Heinrich Glarean

Who was Heinrich Glarean?

Heinrich Glarean was a Swiss music theorist, poet and humanist. He was born in Mollis and died in Freiburg.

After a thorough early training in music, he enrolled in the University of Cologne, where he studied theology, philosophy, and mathematics as well as music. It was there that he wrote a famous poem as a tribute to Emperor Maximilian I. Shortly afterwards, in Basle, he met Erasmus and the two humanists became lifelong friends.

Glarean's first publication on music, a modest volume entitled Isogoge in musicen, was in 1516. In it he discusses the basic elements of music; probably it was used for teaching. But his most famous book, and one of the most famous and influential works on music theory written during the Renaissance, was the Dodecachordon, which he published in Basle in 1547. This massive work includes writings on philosophy and biography in addition to music theory, and includes no less than 120 complete compositions by composers of the preceding generation. In three parts, it begins with a study of Boethius, who wrote extensively on music in the sixth century; it traces the use of the musical modes in plainsong and monophony; and it closes with an extended study of the use of modes in polyphony.