Notker “Balbulus”

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Notker “Balbulus”

Notker “Balbulus” (the latter nickname meaning “stammerer”), music theorist and composer; b. Elgg, near Zürich (or Jonschwyl, near St. Gallen), c.840; d. April 6, 912. He was a monk at the St. Gallen monastery. He was one of the earliest and most important writers of sequences, his Liber hymnorum (sequence texts of the year 884) being of particular interest. Several short treatises on music ascribed to him are most likely by others, including Notker Labeo (b. C.950; d. St. Gallen, June 29, 1022), a monk at St. Gallen, known as Notker the German.

Bibliography

A. Henschel, Zehn Sequenzen des N. B., aus den ältesten Quellen übertragen und mit der Überlieferung verglichen (diss., Univ. of Erlangen, 1924); R. van Doren, Etude sur l’influence musicale de l’Abbaye de St. Gall (1925).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire