ADAM of FULDA. — Music theorist and composer, b. 1445, d. shortly after 1517. Around 1490 he was at the Benedictine abbey of Vormbach near Passau; in 1501 at the court chapel of Turgovia; in 1502 a teacher at the University of Wittenberg; in 1517 at the court chapel of Altenburg. He was probably a Benedictine monk in the monastery of Fulda.
As a theorist, he left in his treatise *De Musica* (4 parts, 45 chapters), written around 1490, one of the most organic expositions of the doctrines professed in the German milieu of the time. As a composer, he was among the greatest Germans of his age. He left numerous works, almost all of a religious nature (psalms, antiphons, hymns, spiritual songs) in counterpoint over plainchant, as was the old custom, though not without some approach to the style of contemporary Flemish composers, especially J. Obrecht.
Stud.: A. W. Ambros, *Gesch. d. Musik*, II and III, Leipzig 1868; H. Riemann, *Handbuch der Musikgeschichte*, II, 1871–1913. Gastone Rossi Doria