Ornithoparchus, Andreas (EN)

Ornithoparchus, Vogelhofer, Vogelmaier, Vogelstätter (?), Andreas, *ca. 1490 Meiningen, German music theorists. In his early youth, he travelled around Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. In November 1512, he enrolled at the University of Rostock, where he obtained a Master of Arts degree. He also studied in Tübingen (1515), Wittenberg and Leipzig (1516), Greifswald (1518), Heidelberg, and Mainz. In addition to his treatise on music, Ornithoparchus also published a Latin grammar textbook, Enchiridion latinae constructionis (Deventer 1515), probably written for the students of St Ludger’s parish school in Münster, where he was rector in 1514.

The title of Ornithoparchus’s work indicates the didactic and practical nature of the publication (the term musica activa as opposed to musica theoretica). The four books of the treatise are devoted, in turn, to the principles governing choral music (musica plana), polyphony (musica mensurabilis), ecclesiastical accent (accentus ecclesiasticus) and the rules of counterpoint. At the beginning of the publication, the author provides the customary definition of music (scientia bene modulandi – after Saint Augustine), its classifications and comments on its inventors. Adopting Boethius’s division of music into mundana, humana and instrumentalis, Ornithoparchus, like F. Gaffurius, upholds the traditional view of the existence of the harmony of the spheres, questioned by empirically oriented scholars (R. Bacon, J. de Grocheo). In the first book, the author presents, among other things, the science of voces and intervals, the rules of solmisation, as well as the characteristics of modes and their expressive properties. According to E. Lowinsky, the remarks in the first book of Musicae activae concerning solmisatio ficta confirm the practice of the ‘secret chromatic art’ in the 16th century. Written jointly with composer and bandmaster G. Brack and dedicated to A. Schlick, the second book of the manual contains a list of great composers valuable for the history of music reception, among whom Ornithoparchus mentions, among others, J. Ockeghem, J. Ghiselin, A. Agricola, J. Obrecht, Josquin des Près, P. de La Rue, H. Isaac, H. Finck, A. Brumel, M. Pipelare and E. Lapicida. Ornithoparchus’s concern for the correct performance of liturgical recitative is reflected in the third book, which presents the classical distinction between the church repertoire categories of accentus (the combination of sound and grammar in recitative) and concentus (the combination of sound and music in liturgical chants). In the fourth book, the author recommends that beginners in the art of composition use, among other things, a ten-line staff. The division contained in this book into unwritten (sortisatio) and written (compositio) counterpoint proves the persistence in the 16th century of the practice of improvised polyphony based on cantus firmus.

Ornithoparchus’s textbook enjoyed great popularity, as evidenced by numerous quotations in the works of later authors (A. de Picitono, C. Sebastiani) and the translation of the work into English by J. Dowland (Andreas Ornithoparchus. His Micrologus, or Introduction…, London 1609). Traces of the treatise’s presence in Poland date back to before 1524. It was widely used by Sebastian of Felsztyn (Opusculum musicae noviter congestum, 1524–25), by an anonymous author of a treatise preserved in the Jagiellonian Library (manuscript 2616, 1st half of the 16th century), and by T. Bielawski at the end of the century (1598), who mentioned Otnithoparchus as an excellent musician. 

Literature: J.W. Lyra Andreas Ornithoparchus aus Meiningen (…) und dessen Lehre von den Kirchenaccenten, Gütersloh 1877; G. Pietzsch Zur Pflege der Musik an den deutschen Universitäten bis zur Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts, “Archiv für Musikforschung” III, 1938, VI, 1941, also Hildesheim 1971; E.E. Lowinsky On the Use of Scores by Sixteenth-Century Musicians, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” I, 1948; N.C. Carpenter Music in the Medieval and Renaissance Universities, Norman (Oklahoma) 1958; E.E. Lowinsky Secret Chromatic Art Reexamined, in: Perspectives in Musicology, red. B.S. Brook et al., New York 1972 and in: E.E. Lowinsky Music in the Culture of the Renaissance and other Essays, Chicago 1989; L.T. Pietras Nieznany druk muzyczny Wojciecha Kobylińskiego, «Studia Claromontana» I, Częstochowa 1981; E. Witkowska-Zaremba Ars musica w krakowskich traktatach muzycznych XVI wieku, Krakow 1986; W. Werbeck Studien zur deutschen Tonartenlehre in der ersten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts, Kassel 1989; W. Braun Deutsche Musiktheorie des 15. bis 17. Jahrhunderts, vol. 2: Von Calvisius bis Mattheson, «Geschichte der Musiktheorie» VIII/2, Darmstadt 1994; K.-J. Sachs De modo componendi: Studien zu musikalischen Lehrtexten des späten 15. Jahrhunderts, «Veröffentlichungen des Staatlichen Instituts für Musikforschung Preussischer Kulturbesitz» XII, Hildesheim 2002; Th. Göllner, K.W. Niemöller, H. von Loesch Deutsche Musiktheorie des 15. bis 17. Jahrhundert, vol. 1: Von Paumann bis Calvisius, «Geschichte der Musiktheorie» VIII/1, Darmstadt 2003; V. Arlettaz L’expression dans la musique ancienne, III, “Revue musicale de Suisse romande” LXVI, 2013.