L’ Affilarci, Michel

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L’ Affilarci, Michel

L’ Affilarci, Michel, French singer, music theorist, and composer; b. c. 1656; d. probably in Versailles, 1708. He was made chantre clerc at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (1679), and later was a member of the Versailles royal chapel (1683–1708). His major work is a treatise on sight singing, Principes très faciles pour bien apprendre la musique (Paris, 1694; IIth ed., 1747), which is notable because the tempo of the airs is indicated according to a pendulum, thus anticipating the use of the metronome.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire