Nabokov, Nicolas [Nikolay]

Notker Labeo [Notker III, Notker the German]

(b c950; d St Gallen, 29 June 1022). Monk and teacher at the Benedictine abbey of St Gallen. His many translations from Latin to Old High German are among the earliest German literary texts; of the 11 translations Notker reported making, four are extant and include two philosophical works by Boethius, two books of Martianus Cappella's De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, and an interlinear psalter. Of special interest to music historians are five short essays in Old High German on musical topics, perhaps intended for elementary music instruction at St Gallen, where Notker taught and directed the school. A brief key in Latin to the meaning of the significative letters (litterae significativae; also known as Romanian or St Gallen letters) is sometimes ascribed to him, but belongs to his namesake of a century earlier, Notker, also of St Gallen.

The not entirely secure ascription of the five little essays to Notker rests principally on three points: the age of the five extant manuscripts (11th century); the language; and the preservation of the largest group (four out of five) in a St Gallen manuscript, whose text was published by Gerbert under Notker's name (GerbertS, i, 95–102), although the works are anonymous in the manuscripts. This ascription was later supported by Kelle on stylistic grounds. Of the five, the essays ‘On the Eight Notes’, ‘On Tetrachords’ and ‘On the Eight Modes’ are found only in the St Gallen manuscript. ‘On the Monochord’ is found in two other manuscripts only, and ‘On the Measurement of Organ Pipes’ in four of the five known manuscripts.

The monochord division results in a double octave with the pitches labelled according to the Greek Greater Perfect System, and in addition a cyclic alphabetical series from F (proslambanomenos) to F (nētē hyperbolaiōn) supplemented by another ‘nameless note’ below F. Notker’s F must correspond to the A of our diatonic gamut. In the essay ‘On the Eight Notes’, the ‘nameless note’ is designated E, and the alphabetical notation serves to define the compass and final note of each of the eight church modes. The essay ‘On Tetrachords’, the briefest of all, contains especially interesting remarks on a three-octave lyre (lirun). The essay on modes (modis as opposed to the tonis of the second section) is also distinguished by its references to instruments, the lyre at the beginning and the organ at the end. This is odd in the context of a discussion of the ancient Greek octave species. The organ pipe measurements of the fifth essay produce a two-octave gamut from G to G. None of the sections, with the exception of that on the eight modes, seems to be directed towards sophisticated readers, thus suggesting that they are elementary lectures. At the same time, they are not a complete course in fundamental plainchant, and may therefore be either the surviving fragments of a larger work no longer extant or independent fragments of diverse origin.

Notker's translation of the first two books of De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii is important for having made Martianus Capella's opening allegory more widely available than would otherwise have been possible, and while Notker apparently did not translate book 9 (De Harmonia) of this work, the first two books contain passing references to music within the framework of a greater cosmology.

WRITINGS

P. Piper, ed.: Die Schriften Notkers und seiner Schule, i (Freiburg, 1882)

J.C. King, ed.: Die Werke Notkers des Deutschen, iv: Martianus Capella: De Nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii (Tübingen, 1979)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

J. Kelle: Die S. Galler deutschen Schriften und Notker Labeo (Munich, 1890), 205–80

J. Schmidt-Görg: ‘Ein althochdeutsches Traktat über die Mensur der Orgelpfeifen’, KJb, xxvii (1902), 58–64

J.-K. Sachs: Mensura fistularum: die Mensurierung der Orgelpfeifen im Mittelalter, i (Stuttgart,1970), 97–113; ii (Stuttgart, 1980), 200–04, 312–16

H. Wickens: Music and Music Theory in the Writings of Notker Labeo (diss., U. of Oxford, 1986)

J.C. King: ‘Notker der Deutsche zur Mensurberechnung der Orgelpfeifen’, American Journal of Germanic Linguistics and Literature, ii (1990), 53–66

LAWRENCE GUSHEE/BRADLEY JON TUCKER

Notot, Joseph Waast Aubert.

See Nonot, Joseph Waast Aubert.

Notre Dame school.

A name given by modern scholars to the group of musicians active in Paris between about 1150 and about 1250. Most were ecclesiastics, and would have been associated with the Cathedral of Notre Dame or with one of the group of churches that stood on the site before work on the cathedral began in about 1160, but some may have had affiliations with other churches in Paris, such as the abbey of St Victor, or with religious houses elsewhere in Europe. This ‘school’ cultivated, among others, the polyphonic genres of organum, conductus and the liturgical motet, producing large repertories that were collected in the so-called Magnus liber organi associated with the composers Leoninus and Perotinus. Perhaps the most important achievement of these musicians was their transformation of polyphony from a performing practice into ‘composition’ in the modern sense; from an idiom that had for the most part been generated extemporaneously in performance to one in which the music was ‘composed’ before its performance. There appeared in the music of the Notre Dame school an ordered system of consonance and dissonance and a coherent rhythmic language that for the first time in Western music was expressed in its notation. These developments laid the foundations of the contrapuntal and rhythmic practice that would prevail for the next three centuries, and paved the way for the mensural notations in which late medieval and Renaissance music was written and transmitted.

See Discant, §I, 3–4; Leoninus; Magnus liber; Organum, §§8–10; and Perotinus.

EDWARD H. ROESNER