Christmas

Franco-Flemish School

After almost a year later, I've finnished the enterprise of the Franco-Flemish School of the 15th, 16th and early 17th centuries. Many composers were not included in this series so they will be included in individual posts

The generations of Composers:

First Generation

Second Generation

Third Generation

Fourth Generation

Fifth Generation

Later Composers

Marbrianus de Orto

Was born in Tournai, c1460 and died in Nivelles, January or February 1529. Archival documents discovered by Jeremy Noble indicate that his surname was Dujardin, as Fétis had suspected, but he himself used the Latin form ‘de Orto’, as is shown by various autograph signatures. He was the illegitimate son of a priest; in papal registers he is called ‘citizen of Tournai’, and it is likely that he was born and received his early training there.

The earliest documents of his career name him as a member of the household of Ferry de Cluny, Cardinal-Bishop of Tournai, with whom he travelled to Rome in May to June 1482. Cardinal Ferry died in Rome in October 1483, and in December Orto was appointed a singer in the papal chapel of Sixtus IV. He continued to serve under Innocent VIII and Alexander VI until at least 1499. He was particularly favoured by Innocent VIII (1484–92), who awarded him many benefices and removed the impediment created by his illegitimacy. Orto obtained the lucrative post of procurator, allowing him to represent individuals from his own diocese of Tournai, as well as those in which he held canonries (Liège and Cambrai), at the papal court. In the papal chapel he worked closely with Josquin des Prez. In 1491–3 he and Josquin both sought certain benefices at churches in the diocese of Cambrai. The outcome is not known, but in 1494 Orto was appointed by Alexander VI to serve on a commission to assist Josquin in acquiring a canonry at Cambrai.

At some time between 1489 and 1496, while still a member of the papal chapel, Orto became dean of the collegiate church of Ste Gertrude in Nivelles. As spiritual head of the chapter of canons and canonesses, he eventually took up residence there and maintained a close connection with the community for the rest of his life. He bestowed many gifts on the church, the most lavish being a splendid bronze coffer designed to hold the saint’s reliquary (it is still displayed in the transept).

Some time between 31 October 1504 and 24 May 1505 Orto was appointed singer in the Habsburg-Burgundian chapel of Philip the Fair, who legitimized him. In late 1505 or 1506 Orto became premier chapelain and in this capacity he accompanied the court on Philip’s ill-fated voyage to Spain in 1506. The 17th-century historians Ryckel and Chifflet credited Orto with translating the medieval Latin Vita Gertrudis into French to fulfil a vow he made during the journey, but this translation does not survive.

After Philip’s unexpected death in September 1506, Orto and other members of his chapel were retained in Spain by Juana, Philip’s widow, but by December Orto had left. After the dissolution of her court in August 1508, he may have helped to reorganize the chapel for Philip’s son Charles (later Charles V) under the regency of Philip’s sister, Margaret of Austria. A document of 1509 refers to him as ‘first chaplain of my gracious lord’ (i.e. Charles). From 1510 to 1517 he shared that office, on an alternating six-month basis, with Anthoine de Berghes.

In 1510 Orto was recorded as a canon at the church of Our Lady, Antwerp, and in 1513 as a canon at Ste Gudule, Brussels. Although his name is crossed out on the list of payments of Charles’s court on 21 June 1517, in a document dated 18 May 1518 he is called ‘councillor and first chaplain of Charles’s chapel’ and in 1522 he was engaged for Charles’s voyage to England and Spain. He died at Nivelles in 1529, possibly during the epidemic that ravaged the town in that year.

Until 1940, when Ste Gertrude suffered severe bomb damage, Orto’s tomb inscription could be seen in the pavement of the choir: ‘Here lies Marbrianus Orto, dean and canon of this church, who decorated it with the present bronze coffer and other gifts, February 1528’ [new style 1529].

Among his works the masses are the most important. All five published by Petrucci in Misse de Orto (Venice, 1505) are of the cantus-firmus type, but the treatment of the borrowed melodies is varied. Liturgical chants of the Ordinary are paraphrased in the tenor of the Missa dominicalis. Missa ‘L’homme armé’ presents the well-known tune schematically in various mensurations, diminution and transposition, generally in the tenor but sometimes in one or more of the other voices. Missa ‘La belle se sied’ treats the popular melody more freely, whereas Missa ‘Petita camusetta’(also called ‘Mi mi’) borrows only the first five notes of the tune, using them as head-motif and ostinato. Missa ‘J’ay pris amours’, with two different Credo settings, is built on both the tenor and superius of the anonymous chanson in a technique approaching that of the parody mass.

Like his masses, Orto’s motets are generally based on cantus firmi. The five-part Salve regis mater celebrates the election of Pope Alexander VI in 1492. Although anonymous in I-Rvat C.S.35, it is placed among Orto’s works in that manuscript and is almost certainly by him. His two hymn settings are included in Rvat C.S.15 together with hymns by Dufay and Josquin, and along with anonymous hymn settings in late 15th-century style. Gerber and Osthoff have suggested that Dufay’s hymn cycle (composed around 1430) was revised jointly by Josquin and Orto when both were members of the papal chapel.

Some of his chansons exhibit retrospective traits. D’ung aultre amer and Fors seulement are built on voices from rondeaux by Ockeghem, and the three-part rondeau Venus tu m’a pris is an accompanied duo in the Burgundian manner. Other chansons are more forward-looking: Je ne suis poinct, Mon mary m’a diffamée and Se je perdu mon amy treat popular tunes in lively imitation. Et il y a trois dames a Paris is similar; its homogeneous four-part texture, fluent imitation and attractive themes suggest the ‘modern’ French chanson style of the early 16th century. Standing apart among Orto’s works is Dulces exuviae, a setting of Dido’s lament from the Aeneid. Its chromatic inflections and expressive dissonance, evoking the tragic queen’s grief and despair, make this one of the outstanding examples of musical humanism in the Renaissance.

Martin Picker

Elliott Carter

Elliot Carter is today 101 years old! Looks like he has been busy composing... Wish I live that long... Congratulations Mr. Carter!

Elliott Cook Carter was born in New York, 11 December 1908. While still at school he received encouragement from Charles Ives, and at Harvard, where his principal studies were literary, he had tuition from Walter Piston. All along he enjoyed frequent trips to Europe with his parents, who were lace importers, and he maintained close contacts with European musicians, especially in France, Italy, and Britain. He studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger (1932–5) and returned to America a fluent neo-classicist. His early works, which include the ballet Pocahontas (1936–9) and the Holiday Overture (1944), show a post-Stravinsky style characteristic of American Boulanger pupils, but with a rhythmic life that is Carter's own. With the Piano Sonata (1945–6) there began a process of growth which continued in the Cello Sonata (1948) and reached fruition in the First String Quartet (1951).

In these works Carter progressively extended his harmonic range, introduced a new rhythmic fluidity by means of metric modulation, and began to create forms which are conversations of musical characters, these being defined by their harmonic nature. ‘Movement’ is redefined as a kind of musical motion unfolding throughout a work, rather than of tempo within a fixed span of time: a work might have two or more ‘movements’ in this sense proceeding simultaneously, or might, like the First Quartet, have pauses within rather than between movements. Movement—nearly always fast, energetic—and character became the hallmarks of his style.

During the next two decades and more Carter worked slowly, producing a major work every few years and confining himself to instrumental genres: the string quartet (no. 2, 1959; no. 3, 1971) and the orchestra (Variations, 1955; Double Concerto for piano, harpsichord, and two chamber orchestras, 1961; Piano Concerto, 1965; Concerto for Orchestra, 1969). In these works the neo-classical inheritance has been left far behind; the language is tough but elegant, complex but inviting because the musical ideas are so pregnant. The Double Concerto was hailed by Stravinsky as an American masterpiece, and performances of this and other works began to be regular on both sides of the Atlantic.

Carter next made a surprising return to vocal music, in three works for soloists and chamber orchestra: A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1975), Syringa (1978), and In Sleep, in Thunder (1981), setting contemporary American poetry (by Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery, and Robert Lowell). At the same time he began to compose more abundantly. Big instrumental compositions continued to appear—including A Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976), Night Fantasies for piano (1980), Triple Duo for six players (1983), two more string quartets (1986 and 1994), concertos for oboe (1987), violin (1990), and clarinet (1996), and the Symphonia for orchestra (1994–7)—but so did smaller pieces for solo instrument or ensemble, many of them tributes or memorials, but done with a characteristic lightness and exhilaration: the middle section of the Symphonia, Adagio tenebroso, is one of the composer's rare slow movements. During this late period Carter's music became looser, its expressive balance shifted from energy towards humour, and as he approached 90 he wrote his first opera, the one-act comedy What Next? (Berlin, 1999).

Paul Griffiths

Mateo Romero

Spanish composer of Flemish birth, he was born in Liège, c1575 and died in Madrid, 10 May 1647. He was the leading musical figure at the Spanish royal court during the first three decades of the 17th century, and one of the first Spanish composers to introduce the stile moderno into Spain. Born Matthieu Rosmarin to a noble family in Liège, after his father’s death he became a chorister in the Flemish chapel of Felipe II’s court in Madrid in 1586. He served there as cantor (1594–8), and was later on appointed maestro de capilla shortly after Felipe III’s ascent in 1598. Changing his name to Mateo Romero (c1594), he was eventually naturalized in 1623; this entitled him to high social standing and additional financial benefits. He was better known by his nickname Capitán, or Maestro Capitán, reflecting his outstanding musical talent.

During his long service as maestro de capilla (until his retirement in 1633), Romero contributed to the renewed prestige of the native Spanish musicians at the royal chapel, which resulted in the eventual disappearance of Flemish musicians from the court. He served concurrently as maestro of the músicos de cámara, music and French teacher to Felipe IV and director of the music for numerous religious and ceremonial occasions. In addition, he was an ordained chaplain of high standing, including greffier in the Order of the Golden Fleece. He was invited to Vila Vizosa by the Duke of Braganza (1638), who later on, as King João IV of Portugal, nominated him chaplain of the Portuguese Crown (1644). João IV apparently acquired many of Romero’s works for the famous royal library in Lisbon, destroyed by an earthquake in 1755. Furthermore, since Romero’s works perished in the fire at the royal palace, Madrid, in 1734, his output was presumably substantially larger than the records of both extant and lost works: two dozen masses, over 30 other Latin works, about 60 villancicos and 40 secular songs.

Nearly 40 Latin works and villancicos by Romero have so far been located. The Latin polychoral works, in particular, exhibit salient stylistic features of the early Spanish Baroque: multiple antiphonal techniques, contrasting harmonic colours, frequent sectional changes, occasional solo parts and basso seguente or continuo. The texts of Romero’s secular songs (romance nuevo, seguidilla, folía, canción and various letrilla-type versifications), for two to four voices, are attributed to leading Spanish contemporaries, such as Lope de Vega, Luis Góngora, Francisco de Quevedo and Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza. They range from popular chordal settings to exquisite works in a madrigalian style, whose word-painting, fast-changing subsections, chromatic progressions and accented dissonances are symptomatic of the Spanish stile moderno. Romero’s works were frequently cited in later music treatises and literary sources as a paradigm of compositional excellence. Some of his Latin works continued to be performed until the late 19th century. Consequently, they were often subjected to considerable reworking: the 19th-century version of Missa ‘Qui habitat’ from Santiago de Compostela, for example, includes two violins, flute, two clarinets and trombas.

Judith Etzion

Carolus Luython

Flemish composer and organist, Carolus (latinization for Carl) Luytonb was born in Antwerp, 1557/8 and died in Prague, Aug 1620. He spent nearly all his life in the service of the Habsburg imperial chapel in Vienna and Prague. In 1566 he was recruited as a chorister for the court of the Emperor Maximilian II in Vienna; his music teachers there may have been Jacobus Vaet, Alard du Gaucquier and Philippe de Monte, while he must have studied the organ either with the first court organist Wilhelmus Formellis or with one of the sub-organists, Wilhelm von Mülin or Paul van Winde.

On leaving the chapel on 30 July 1571 after his voice changed, Luython was given the usual honorarium of 50 guilders. He travelled to Italy to work and further his education, as had other imperial court singers such as Jacob Regnart. On 18 May 1576 he returned to the employ of the imperial court as a ‘chamber musician’ (probably as organist rather than singer) with a salary of 10 guilders a month. He was one of the first members of the newly founded Kammermusik, a parallel establishment to the court chapel and the military band.

In 1577 Luython was retained as a chamber organist in the newly established court of Maximilian's successor Rudolf II, which was transferred to Prague. Between 25 February 1580 and 28 February 1581 he augmented his meagre salary with that of a junior official in the imperial wardrobe (unndergwardaroba). When the first court organist Formellis died on 4 January 1582, Luython was retroactively appointed third court organist as from 1 January 1577, with a monthly salary of 25 guilders. Later in 1582 he accompanied Rudolf to the Diet at Augsburg as second court organist, and at that time he published in Venice his first and only book of madrigals, dedicated to the Augsburg magnate Johann Fugger. This excursion began the rise of Luython's reputation.

Luython collaborated with the organ builder Albrecht Rudner on the reconstruction of the organ in Prague Cathedral. The two disagreed on several matters, and in court records between April 1581 and 22 December 1590 Luthon's objections are spelt out in great detail. His first collection of motets, Popularis anni jubilus, was published in Prague in 1587, with a dedication to Rudolf II's brother Archduke Ernst on the occasion of his consecration as bishop. On 1 April the same year Luython was granted a minor coat of arms (Wappen mit Lehenart) in recognition of his services as court organist. He probably served in effect as first court organist from 1594, when Paul van Winde left for the Netherlands; he was officially appointed to the post when van Winde died in 1596.

When Monte died on 4 July 1603, Luython succeeded him as court composer, with an increase in salary of 10 guilders a month. He published in Prague another volume of motets in 1603, a book of Lamentations in 1604, and a collection of masses in 1609 (twice reprinted in Frankfurt). The dedication of the masses to Rudolf II brought Luython a gift of 500 guilders. On 16 May 1611 he was awarded a yearly pension of 200 guilders in recognition of 35 years of loyal service to the imperial court. But like many of Rudolf's employees, Luython had trouble collecting what was owed him; his salary had been 1600 guilders in arrears in 1591, and during Rudolf's lifetime he was hard pressed to collect his pension. After Rudolf's death in 1612, his brother and successor Matthias disbanded the court chapel and disclaimed responsibility for debts to its members. Luython, who had never married or taken holy orders, died a pauper in 1620, leaving 2400 guilders in arrears of salary and pension to his brother Claude and sisters Clara and Sibella; his will was never executed.

Praetorius gave a description of a remarkable harpsichord owned by Luython; he called it ‘clavicimbalum universale seu perfectum’. The instrument had a four-octave enharmonic keyboard on which all five of the regular raised keys in each octave were split, and raised keys tuned as Eb and Bb were inserted between E and F and between B and C; it could play in the chromatic and enharmonic genera as well as the diatonic. The sliding keyboard could be set at any of the seven enharmonic steps spanning a major 3rd. Poverty forced Luython to sell his harpsichord for 100 guilders in 1613.

Luython's vocal music largely reflects the influence of Monte. Ten of the 11 madrigals in his first book set poems by Petrarch, but the sixth, Sacro monte mio dolce, is a homage to Monte whose text may have been written by Luython. The four parody masses of the nine in his first book are all based on motets and madrigals by Monte. Another mass, the seven-voice Missa super basim ‘Caesar vive’, reinforces the volume's dedication to Rudolf II; its cantus firmus is a short melody composed for the purpose. The remaining four masses are all entitled Missa quadlibetica, a term used also by Vaet and Regnart. They share a rapid, mostly syllabic declamation of the words and a notable degree of thematic unity within each setting. The ‘Osanna’ section of the Sanctus is always elided with the ‘Pleni sunt caeli’, and the Agnus Dei is given a single rather than a threefold setting. The thematic concentration suggests that the ‘quodlibet’ masses may be parodies of existing compositions, but no models have been identified. While the three- and four-voice examples are simpler in texture and structure, the six-voice Missa quodlibetica is contrapuntally complex and expansive in form. Luython's Missa ‘Tytire tu patule’, not included in the printed volume, is probably one of the masses dedicated to Maximilian II mentioned in documents of 1575 and 1576.

Luython was less conservative in his composition for instruments, which reflects the ideas of forward-lookiing contemporaries; he is perhaps best remembered for the handful of keyboard pieces in which he anticipated later fugal procedures. His Fuga suavissima has been compared to similar pieces by Sweelinck and Frescobaldi; it is divided into three sections and based on three subjects. All his other instrumental works are of the ricercare type.

Carmelo Peter Comberiati

Lambert de Sayve

Was born probably near Liège, 1548/49 and died in Linz, 16–28 February 1614. Was a composer and singer, second son of Raskin de Seave, and the most important member of the family. Fétis, in his Biographie..., confused him with Lambert de Sainne. He entered the imperial chapel in Vienna as a choirboy in 1562, and an early indication of his talents was the publication of three motets in books 3 and 4 of Giovannelli’s Novi atque catholici thesauri musici (15684-5). Emperor Maximilian II made him singing master of Melk Abbey, Lower Austria, in 1569. In 1570–71 he accompanied the Archduchess Anna-Maria on her journey to Spain for her marriage to Philip II; after the marriage he returned to Melk. By February 1577 and until the end of December 1582 he was tutor to the choirboys in the chapel of Archduke Karl in Graz, and in 1583 he became choirmaster in the chapel of Archduke Matthias of Austria (the brother of Emperor Rudolf II). In 1584 he was joined in Vienna by his nephew Carl and possibly Libert, sons of Mathias de Sayve; Arnold de Sayve may have joined him later. When Matthias succeeded his brother as emperor in 1612 he took his chapel musicians with him, and Lambert de Sayve became master of the imperial chapel.

Sayve’s Sacrae symphoniae (1612) was dedicated to the emperor on his coronation. It is an extensive collection of liturgically ordered motets and contains music written over many years. The contents range from traditional four-part settings in the manner of his teacher Monte, to 8-, 12- and 16-part polychoral works (with instruments) in the Venetian style. The publication includes a portrait of the composer, then aged 63. The fluency and resourcefulness shown in the motets are equally evident in the less ambitious but more consistently successful Teutsche Liedlein, reminiscent of Regnart (two of whose lieder are in the same publication). In these short, attractive, strophic songs – canzonets in style and structure, scored for higher and middle-range voices only – Sayve devised points and textures of surprising variety and interest, coupled with compelling if straightforward harmonies. Praetorius, who referred to de Sayve with glowing enthusiasm in his Syntagma musicum (Wolfenbüttel, 1614–18), thought well enough of these lieder to reissue the complete set at Wolfenbüttel in 1611.

Richard Marlow, José Quitin

Giovanni de Macque

Was a Flemish composer,who lived in Italy. Was organist and teacher, who was born in Valenciennes (?), c1548–50 and died in Naples, September 1614. He was a leading composer of the Neapolitan school in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.

Macque’s birthplace is given on his marriage contract and on the title-page of his volume of motets of 1596. As a boy he sang in the choir of the imperial chapel at Vienna. A memorandum of 7 December 1563 recommended that he be placed in the Jesuit college at Vienna because his voice had broken: this establishes his approximate date of birth. After he left the college he studied with Philippe de Monte and by 1574 he had moved to Rome under the patronage of Monsignor Serafino Oliviero Razzali, Judge of the Sacra Romana Rota. From 1 October 1580 to 21 September 1581 he was organist of S Luigi dei Francesi, Rome. During this period Macque established relationships with members of the Caetani family. It was probably through the influence of Cardinal Enrico Caetani that four of his polychoral motets appear in a manuscript prepared under the auspices of Annibale Zoilo for the Lenten music at the SS Trinità dei Pellegrini in the early 1580s. Together with G.M. Nanino, Marenzio, Giovannelli and others, he was a member of the Compagnia dei Musici di Roma when it won papal sanction in 1584.

During the early part of 1585 Macque moved to Naples where he was employed by the Gesualdo household. His publications during this period are dedicated to prominent members of the Neapolitan nobility: Carlo Gesualdo and his father, Fabrizio, Cesare D’Avalos and Scipione Pignatello. In May 1590 he was appointed second organist to Scipione Stella at SS Annunziata. In 1594 he became organist of the chapel of the Spanish Viceroy and five years later maestro di cappella, succeeding Bartolomeo Roy. During his tenure the musical forces were doubled, and two of his pupils, G.M. Trabaci and Ascanio Mayone, served as first and second organists. Other distinguished pupils included Francesco Lambardi, Donato Antonio Spano, Andrea Falconieri and Luigi Rossi.

Macque’s compositions may be divided into three chronologically and geographically defined groups: the Roman works from the years 1574–84, the early Neapolitan works 1585–96 and the later Neapolitan period, 1597–1614. The early madrigals reflect the conservatism of his Roman contemporaries. More colourful tendencies occasionally appear, and they are more frequent in his publication of 1579: in Di coralli e perle, for example, the extensive melodic movement of the minor second results in expressive harmony foreshadowing the experimental, roving harmonies of his later works. The two books of Madrigaletti et napolitane (1581–2) are modelled on the canzone alla napolitana of Ferretti. Many of them still retain the formal scheme of the villanella, but there is a greater emphasis on pictorial treatment. The serious madrigals of the early 1580s are tempered by his association with Marenzio, who was some ten years younger. They are in a more popular style. Simple diatonic melodies appear in playful imitation contrasting with sections made up of short, regular homophonic phrases. The lowest voice often has the character of a harmonic bass moving mostly in 4ths and 5ths. The greater demands in several of the madrigals published in Ferrarese anthologies during this period suggest that they were written for that court’s concerto di donne. The polychoral motets and the litany for two and three choirs from the Roman period follow the same procedure adopted by Palestrina in his motets published in 1576. Each choir maintains its complete harmonic function and cadence points do not overlap. This style was suited to the acoustics of the larger churches and oratorios in Rome.

A series of letters written by Macque between 1586 and 1589, preserved in Caetani Archives in Rome, discuss his concern with the publication of two books of madrigals (1586 and 1587) and a book of ricercares and canzone francese (1586). In the Primo libro de madrigali Macque exploited a technique that foreshadows some of his later music: two voices proceed in 3rds or suspensions while the remaining voices have an interplay of short motives in imitation. The passage is repeated in invertible counterpoint. The madrigals of the Secondo libro for five voices are in the style of the canzonetta. Among Macque’s canzonettas of this period is his contribution to Il devoto pianto della gloriosa Vergina, the Italian adaptation of the Stabat mater published by Verovio. Macque’s only published book of motets (1596) was dedicated to Francesco Maria Tarugi, one of the founders of the Oratorio di S Filippo in Naples. The six-voice motet Rex autem David stands apart from the rather conservative style of this collection in its use of chromaticism and harmonic inflections depicting David’s grief over the death of his son Absalon.

Macque’s final group of publications begins with the Terzo libro for five voices (1597), dedicated to Alfonso II, Duke of Ferrara, and published by the ducal printer Baldini. The book consists mainly of pastoral texts chosen with the Ferrarese court in mind. In his fourth book (1599), Macque developed the technique first essayed in the Primo libro for four voices: combining descending or ascending chromatic passages in imitation with counter motives in short note values. In the last two books (1610 and 1613) intervals ‘forbidden’ in 16th century counterpoint appear for the first time in his music. He experimented here with new verse styles as well: several of the texts in both books consist solely of quinarii, and the madrigal cycle based on the concluding terze rime from Sannazaro’s Arcadia: I tuoi capelli, o Filli, in una cistola provided Macque with his only sdruccioli verse.

Macque’s instrumental and keyboard works embrace a wide range of forms, including ricercares, canzonas, capriccios, variations on the Ruggiero and a toccata a modo di trombetta. Among the works that have received most attention are the Consonanze stravaganti, Durezze e ligature, and the Prima e seconda stravaganze. His ricercares are based on multiple subjects which are stated in the opening exposition. The Ricercare del 8 tono con quattour fughe from his second book (preserved only in manuscript copies) served as a model for Frescobaldi’s Recercar nono: Obligo di quattro soggetti (1615).

W. Richard Shindle

Ottaviano dei Petrucci

Italian publisher, He was born in Fossombrone, 18 June 1466 and died in Venice (?), 7 May 1539. He was the first significant publisher of polyphonic music.

Apart from the evidence of his birth and his family’s residence in Fossombrone for some generations, nothing certain is known of Petrucci’s life before 1498. He is thought to have been among the young men whom Guidobaldo I, Duke of Urbino, allowed to be educated at court. On 25 May 1498 Petrucci was granted a Venetian privilege for 20 years. His petition stated that he had discovered what many had sought, a way to publish ‘canto figurado’. He added that it would make the printing of chant much easier also; but this was probably no more than self-advertisement, given that he did not seek to include chant in his privilege, nor, probably, did he print any. His request was for the exclusive right to print both ‘canto figurado’ and ‘intaboladure dorgano et de liuto’. The privilege also included a ban on the importation or sale of these repertories in the Venetian states by anyone else.

Petrucci’s first book, the Harmonice musices odhecaton A, was backed by Amadio Scotto and Niccolo di Raffaele, both experienced in the publishing trade. It does not survive intact and lacks a publication date, but the dedication (to Girolamo Donato, a leading Venetian nobleman, diplomat and humanist) is dated 15 May 1501. The music of this volume, a collection of chansons and other secular pieces, was edited by the Dominican friar Petrus Castellanus. The success of the venture must have been quickly evident: several reprintings of parts of it were needed within two years, and two new editions appeared, in 1503 and 1504. The intervening years were devoted to books of masses by the most highly regarded composers, starting with Josquin Des Prez and Brumel, as well as two motet volumes (see illustration) and the two books, Canti B and Canti C, which continued the Odhecaton series.

In 1504, with his first volume of frottolas, Petrucci launched into a new and popular repertory. This was intended from the beginning to be part of a series, and both it and many of the subsequent ten volumes went through more than one edition. From 1504 until 1509 Petrucci seems to have been consistently successful: he published at least 27 new titles, reissuing a number of these and earlier volumes, often without changing the date in the colophon. Among them are volumes of music for lute, perhaps published in reaction to the privilege accorded to Marco Dall’Aquila in 1505.

Petrucci’s last publication at Venice appeared on 27 March 1509. His next volume was published in Fossombrone on 10 May 1511. Petrucci had not lost contact with his home town during his Venetian years: in 1504 he had been a councillor representing Fossombrone in Urbino, and in 1505 and 1507 a city official. In 1508 he had revisited Fossombrone, and resettled there at some time in 1509 or 1510. The decision to leave Venice probably reflects his (and others’) growing concern about the effects of the League of Cambrai war on Venetian business, a papal interdict on trade with the city and the spread of the plague.

Petrucci’s output at Fossombrone began slowly. He acquired the patronage of the distinguished theologian and Bishop of Fossombrone, Paulus de Middelburgh, for whom he printed two non-musical works. One of these, Paulus’s Paulina de recta Paschae of 1513 (a plea for reform of the liturgical calendar), was Petrucci’s largest and most sumptuous volume. His only two musical volumes during these years, one each in 1511 and 1512, continued series begun earlier in Venice: in 1514 he printed a third volume of Josquin’s masses.

This last was Petrucci’s first volume printed under a new privilege, obtained from the pope in October 1513, protecting his books of polyphony and organ tablature in the papal states for 15 years. It was paralleled by a privilege granted to Andrea Antico, an ambitious woodcutter who appears deliberately to have set out to compete with Petrucci. In the same year, on 26 September, Jacomo Ungaro received a Venetian privilege, issued without prejudice to any earlier grant. Scotto and Raffaele petitioned on Petrucci’s behalf in June 1514, pointing out that he was the inventor of music printing and that his partners had not yet recouped their investment. The second claim seems unlikely, given the continuous production for more than ten years; but the further point that Raffaele was too infirm to support his family without the benefit of Petrucci’s privilege may well have been true. Their petition was no doubt a defence against not only Ungaro (who, as a type founder, may have been protecting technical modifications), but also Luc’Antonio Giunta (who had recently printed Cantorinus, a popular musical treatise) and perhaps also Antico. However, the renewal of Petrucci’s privilege, coupled with the Roman one for the papal states, encouraged him to print a volume of motets in 1514 and two of masses, besides new editions of Josquin’s first two books. He also continued to be a leading member of the ruling councils of Fossombrone.

The suspension of his activities between 1516 and 1519 is more apparent than real. Pope Leo X had ousted the ducal family of della Rovere from Urbino and placed Lorenzo de’ Medici on the throne. Petrucci, as a leading citizen of a town loyal to the exiled rulers, played a significant role in the tension between the new duke and his cities. His printing output included a few concealed editions of earlier volumes and a small text by his bishop. He also planned to publish M. Fabio Calvo’s translation of Hippocrates. An extant manuscript suggests that it appeared on 1 January 1519, but the volume itself, which caused Petrucci some contractual problems and another visit to Rome, does not appear to have been printed.

After Lorenzo de’ Medici’s death in 1519, Petrucci began to print again. He produced three motet volumes in 1519, and apparently Pisano’s Musica and a volume of which only fragments survive [Musica XII], both in 1520, as well as a number of reprintings of these and earlier volumes. In 1520 he opened a paper mill at Acqua Santa near Fossombrone, which seems to have been his principal source of income, for he ceased printing. (There is no evidence that Petrucci printed the Prognosticon of Paulus de Middelburgh dated 1523.) Some of his typographical material appears to surface in the volume of Eustachio Romano’s duos printed by Dorico in Rome in 1523. Petrucci continued to be active in local politics for another decade. According to Schmid, he was recalled to Venice in 1536 to help print Latin and Italian classical texts. Neither his place of death nor site of burial is known.

Publication

Throughout his career Petrucci used multiple-impression type methods. The secret he averred he had discovered was that of printing both staves and music by setting and printing the two layers separately. In fact this was not new, for it had already been used by printers of liturgical music; but Petrucci did make the technique feasible for polyphony by developing much finer type material. His method produced work of an elegance hardly equalled since.

At first, Petrucci seems to have sent the sheet of paper through the press three times – once for the notes and other musical signs, once for the staves and once for the text. This permitted great freedom in arranging the material of each layer, while also requiring precise alignment. During 1503 he seems to have realized that staves and text could be printed together, reducing the number of passes through the press to two. From then onwards, the physical appearance of his book and the technical processes remained unchanged (until his last two books), although the quality of both materials and workmanship gradually declined.

At first, Petrucci seems to have acquired much of his music from the friar Petrus Castellanus. The two produced an international repertory, appealing and accessible to professional musicians. The first frottola volumes in 1504 mark a shift in Petrucci’s intended market. These books (and the volumes of lute tablature and lute songs which began to appear in 1507) offer a simpler repertory and seem to be addressed as much to dilettantes as to professionals. At the same time, Petrucci must have acquired new suppliers of music: there is evidence suggesting contacts with the Ferrarese court and other sources.

When Petrucci moved back to Fossombrone, he seems to have intended merely to complete projects already begun in Venice. The hiatus caused by the political situation, or by his loss of contact with his purchasers, was partly filled by the three non-musical books, of which the de recta Paschae is outstanding, and is proof that Petrucci had not yet, in 1513, abandoned his artistic standards. A small collection of new titles in 1514–15 suggests a fresh start in music printing, drawing on new sources. However, with the change of power in the duchy of Urbino, the situation deteriorated, and subsequent publications consisted mostly of reprintings of earlier titles. Even the three new books of 1519 appear to be a political response rather than a continuation of earlier work, as they might at first seem.

In 1520 Petrucci undertook two volumes of a new Roman or Florentine repertory. Neither survives complete, though both show significant changes in his printing-house practice. Apart from these two volumes, the year 1520 (and perhaps 1521) was devoted to the last reissues of earlier volumes.

Petrucci’s production represents a major portion of the surviving music in each of the genres he covered. His three volumes devoted primarily to chansons appeared at the beginning of his career, and, as a group, show the changing styles of around 1500. The many books of frottolas, on the other hand, survey the field very thoroughly, and show the various forms in their different guises and changing popularity. Petrucci’s books of masses, mass sections and motets, perhaps inherently more conservative, cover the transition from works of Josquin’s generation to those of his immediate successors, and even their followers, including Willaert and Festa, who formed the Italian style of the next decades. Finally, the last two books are of particular interest for their early evidence of the transition from frottola to the new madrigalian forms. Petrucci, or his editor, seems always to have been sensitive to prevailing taste: among the few volumes that were not reprinted are those for lute, or voice and lute, perhaps because they seem to be aimed specifically at amateurs.

The readings preserved in Petrucci’s editions have recently been criticized for being inaccurate and arbitrary. While there is no evidence that he regarded his editorial role differently from that of a manuscript scribe, there is much evidence of the care with which he transmitted the readings. This evidence includes stop-press and manuscript corrections, as well as cancel leaves.

Petrucci’s legacy was seen as a major one by his contemporaries: the music he printed was widely disseminated and frequently copied into manuscripts. Various volumes (Josquin’s masses and the Motetti de la corona) were reprinted by Pasoti and Dorico in 1526, and others were the basis of books published by Schoeffer and probably also by Giunta. To these men, scribes as well as printers, Petrucci’s editions represented reliable usable copies of much of the most important music of the time, as trustworthy as any manuscript copy. They also presented music with an elegance which encouraged Antico, Dorico and Schoeffer (and through them many others) to continue to print music.

Stanley Boorman

Petrucci's Harmonice Musices Odhecaton

Jacob Handl [Gallus]

Wasborn probably at Ribnica, between 15 April and 31 July 1550 and died in Prague, 18 July 1591. Was a Slovenian composer resident in Austria, Moravia and Bohemia. He was one of the most skilful contrapuntists of his time and a notable composer of polychoral works whose music presents a fusion of the styles and techniques of his time.

Handl may originally have been called Petelin, meaning ‘rooster’, of which ‘Handl’ is the German diminutive and ‘Gallus’ the Latin equivalent. He probably received his early formal education at the Cistercian monastery at Sticna in Lower Carniola. Between 1564 and 1566 he left his homeland for Austria. He stayed first at the Benedictine abbey at Melk where he was encouraged to compose by the canon Johannes Rueff to whom he dedicated his fourth book of masses (1580). The statement, repeatedly quoted in the literature on Handl, that in 1574 he was a Sängerknabe at the imperial chapel in Vienna, is doubtful. It is difficult to believe that at the age of 24 Handl was still a boy singer. The Jacob Han documented in the imperial registers as Sängerknabe in 1575 must have been another, evidently younger, person. He left Austria in about 1575 and spent the next few years travelling in Moravia, Bohemia and Silesia, living in monasteries and taking the opportunity, as he put it, ‘to understand the muse and meditate on the shepherd’s pipe’. Among the places he visited were Breslau (now Wroclaw), Olomouc, Prague and the Premonstratensian monastery at Zábrdovice near Brno. Handl dedicated several works to the monastery's abbot, Caspar Schönauer.

In 1579 or early in 1580 Handl was appointed choirmaster to the Bishop of Olomouc, Stanislaus Pavlovský, whom he served until 26 July 1585 and who had a high regard for him. He celebrated Pavlovský's election as bishop with a seven-part hymn of praise, Undique flammatis Olomucum sedibus arsit (1579), his first printed work. Shortly after leaving Olomouc and no later than mid-1586 he became cantor of St Jan na Brzehu, Prague, where he remained until his untimely death. He undoubtedly became acquainted with the members of the literary society at St Jan as well as with members of the imperial court of Rudolf II; he dedicated a six-part ode to the court chaplain, Jacob Chimarrhaeus. Handl never married; his brother Georg was his sole heir. After his death several poets contributed elegies in his honour to an anthology that also contained his woodcut portrait. His reputation from that time on has remained consistently high. During his lifetime, however, his music was the subject of some criticism, largely, it would seem, on account of its complexity, and in the third book of his Opus musicum (1587) he felt obliged to defend the number of voices he used in his polychoral works.

Despite his relatively short life, Handl's output is of monumental dimensions comprising about 500, mostly sacred, works. His greatest achievement, the Opus musicum, contains four volumes of motets for festivals of the liturgical year with, in total, 374 works for four to 24 voices. The first three volumes contain music for the Proper of the Time, among them Handl's most famous composition Ecce quomodo moritur iustus. The fourth volume provides music for Marian festivals, the Common of Saints and various festivals from the Proper of Saints. Most of the texts are found in the Roman breviary, but a few are taken from pre-Tridentine sources. The collection ends with four ‘triumphant’ psalms for All Saints' Day, two of which are settings for 24 voices disposed in four choirs; in the 18th century they attracted the attention of Walther and Burney. There are also three settings of the Passion, all based on a single text compiled from the four gospels in the tradition of the Longaval Passion. Handl also wrote 20 masses. Many of these are parodies of his own motets, but some are based on motets by Clemens non Papa, Hollander, Vaet and Verdelot and on secular songs by Crecquillon and Lassus. Towards the end of his life, Handl composed 100 secular works called Moralia. Many of these works set didactic texts including morals on human vices and virtues. There are settings of Latin words, taken from Ovid, Virgil, Catullus, Horace and Martial and from the Carmina proverbialia (Basle, 1576), a collection of epigrams and aphorisms. Some texts were probably also written by his friends and Handl himself.

Handl's music displays a distinctly Netherlandish imprint. For instance, many of the sacred works – not only the parody masses but motets too, with their reliance on chant – are developed from borrowed material, which he treated with great skill and imagination. Canons abound, many of considerable complexity, and many subtleties arise from his handling of rhythmic notation: Michael Praetorius singled out the motet Subsannatores subsannabit Deus as a notable example of the use of proportional signs. Handl's polychoral compositions, though undoubtedly inspired in part by Willaert, also demonstrate Netherlandish influences, particularly that of Lassus. He exploited the possibilities of a cappella polychoral idioms as fully as any Venetian, and he clearly had a particularly good ear for unusual choral sonorities while always avoiding dense, word-obscuring textures. He managed the rhythmic relationships between words and notes with great sensitivity, particularly in his secular pieces, which move with the lightness and ease of madrigals and are full of the most remarkable syncopations. His music shows a preponderance of full triadic harmony and numerous chromatic progressions, many of which arise from the juxtaposition of chords whose roots lie a 3rd apart. Affective texts call forth rich, occasionally chromatic harmonies, as in the justly famed Mirabile mysterium. The association between text and melody is particularly sympathetic, and there is a good deal of word-painting. Handl organized much of his music in abstract formal patterns, demonstrating an unusually firm grasp of the principles of formal balance and contrast that were so conspicuously to inform 17th-century music. Much of his music seems remarkably tonal; at the very least it attests to his awareness of the implications of major–minor polarity.

At the same time progressive and conservative, italianate and Netherlandish-influenced, Handl's music offers a fascinating blend of the styles and techniques of the day. Yet however progressive some of it may have been, it exerted little influence on the coming age; instead of pointing the way to the future it represents a summation of an era

Allen B. Skei/Danilo Pokorn

Petrus Alamire

South Netherlandish music scribe of German birth, was born in Nuremberg, c1470 and died in Mechelen, 26 June 1536. He was a member of the Nuremberg merchant family Imhof, but settled in the Netherlands in the early 1490s. He was active principally at the courts of Margaret of Austria, regent of the Netherlands, her successor Mary of Hungary and Emperor Charles V, in Mechelen and Brussels. He was one of several copyists – the others are anonymous – of a complex of more than 60 manuscripts of polyphonic music produced there between about 1495 and 1535. The earliest references to Alamire appear in the accounts for 1496/7 of the Confraternity of Our Lady in ’s-Hertogenbosch. He is listed once as a new member, and was paid for having copied one book of masses and portions of a second book, as well as a book of motets. In 1499 the Confraternity of Our Lady in Antwerp paid him for having copied a book of motets and Magnificat settings. By 1503 he was living in Antwerp, and in that year Philip the Fair, Duke of Burgundy, bought from him ‘a large book of music, made up of 26 cahiers of parchment, containing several masses and other pieces used in the divine service which is celebrated daily in the domestic chapel of the household of this lord’. Alamire was still living in Antwerp in 1505, but by 1516 had moved to Mechelen.

In 1509 Alamire was attached to the chapel of the Archduke Charles (later Charles V) as ‘scribe and keeper of the books’. He retained this position, apparently continuously, for 25 years, probably supervising the copyists who worked with him in producing music manuscripts. He may well have edited or designed many of the books and engaged book-painters and binderies to complete them. He actually signed only a few pages, all in informal script, so his hand cannot be identified with certainty in the more usual formal style of writing. 47 choirbooks and sets of partbooks, as well as 14 sets of detached leaves and fragments, copied in whole or in part or supervised by Alamire, have survived, among them some of the largest and most handsomely penned and decorated choirbooks of the time, as well as smaller, more modest sets of partbooks. Together these contain a significant portion of the contemporary repertory of Franco-Flemish polyphony, including almost all the works of Pierre de La Rue, and many works by Josquin, Mouton, Févin, Obrecht, Isaac and lesser composers. Some of the books were made for the chapels of Charles, Margaret, Emperor Maximilian and other members of the Habsburg dynasty, and for highly placed courtiers; others were prepared for presentation by the court to such patrons of music as Frederick the Wise of Saxony (see illustration), Pope Leo X, Henry VIII and the Fugger family of Augsburg. While serving the Netherlands court Alamire continued to fulfil private manuscript commissions, notably for the Confraternities of Our Lady in Antwerp (1512–20) and ’s-Hertogenbosch (1530–31), and for important individuals. He also sold instruments and paintings. Documents calling him a singer, and a four-voice Tandernack ascribed to him, suggest that he was a practising musician.

Four autograph letters in Latin from Alamire to Henry VIII and Cardinal Wolsey, and a series of letters to them from the English ambassadors at the Netherlands court, show that between 1515 and 1518 Alamire not only supplied music manuscripts and instruments to Henry, but also served the king, whom he visited in 1516, as a spy against Richard de la Pole, exiled pretender to the English throne. Alamire gathered political information in Metz, where de la Pole lived, Wittenberg, Frankfurt and France, doubtless acquiring new music during his travels. His service for the king ceased when it was found that he was also a counterspy for de la Pole. Alamire also travelled as a diplomatic and private courier. In 1519 he was sent by Margaret of Austria to Augsburg and Wittenberg in connection with the election of Emperor Charles V, and between 1517 and 1520 he carried a number of messages and letters from Frederick of Saxony to Margaret of Austria, and from Frederick’s secretary, Georg Spalatin, and the Nuremberg humanist Willibald Pirkheimer to Erasmus. The last, humorously describing how Alamire had delivered six old letters to him in August 1519, calls the scribe ‘a not unwitty man’, a portrait corroborated by Alamire’s letters, as well as epigrams and insults directed at the singers in his manuscripts. That he had other, surprising areas of expertise can be seen from a payment to Alamire by Pompeius Occo of Amsterdam, a wealthy financial agent for whom he produced a book of sacred music, for giving lessons in ‘the craft of mining’ to Occo’s guest, King Christian IV of Denmark. By order of Mary of Hungary (Margaret’s successor), acting for the emperor, Alamire was pensioned off on 1 January 1534, but he continued to be paid for books of music for Mary’s chapel, and for other services, until June 1535.

Four of the other scribes involved in copying the corpus of manuscripts produced at the Netherlands court have been designated Netherlands court scribes B, B1, C and C1. It is possible that B, the main copyist of five manuscripts dating between about 1495 and about 1508, was Martin Bourgeois, a chaplain in the service of Margaret, Philip the Fair and Charles V from 1498 to 1514, and Alamire’s predecessor as principal music scribe. Scribe B1 was a different copyist, though contemporary with B; he executed two manuscripts. The workshop of Scribe B is thus represented by seven manuscripts, the earliest layer of the Netherlands court sources. Scribes C and C1 were active at the same time as Alamire and collaborated with him on occasion. Eight manuscripts, dating from about 1508 to 1523, can be wholly or partly attributed to them and are considered part of the production of Alamire’s workshop. These scribal identifications may have to be modified in the light of ongoing analysis of scripts. In a recent study, Flynn Warmington has distinguished the hands of seven main scribes of both music and text, as well as three further copyists of music alone and six of text alone.

Herbert Kellman

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck

The Dutch organist, composer and teacher Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck was born in Deventer (?) May 1562 and died Amsterdam, 16 October 1621. Before 1580 he succeeded his father (his earliest teacher) as organist of the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, a post he retained for the rest of his life. On his death his son, Dirk, was appointed to succeed him. Chief among his vocal compositions are numerous chansons and Italian madrigals, motets (Cantiones sacrae, 1619), and polyphonic settings (for domestic devotions) of the entire Genevan Psalter.

As an organist Sweelinck was renowned as much for his advice on the quality of new or rebuilt organs in other Dutch cities as for his brilliant improvisations at the Oude Kerk, before and after church services. His pupils included Düben, Scheidemann, Siefert, Scheidt, and others who were later to become leaders in their profession. His numerous organ works (by no means all of which have survived) include fantasias, toccatas, and sets of elaborate variations (notably those on Mein junges Leben hat ein Endt) in which the influence of John Bull and other English virginalists is apparent.

Basil Smallman