within the Protestant Church of Uganda composers have tended to create vernacular compositions with SATB homophony similar to English models (Gray, 1995).

The late Ahmed Oduka, director of the Uganda Police Band, created a repertory with tunes based on traditional melodic patterns and wrote out the score for band instruments as he had been taught at the Royal Military School of Music, London (Kneller Hall). Like Kyagambiddwa, he added drummers on ad hoc local drums, without scoring their parts.

In Kampala, the capital, and in the few other provincial towns, nightclubs, bars and local radio stations disseminate imported musical entertainment and the somewhat Westernized popular music of local groups. While Congolese and Swahili songs and styles based on West African and Latin American genres are popular, groups such as Jimmy Katumba with the Ebonies and the Afrigos Band (both popular during the 1980s and early 1990s) also perform in local vernacular languages, and in some cases the influence of Western church homophony is clearly evident. One of the most popular genres of the mid-1990s was kadongo kamu, originally inspired by American country music; it involved one singer with a steel-string guitar performing very much in the tradition of the itinerant rural musician. Humorous, topical and subversive commentary (especially during the period of army rule) were important characteristics in these acts. While the guitar accompaniments were rudimentary, using simple triadic Western harmonies, indigenous rhythms such as the baakisimba dance pattern were also integrated. Later, kadongo kamu moved into popular theatres and was enlarged to accommodate other instrumentalists (e.g. electric and bass guitars) and dancers, but it lost none of its political and social content.

Popular theatre involving much song and dance burgeoned through the 1990s, drawing on both the expertise of graduates from Makerere University's School of Music, Dance and Drama and the musical skills of popular musicians. Topical new songs and Western ‘hits’ are juxtaposed with modernized action songs, traditional dances, court music and ritual to build plots advanced mainly by improvised dialogue. Numerous theatre venues have appeared in Kampala and its suburbs, where semi-professional companies often play to packed houses. Some of the urban Muslim population have developed an interest in taarab music from the Swahili coast and several taarab bands were formed during the 1990s, modelling their playing on imported recordings.

During the period of strife, Western religion was perceived by many rural Ugandans to have failed them, and this perception, combined with a breakdown in the national health infrastructure, corresponded to a rise in importance of traditional healers who combine their medicinal work with ancestor worship and spirit appeasement through the use of mediums and various types of trance. Music and dance are vital ingredients in these activities. Moreover, since traditional culture and traditional belief go hand in hand, the leaders of such cult groups (e.g. the Cwezi ancestor cult in Bunyoro and the corresponding Swezi cult in Busoga) regard themselves as guardians of traditional culture and extend patronage to local amateur groups specializing in traditional songs and dances. The cults are well-organized on a national basis; the Ugandan Traditional Healers and Cultural Association serves as a central organization.

An official policy aimed at recognizing the special potential of women in national development has led to the formation of innumerable women's clubs and self-help groups throughout rural Uganda. Singing and dancing often occupy a central place in their activities and in their songs (whether traditional or newly composed), which disseminate the latest ideas on good husbandry, hygiene, child care and other matters considered essential to development.

The ministries responsible for culture, education and agriculture view performance of traditional music and dance as a means of furthering their work. Accordingly, they organize regular district and national music festivals. While new songs are produced in abundance, the performance of traditional repertories clearly illustrates the process of a transference of function. Music and dance that formerly played an essential role in work, ritual, ceremonial and social events in village life are increasingly performed as ‘consati’ (concert programmes) or as theatre. The ‘theatre’ may often be no more than the compound of a homestead or a temporary open space in front of a new dispensary, village school or local government offices.

The numerous rural amateur troupes throughout the regions rehearse programmes that feature not only their local traditional instrumental styles and dances but occasionally also stereotypes of popular dances and musical genres from other regions of Uganda. Some of these groups model their programmes on those of the former National Ensemble (Heatbeat of Africa), which, though based at the National Theatre in Kampala during the 1960s and 70s, used a large cast of performers drawn from various regions in order to create ethnically varied and attractive programmes and to express the concept of a harmonious multi-ethnic society. These efforts, combined with the widespread encouragement of traditional instrument playing in schools, lead sometimes to a varied instrumentarium where harps, zithers, panpipes and xylophones are added to what were once smaller ensembles.

Since around 1970 the adungu harps of the Alur have also been adopted as ensemble instruments in many areas of Uganda. They are made in three or four different sizes, tuned heptatonically, and are used frequently like guitars to produce simple triadic harmonies for accompanying traditional and modern songs and hymns. Everisto Muyinda (d 1992) was the chief inspiration for the concept of mixed ensembles; he became a key figure in the musical life of the country during his varied career as a palace musician, a research assistant in a government-sponsored survey of music in Uganda, a chief musician in the widely travelled National Ensemble (where he was credited with inventing the ‘Kiganda orchestra’), a demonstrator in the music gallery of the Uganda Museum and an instructor in traditional music at several large secondary schools. His younger colleague, Albert Ssempeke, like Muyinda a singer and performer of many instruments, also obtained initial training from the kabaka's musicians and has taken up Muyinda's mantle in his efforts to promote traditional Ganda music. Both men have been teachers and mentors of many Westerners who have studied music in Uganda.

Uganda

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Kagwa: Ekitabo kye bika bya Buganda [The book of the clans of Buganda] (n.p., 1908)

J. Roscoe: The Baganda: An Account of their Native Customs and Beliefs (London, 1911, 2/1995)

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘An Equal-Stepped Tuning in a Ganda Harp’, Nature, clxv (1950), 40–41

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘Musicology in Uganda’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, lxxxiii (1953), 50–57

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘The Sound Instruments’, in M. Trowell and K.P. Wachsmann: Tribal Crafts of Uganda (London, 1953)

J. Kyagambiddwa: African Music from the Source of the Nile (New York, 1955)

M.B. Nsimbi: Amannya amaganda n'ennono zaago [Ganda names and their meanings] (Kampala, 1956)

K.P. Wachsmann: Folk Musicians in Uganda, Uganda Museum Occasional Paper, ii (Kampala, 1956)

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘A Study of Norms in the Tribal Music of Uganda’, EthM Newsletter, xi (1957), 9–16

J. Kyagambiddwa: Uganda Martyrs African Oratorio (Rome, 1964

G. Kubik: ‘Xylophone Playing in Southern Uganda’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, xciv (1964), 138–59

H.F. Morris: The Heroic Recitations of the Bahima of Ankole (Oxford, 1964)

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘Human Migration and African Harps’, JIFMC, xvi (1964), 84–91

G. Jackson, J.S. Gartlan and M. Posnansky: ‘Rock Gongs and Associated Rock Paintings on Lolui Island, Lake Victoria, Uganda: a Preliminary Note’, Man, lxv (1965), 38–40

H.F. Morris: ‘The Praise Poems of Bahima Women’, African Language Studies, vi (1965), 52–66

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘Some Speculations Concerning a Drum Chime in Buganda’, Man, lxv (1965), 1–8

P.R. Cooke: ‘Ganda Xylophone Music: Another Approach’, AfM, iv/4 (1966–70), 62–80

G. Kubik: ‘Composition Techniques in Kiganda Xylophone Music’, AfM, iv/3 (1966–70), 22–39; see also iv/4 (1966–70), 137–45; v/2 (1972), 114

P. van Thiel: ‘The Music of Ankole’, AfM, iv/1 (1966–7), 6–18

A. Sharman and L. Anderson: ‘Drums in Padhola’, Uganda Journal, xxxi (1967), 191–9

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘Pen-Equidistance and Accurate Pitch: a Problem from the Source of the Nile’, Festschrift für Walter Wiora, ed. L. Finscher and C.-H. Mahling (Kassel, 1967), 583–92

L. Anderson: The Miko Modal System of Kiganda Xylophone Music (diss., UCLA, 1968)

P. van Thiel: ‘An Attempt to a Kinyankore Classification of Musical Instruments’, Review of Ethnology, xiii (1969), 1–5

P.R. Cooke: The Ganda ndere (thesis, U. of Wales, Cardiff, 1970)

S. Mbabi-Katana: ‘Similarities of Musical Phenomena over a Large Part of the African Continent as Evidenced by the Irambi and Empango Side-Blown Trumpet Styles and Drum Rhythms’, African Urban Studies, v/4 (1970), 25–41

P.R. Cooke: ‘“Ludaya”: a Transverse Flute from Eastern Uganda’, YIFMC, iii (1971), 79–90

K.A. Gourlay: ‘The Making of Karimojong Cattle Songs’, Mila, ii/1 (1971), 34–48

P. van Thiel: Volksmuziek uit Ankole, West-Uganda (Tervooren, 1971) [in Dutch, Eng., Fr. and Ger.] [with disc]

K.P. Wachsmann: ‘Musical Instruments in Kiganda Tradition and their Place in the East African Scene’, Essays on Music and History in Africa, ed. K.P. Wachsmann (Evanston, IL, 1971), 93–134

K.A. Gourlay: ‘The Practice of Cueing among the Karimojong of North-east Uganda’, EthM, xvi (1972), 240–47

P. van Thiel: ‘Some Preliminary Notes on the Music of the Cwezi Cult in Ankole’, AfM, v/3 (1973–4), 55–64

L.A. Anderson: ‘The Entenga Tuned-Drum Ensemble’, Essays for a Humanist: an Offering to Klaus Wachsmann, ed. C. Seeger and B. Wade (New York, 1977), 1–57

P.R. Cooke and M. Doornbos: ‘Rwenzururu Protest Songs’, Africa, lii (1982), 37–60

L.A. Anderson: ‘Multipart Relationships in Xylophone and Tuned Drum Traditions in Buganda’, Selected Reports, v (1984), 121–44

F. Katamba and P.R. Cooke: ‘Ssematimba ne Kikwabanga: the Music and Poetry of a Ganda Historical Song’, World of Music, xxix/2 (1987), 49–68

P.R. Cooke: Play Amadinda: Xylophone Music from Uganda (Edinburgh, 1990) [incl. cassette]

U. Wegner: Xylophonmusik aus Buganda (Ostafrika), Musikbogen, No.1 (Wilhelmshaven, 1990) [incl. cassette]

G. Kubik: ‘Theorie, Auffuhrungspraxis und Kompositionstechniken der Hofmusik von Buganda: ein Leitfaden zur Komposition in einer ostafrikanischen Musikkultur’, Hamburger Jb für Musikwissenschaft, xi (1991), 23–162

P.R. Cooke: ‘Report on Pitch Perception Experiments Carried Out in Buganda and Busoga (Uganda)’, AfM, vii/2 (1992), 119–25

C.T. Gray: ‘Patterns of Textual Recurrence in Kiganda Song’, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, xxiii/1 (1992), 85–100

G. Kubik: ‘Embaire Xylophone Music of Samusiri Babalanda (Uganda, 1968)’, World of Music, xxxiv/1 (1992), 57–84

C.T. Gray: ‘The Ugandan Lyre Endongo and its Music’, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, ii (1993), 117–42

P.R. Cooke: ‘Orchestral Melo-Rhythm in southern Uganda’, For Gerhard Kubik: Festschrift, ed. A. Schmidhofer and D. Schuller (Frankfurt, 1995), 147–60

C.T. Gray: ‘Compositional Techniques in Roman Catholic Church Music in Uganda’, British Journal of Ethnomusicology, iv (1995), 135–55

J.K. Makubuya: ‘Endongo’: the Role and Significance of the Baganda Bowl Lyre of Uganda (diss., UCLA, 1995)

P.R. Cooke: ‘Music in a Ugandan Court’, EthM, xxiv/3 (1996), 439–52

S. Kasule and P.R. Cooke: ‘Regards croisés sur la vie musicale en Ouganda’, Cahiers de musiques traditionelles, ix (1996), 147–66

Ugarte, Floro M(elitón)

(b Buenos Aires, 15 Sept 1884; d Buenos Aires, 11 June 1975). Argentine composer and teacher. He received his earliest musical training from Hercules Galvani (violin) and Cayetano Troiani (harmony) in Buenos Aires. Later, he attended the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied harmony with Pessard and Lavignac and counterpoint, orchestration and composition with Félix Fourdrain. After completing his education in 1913, he returned to Buenos Aires, where he held various teaching positions, including professorships at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música and the Universidad Nacional de La Plata. He served as a member of the Comisión Nacional de Bellas Artes and as president of the Sociedad Nacional de Música (later the Asociación Argentina de Compositores). He had a longstanding association with the Teatro Colón, serving on its board of directors (1924–7) and acting as technical director (1930) and general director (1937–43, 1946, 1956) of the theatre.

Ugarte is recognized as one of the leading composers of his generation and a principal proponent of Argentine musical nationalism. His early works show traces of French Impressionism; later, he infused his style and melodic, rhythmic and harmonic suggestions derived from Argentine folk music. His works of the 1940s and beyond reveal an abstract compositional approach, avoiding overt folkloric references. Ugarte composed in all genres. His one-act fairy-tale opera, Saika (1918), and his indigenous ballet, El junco (1944), both received performances at the Teatro Colón. His Violin Sonata (1928) stands as one of the most important works of the Argentine chamber music repertoire. His charming song, Caballito criollo (1928) reveals a potent use of national idioms and expressive capabilities within a concentrated form.

WORKS

(selective list)

Stage: Saika, (op. 1, Ugarte), 1918, Buenos Aires, Colón, 22 July 1920; El junco, (choreog. poem, 1, E. Morales), 1944, Buenos Aires, Colón, 27 Oct 1955
Orch: Entre las montañas, sym. poem, 1922; De mi tierra, suite, 2 series, 1923, 1934; La rebelión del agua, sym. poem, 1931; Sym., A, 1946; Tango, 1950; Vn Conc., 1963
Chbr: Pf Qt, 1921; Vn Sonata, 1928; Str Qt, 1935
Pf: Preludio, g, 1945; 5 preludios, 1945; Vidala, 1948; Lamento campero, 1949; Ronroncitos, 1952
Songs: Baladas argentinas (F. Ugarte), 1v, pf, 1918; Caballito criollo (B. Roldán), 1v, pf, 1928; Ofrenda (M. A. Camino), 1v, pf, 1934; La Shulca (R. Jijena Sánchez), 1v, pf, 1934; Naides (A. Dentone), 1v, pf, 1953; Revelación (E. Morales), 1v, pf, 1954
Pedagogical Works
Principal publishers: Ricordi Americana, Lottermoser, Editorial Argentina de Compositores

BIBLIOGRAPHY

M. Kuss: ‘La contribución de Floro Ugarte a la formación del teatro lírico argentino’, Heterofonía vii/6 (1974), 17–21

M. Kuss: Nativistic Strains in Argentine Operas Premiered at the Teatro Colón (1908–1972) (PhD diss., UCLA, 1976)

R. García Morillo: Estudios sobre música argentina (Buenos Aires, 1984), 255–68

C. García Muñoz: ‘Floro Ugarte (1884–1975)’, Revista del Instituto de Investigación Musicológica Carlos Vega, vi (1985), 79–88 [catalogue of works]

DEBORAH SCHWARTZ-KATES

‘Ugav

(Heb.).

Ancient Jewish instrument, possibly a reed-pipe or form of organ. See Biblical instruments, §3(xii).

Ughi, Uto

(b Busto Arsizio, 21 Jan 1944). Italian violinist. He began playing the violin as a child and first appeared in public at the age of seven, performing the Bach D minor Chaconne. A meeting with George Enescu at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena in the early 1950s led to his going to Paris for two years as one of Enescu's last pupils. He then studied at the Geneva Conservatoire and toured with the pianist Lamar Crowson before beginning an international career. Since 1979 he has helped to organize a festival in Venice, and from 1987 to 1992 he directed the Accademia di Santa Cecilia Chamber Orchestra in Rome. For some time he has spent a third of his year in Italy, where he is based in Rome, and the other months on tour. Ughi is an archetypal Italian violinist, with a strong technique and a large tone of great beauty which he deploys in a repertory ranging from the Italian Baroque to the 20th century. His recordings include many of the large-scale concertos as well as some by Tartini; Beethoven sonatas with Wolfgang Sawallisch at the piano; and Bach's unaccompanied works. He has the use of two violins: the 1701 ‘ex-Kreutzer’ and the 1744 ‘ex-Grumiaux’ Guarneri ‘del Gesù’.

TULLY POTTER

Ugo de Lantinis.

See Lantins, de.

Ugolini, Vincenzo

(b Perugia, c1580; d Rome, 6 May 1638). Italian composer, singer and teacher. He was a pupil of G.B. Nanino at the choir school at S Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, from June 1592 to 31 October 1594. On 1 May 1600 he was engaged as a bass there. From February 1603 to 6 December 1609 he was maestro di cappella of S Maria Maggiore, Rome; after a severe illness in January 1606 he could no longer fulfil his obligations and in order to recover his health was granted leave of absence from Rome from May to September that year. From 1610 he worked at Benevento Cathedral and from 1614 was director of music to Cardinal Arrigoni in Rome. From 1 August 1616 to 31 July 1620 he was maestro di cappella of S Luigi dei Francesi. On 13 June 1620 he was chosen as successor to Francesco Soriano, who had retired as maestro of the Cappella Giulia at S Pietro. He took up the post in July at a salary of only five scudi a month, while Soriano still received ten scudi; from August 1621, after Soriano's death, he was paid the entire salary of 15 scudi. On 16 February 1626 he was discharged, probably because he refused to take part in a public composition contest with Paolo Agostini, who was appointed to succeed him the following day. According to Vincenzo Giustiniani (Discorso sopra la musica), he was in Parma for a short period in 1628, for the Duke's wedding to Margarita de' Medici, sister of the grand duke of Tuscany. From May 1631 until his death he was again maestro di cappella of S Luigi dei Francesi. Orazio Benevoli was among his pupils.

Though clearly rooted in the 16th-century polyphonic style, Ugolini's music is also influenced by innovations taking place around 1600. In his first book of Sacrae cantiones, the setting for double choir is often interspersed with passages for solo voice or a few voices only, and rapidly performed passaggi predominate in the Alleluia sections. Features of this new stylistic approach are present in greater diversity in the Motecta sive sacrae cantiones (Venice, 1616). The solo motets in particular contain extensive virtuoso passaggi of considerable difficulty, requiring trained singers to perform them (see, for instance, the introit motet Dies sanctificatus, with trills within extensive chains of coloratura writing, and the motet Congratulamini, with rapid runs and long coloratura passages calling for considerable vocal range).

The Motecta sive sacrae cantiones (Rome, 1619) contains works characteristic of the concerto style in Roman church music of around 1620. Strong rhythmic contrasts are created by the alternation of extensive coloratura sections and parlando passages, and by frequent changes of meter. Short, rhythmically concise soggetti, repeated in sequence or taken up in imitation by the other voices, enliven the concertato interplay. In the solo motets the continuo forms the function of a supporting bass for extensive melodic sections interspersed with coloratura passages and ornamentation. Internal contrasts, provided by the alternation of rapid and sustained passages, serve to illustrate the text.

The Motecta et missae, liber secundus (Rome, 1622), represent a stylistically interesting symbiosis of the modern concertato style and polyphonic setting in the form of the anachronistic art of the canon. These works are a significant reflection of the situation in Rome at the time, when Romano Micheli was enlivening the scene from 1620–50 with his numerous polemical writings, and urging his contempories to write canonic compositions. Ugolini employs canons for four to 12 voices almost exclusively in the Sanctus movements (the Osanna and Benedictus) of his masses. The only exception is the Missa sopra il vago Esquilino, which also has a canon in the Agnus Dei. In the manner of the riddle canon of the Netherlands, the solution is hidden in an accompanying Latin motto. However, the resolutio is always expressed. By comparison with Ugolini’s earlier works, an increasing sublimation and depth of expression is perceptible in this collection. Important connotations of meaning are sometimes taken to ardent heights by the repetition of words in connection with short melodic sections in sequence (as in the motet Accipe munus). Extensive melismas and the repetition of short motifs in sequence, as in the Christe of the Missa sopra il vago Esquilino, and the occasional insertion of solo passages (as in the Credo of the Missa Beata Virgo Maria, 12vv), emphasize the new stylistic attitude of these compositions. The collection is an important, and in its musical structure a specifically Roman, contribution to the concertato mass of the first quarter of the 17th century.

WORKS

Sacred

Sacrae cantiones, lib.1, 8vv, bc (org) (Rome, 1614)
Motecta sive sacrae cantiones, lib.1, 1–4vv (Venice, 1616)
Motecta sive sacrae cantiones, lib.2, 1–4vv (Venice, 1617)
Motecta sive sacrae cantiones, lib.3, 1–4vv (Venice, 1618)
Motecta sive sacrae cantiones, lib.4, 1–4vv (Rome, 1619)
Motecta et missae, lib.2, 8, 12vv, bc (org) (Rome, 1622)
Psalmi ad vesperas, 8vv, bc (org) (Venice, 1628)
Psalmi ad vesperas et motecta, lib.1, 12vv, bc (org) (Venice, 1630)
2 motets, 2vv, bc, 16183, 16195; 2, 3vv, bc, 16213, 16251
2 hymns: Veni Creator Spiritus, 4vv; Gloria Patri Domino nato, 5vv: I-Rvat C.G.xv/70
4 ants: Illuminare his qui in tenebris, 8vv; Omnes gentes plaudite manibus, 8vv; Et tu puer propheta, 8vv; Petrus apostolus, 6vv: Rvat C.G.xv/70
Litaniae lauretanae, 8vv, Rvat C.G.xv/70
Lauda Sion Salvatorem, 6vv, Rvat C.G.xv/71
Favus distillans, motet, 8vv, bc (org), Rvat C.G.xiii/25
Jubilate Deo, 5vv, Rvat C.G.xv/70

Secular

Il primo libro de madrigali, 5vv (Venice, 2/1615)
Il secondo libro de madrigali, 5vv (Venice, 1615)
1 madrigal, 159916 (also in 161610)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Liberati: Lettera scritta … in risposta ad una del Sig. Ovidio Persapegi (Rome, 1685), 28

A. Cametti: ‘La scuola dei pueri cantus di S. Luigi dei Francesi in Roma e i suoi principali allievi (1591–1623)’, RMI, xxii (1915), 593–641

V. Raeli: Da Vincenzo Ugolini ad Orazio Benevoli nella cappella della Basilica liberiana (1603–1646) (Rome, 1920)

H.-W. Frey: ‘Die Kapellmeister an der französischen Nationalkirche San Luigi dei Francesi in Rom im 16. Jahrhundert’, AMw, xxii (1965), 272–93; xxiii (1966), 32–60

J.M. Llorens: Le opere musicali della Cappella Giuliai: Manoscritti e edizioni fino al '700 (Vatican City, 1971)

KLAUS FISCHER

Ugolino, Biagio.

See Ugolinus, Blasius.

Ugolino of Orvieto [Ugolino di Francesco Urbevetano; Ugolinus de Urbeveteri]

(b ?Orvieto, c1380; d Ferrara, 23–31 Jan 1452). Italian theorist and composer.

Life and music.

He was already at Forlì Cathedral by 18 July 1411. On 13 May 1413 ‘domnus Ugolinus de Urbeveteri’ was reported as a papal singer swearing allegiance to Pope Gregory XII. From 1415, when he represented the city of Forlì at the Council of Konstanz, he was a canon at Forlì Cathedral, appointed archdeacon in 1425; he was also rector at S Antonio abate in Rivaldino, Forlì. In 1427 he served as episcopal vicar during Bishop Giovanni Caffarelli's absence in Rome and was evidently a figure of substance within the city. He had correspondence with the humanists Girolamo Guarini, Ambrogio Traversari and Flavio Biondo; he was famous as an orator; and he is credited with a treatise on physics.

Ugolino visited Ferrara with the singers of Forlì on St Luke's day, 1426. On 12 October 1429 he was elected canon of Ferrara Cathedral, but he was still living in Forlì in November 1429; his permanent residence in Ferrara is documented only from March 1431. Evidently the rise of the Ghibellines in Forlì had forced his departure. On 25 August 1431 he was elected archpriest of Ferrara Cathedral (until 1448), in which capacity he seems to have played an important role in the expansion of the choir-school.

In 1448–51 he was vicar to Cardinal Pietro Barbo (the future Pope Paul II), in the diocese of Cervia. On 16 December 1449 he was appointed a papal secretary, a position he retained to the end of his life. Ugolino made his last will on 23 January 1452 at his home in Ferrara; an inventory of his estate was ordered on 31 January. According to an inventory of 1466, he had left the cathedral a copy of his Declaratio and a large but incomplete music-book that he had compiled, apparently of his own compositions.

But Ugolino's musical legacy is hard to judge. Although he was one of the last surviving composers of the Italian Trecento, the main body of his surviving music is all but illegible: the 18th gathering of the palimpsest manuscript I-Fsl 2211 was devoted to songs by him, 10 large openings containing perhaps 11 pieces; they include works with French as well as with Italian text. Three songs, headed ‘Idem Ugolino’, appear at the end of I-Rc 2151 (c1450), the grandest manuscript of his Declaratio; all are in the then outdated full-black notation with red coloration (a technique found also in the Ferrarese manuscript P-Pm 714 from the same years; see Robertus de Anglia), and use intricate rhythmic devices that reflect the Ars Subtilior tradition, though their style is otherwise that of the late Trecento composers. All three appear to be in two voices, though here too there are severe legibility problems (attempts at editing them are in Seay, 1955). The first, Si videar invidorum sequi consortia, seems to be a ballade, though its Latin text has no clear structure; L'alta virtute and Chi solo a si are both Italian ballate, though for the latter only the discantus line survives.

Theory.

Ugolino's Declaratio musicae disciplinae (‘declaration of the discipline of music’; ed. in CSM, vii, 1959–62) was most likely completed during his years at Ferrara. Divided into five books, probably on the model of Boethius, it represents the summa of his learning, both speculative and practical. From the very first sentence of the introduction, ‘The intellective power is known to be the noblest of the powers of the soul’, it is clear that the treatise is pitched at a high intellectual level. Music is approached through reason and the senses, but reason, based on mathematics, takes precedence: music is a science. This Aristotelian orientation is evident throughout the treatise.

Proceeding from things more known to those less known, Ugolino began with the elements of music. Book 1, divided into 165 chapters, covers pitches, properties, intervals, mutation and modes, but more than half of it is an extensive discussion of chants and their differences. The much shorter Book 2, on ‘musica melodiata’, is devoted to note-against-note counterpoint. Consonant and dissonant intervals are calculated within a hexachord and between different hexachords, illustrated with numerous examples. The book closes with a very important chapter on musica ficta, with rules and examples for perfecting imperfect consonances and ‘sweetening the harmony’. Book 3 is an extended gloss in Scholastic terms on Johannes de Muris's Libellus cantus mensurabilis, rather oddly preceded by a discussion of modal ethos. With this book we come to the end of Ugolino's writings on practical music. Book 4 takes up the speculative aspect of intervals: it treats proportions first from a purely mathematical point of view, then as the basis of intervals. Book 5 returns to the high philosophical plane, with an inquiry into the nature of sound and its relation to musica instrumentalis, humana and mundana. Here the principal authority is Boethius.

It is clear that Ugolino, while not mentioning authors more recent than Johannes de Muris, had studied the works of Prosdocimus de Beldemandis, in whose footsteps he followed in treating both the practical and the speculative aspects of music. Many sections of Book 2 recall Prosdocimus's own counterpoint treatise. Moreover, the short treatise of the monochord appended to Ugolino's Declaratio is directly modelled on Prosdocimus's Parvus tractatulus de modo monacordum dividendi. Both produce one division in musica recta and two in musica ficta, providing flats and sharps. The only difference is that Ugolino began on c rather than G and split the semitones B–C and E–F into equal halves. Prosdocimus's and Ugolino's divisions, resulting in five flats and five sharps, were to have considerable influence on late-15th-century theorists in Italy. A significant source for the speculative portions of the Declaratio, likewise unnamed by Ugolino, has been identified as the anonymous Questiones on music (F-Pn lat. 7372), perhaps written by a pupil of Biagio Pelacani or someone in his circle.

Ugolino's treatise, though less original than was once thought, was nevertheless influential, especially the first two books. Franchinus Gaffurius copied substantial extracts in his Extractus parvus musicae of about 1474 and was able to purchase his own (incomplete) copy after he moved to Milan (GB-Lbl Add.33519). John Hothby used a copy (I-Fn Magl.XIX.36) for teaching purposes. Bartolomeus Ramis de Pareia transmitted Ugolino's metrical rules on counterpoint, with improvements, in his Musica practica of 1482. Giovanni del Lago quoted the Declaratio frequently in his letters, although he believed it to be by Prosdocimus. The treatise is a major if unacknowledged source of the anonymous Compendium musices printed in many editions in Venice between 1499 and 1597 (ed. in CSM, xxxiii, 1985). A chained copy of Ugolino's Declaratio was still in the sacristy of Ferrara Cathedral in the 16th century, when it was mentioned as being ‘thoroughly useful to clerics’.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

LockwoodMRF

F.X. Haberl: ‘Bio-bibliographische Notizen über Ugolino von Orvieto’, KJb, x (1895), 40–49

U. Kornmüller: ‘Musiklehre des Ugolino von Orvieto’, KJb, x (1895), 19–40

R. Bagattoni: ‘Ugolino da Orvieto’, Madonna del Fuoco, ii (1916), 32–4; iii (1917), 31–6, 46–7, 63–8: iv (1918), 11–15, 43–5 [incl. edn of his will]

A. Seay: ‘Ugolino of Orvieto, Theorist and Composer’, MD, ix (1955), 111–66

A. Seay: ‘The Declaratio musice discipline of Ugolino of Orvieto: Addenda’, MD, xi (1957), 126–33 [contains notes on three pieces in I-Rc 2151]

Andrew Hughes: ‘Ugolino: the Monochord and Musica Ficta’, MD, xxiii (1969), 21–39

J.E. Murdoch: ‘Music and Natural Philosophy: Hitherto Unnoticed Questiones by Blasius of Parma(?)’, Manuscripta, xx (1976), 119–36

E. Peverada: ‘Ugolino da Orvieto nella erudizione scalabriniana e alla luce di nuovi documenti’, Giuseppe Antenore Scalabrini e l'erudizione ferrarese nel '700: Ferrara 1978 [Atti della Accademia delle scienze di Ferrara, lv (1977–8)], 489–506; repr. in E. Peverada: Vita musicale nella chiesa ferrarese del Quattrocento (Ferrara, 1991), 1–19

M. Lindley: ‘Pythagorean Intonation and the Rise of the Triad’, RMARC, xvi (1980), 4–61

J. Nádas: ‘Manuscript San Lorenzo 2211: Some Further Observations’, L'Europa e la musica del Trecento: Congresso IV: Certaldo 1984 [L'Ars Nova italiana del Trecento, vi (Certaldo, 1992)], 145–68

J. Herlinger, ed. and trans.: Prosdocimo de' Beldomandi: Brevis summula proportionum quantum ad musicam pertinet; Parvus tractatulus de modo monacordum dividendi, GLMT (Lincoln, NE, 1987)

C. Panti: ‘Una fonte della Declaratio musicae disciplinae di Ugolino da Orvieto: quattro anonime “Questiones” della tarda Scolastica’, RIM, xxiv (1989), 3–47

E. Peverada: ‘La scuola di canto della cattedrale’, in Vita musicale nella chiesa ferrarese del Quattrocento (Ferrara, 1991), 101–43, esp. 111–15

G. di Bacco and J. Nádas: ‘The Papal Chapels and Italian Sources of Polyphony during the Great Schism’, Papal Music and Musicians in Late Medieval and Renaissance Rome: Washington DC 1993, 44–92

A.M. Busse Berger: Mensuration and Proportion Signs (Oxford, 1993)

D. Fallows: ‘The End of the Ars Subtilior’, Basler Jb für historische Musikpraxis, xx (1996), 21–40

DAVID FALLOWS (1), BONNIE J. BLACKBURN (2)

Ugolinus, Blasius [Ugolino, Biagio]

(b Venice, c1700; d Venice, 1771). Italian theorist. He may originally have been Jewish, though apostatized, eventually becoming a monk in the Franciscan order. As a scholar of Hebrew and other ancient languages, he was well qualified to compile and edit a vast anthology of writings, mainly by 17th- and 18th-century Christian authors, including himself, on Jewish antiquities, named Thesaurus antiquitatum sacrarum (Venice, 1744–69). Amounting to 34 volumes in folio, the compilation includes Latin translations of numerous tractates from the Mishnah, the Babylonion and Palestinian Talmud and rabbinical writings. Volume xxxii (1767) is entirely dedicated to learned disquisitions on biblical music and related topics; it contains 46 essays (in Latin), many of them excerpts from larger treatises, by 34 scholars, among whom the names of Marin Mersenne, Athanasius Kircher, Augustin Calmet and Augustus Pfeiffer indicate the breadth of Ugolinus's reading. Of special importance is Ugolinus's own Latin translation of the polyhistor Abraham Portaleone's Shiltei ha-giborim (‘Shields of the Mighty’, Mantua 1612), with its partly factual, but more often fictitious, descriptions of the Ancient Temple and its music. The title of Mersenne's posthumous tract De musica hebraeorum is misleading inasmuch as it contains the first translation (into Latin) of the ‘Book of creation’ (Sefer yetsirah, written between the 3rd and 6th centuries, though with later interpolations), among the earliest sources of Jewish Kabbalah. In historical perspective Ugolinus's bold encyclopedic enterprise may be considered a first step towards a comparative study of ancient folklore and a harbinger of the ‘higher criticism’ which burgeoned in scholarship only one or two generations thereafter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

M. Steinschneider: Catalogus librorum hebrorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana (Berlin, 1852–60/R)

A. Sendrey: Bibliography of Jewish Music (New York, 1951/R)

Encyclopaedia hebraica (Jerusalem, 1959–67), i, 641–2

C. Roth: The Jews in the Renaissance (Philadelphia, 1959/R), 315–16

ERIC WERNER (with DON HARRÁN)


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