ABYNGDON ACADtum DE MUSIQUE
and Jan. 12, 1811. It seems to have been
produced on the 4th of the following June at
Munich, under Winter. In London it was
produced in English at Drury Lane in 1835,
and in Italian at Drury Lane on May 12, 1870
(at the same time with Mozart's Oca del
'
Cairo '), the translation being made by Marchesi,
and the dialogue by Arditi.
set to recitative
There appear to have been only two perform-
ances (see Weber). g.
ABYNGDON, Hesey. An English eccle-
siastic and musician. He succeeded John
Bernard as succentor of Wells on Nov. 24,
1447, and held that post till his death on
Sept. 1, 1497, when he was succeeded by
Robert Wydewe (Beckynton's and Oliver King's
Registers at Wells). He was admitted a
bachelor of music at Cambridge on Feb. 22,
1463, this being the first musical degree re-
corded at any university. In addition to the
sucoentorship at Wells, Abyngdon held the office
of Master of the Song of the Chapel Royal
'
' 'strength'
in London, to which he was appointed in May
1465 at an annual salary of forty marks, con-
firmed to him by a subsequent Act of Parlia-
ment in 1473-74 (Rimbault, Gheque-book
of Chapel Boyal, p. 4). He was also made
Master of St. Catherine's Hospital, Bristol, in
1478 (CoUinson, ii. 283). Two Latin epitaphs
on Abyngdon by Sir Thomas More have been
preserved (Cayley's Life of More, i. 317),
of which the English epitaph quoted by
Rimbault from Stonyhurst is an adaptation.
In these he himself is styled 'nobilis,' and
his office in London 'cantor,' and he is said
to have been pre-eminent both as a singer and
an organist : —
Millibas in mille cantor fuit optimus ille,
Praeter et haec ista fuit optimus orgaquenista,
More's friendship is evidence of Abyngdon's
ability and goodness, but the acquaintance can
only have been slight, as More was but
seventeen when Abyngdon died. None of his
works are known. G.
ACAD^MIE DE MUSIQUE. This
stitution, which,following the frequently
changed political conditions of France since
1791, has been called in turn Royale, Nationale,
and Impiriale, has already entered its fourth
century. In 1669 royal letters patent were
granted by Louis XIV. to the Abbd Perrin,
Robert Carabert, and the Marquis de Sourd^ac,
for the establishment of an Academie wherein
to present in public ' operas and dramas with
music, and in French verse,' after the manner
of those of Italy, for the space of twelve years.
Nearly a century prior to this, in 1570, similar
privileges had been accorded by Charles IX.
a Venetian, C. A. de Baif, in respect to an
academy 'de podsie et de musique,' but its
scheme does not appear to have included
dramatic representation. In any case it failed
utterly. The establishment of the existing
institution was, however, also preceded, and
therefore facilitated, by a series of performances
in Italian by 1584
Italian artists, beginning in
and continued with little interruption till 1652,
and by rarer though not less important ones
by French artists, beginning from 1625, when
'
Ak^bar, roi du Mogol,' was produced in the
palace of the Bishop of Carpentras. This has
frequently been spoken of as the earliest verit-
able French opera ; but that title is more justly
due to the '
Pastorale en musique' of Cambert
— the subject of which was given to the Abbe
Pen-in by the Cardinal Legate of Innocent X.
— first performed at Issy in 1659. Two years
after, Cambert followed this opera by ' Ariane,'
and in the following year by ' Adonis. The '
Academic was opened in 1671 with an opera
by the same master, 'Pomone,' which attained
an enormous success ; having been repeated,
apparently to the exclusion of every other
work, for eight months successively. The
the company engaged in its
of
performance presents an interesting contrast
with that of the existing grand opera, and even
of similar establishments of far less pretension.
The troupe consisted of five male and four
female principal performer.s, fifteen chorus-
singers, and an orchestra numbering thirteen !
The career of the Academie nnder these its first
entrepreneurs was brought to an end by the
jealousy of an Italian musician then rising in
court favour, J. Baptistb Lully, who, through
his influence with Mme. de Montespan, suc-
ceeded in obtaining for himself the privileges
which had been accorded to Perrin and
Cambert. The latter, the master spirit of the
enterprise thus wrecked, notwithstanding his
hospitable reception by our Charles II., died in
London shortly afterwards, at the age of forty-
nine, of disappointment and home - sickness.
By this disreputable proceeding Lully made
himself master of the situation, remaining to
the time of his death, in 1687, the autoci'at
of the French lyric drama. During these
in- fourteen years he produced, in concert with the
poet QuiNAULT, no fewer than twenty grand
operas, besides other works. The number,
success, and, more than all, the merit, of these
entitle Lully to be regarded as the founder of
the school of which Meyerbeer may claim to
have proved the most distinguished alumnus ;
though, as we have seen, its foundation had
been facilitated for him by the labours of others.
In the course of his autocracy, Lully developed
considerably musical form in its application
to dramatic effect, and added considerably to
the resources of the orchestra though, in com-
;
to parison with those of more recent times, he
left them still very meagre. He is said to
have first obtained permission, though in
spite of great opposition, for the appearance
of women on the stage ; but as the troupe
of his predecessor Cambert included four, his