Claude Le Jeune
Encyclopedia
Claude Le Jeune was a Franco-Flemish
composer of the late Renaissance
. He was the primary representative of the musical movement known as musique mesurée
, and a significant composer of the "Parisian" chanson
, the predominant secular form in France in the latter half of the 16th century. His fame was widespread in Europe, and he ranks as one of the most influential composers of the time.
, where he probably received his early musical training. Sometime fairly early in life he became a Protestant. The first record of his musical activity is from 1552, when four chansons attributed to him were published at Leuven
, in anthologies of works by several composers. In 1564 he moved to Paris
, where he became acquainted with the Huguenots. By this time he had already acquired some international fame, as evidenced by the appearance of his name in a list of "contemporary composers of excellence" in a manuscript copy of the Penitential Psalms of Orlande de Lassus
, which were probably composed in the 1560s in Munich
. Lassus may have met Le Jeune in the mid-1550s during a trip to France; however this has not been definitely established.
In 1570 Le Jeune began his association with the Academie de musique et de poésie, headed by Jean-Antoine de Baïf
, an association which was to be decisive both on Le Jeune's music and on the direction taken by the Academie. That Baïf was a Catholic, who even wrote a sonnet extravagantly praising the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre
in 1572 (in which somewhere between 5,000 and 30,000 Protestants were murdered) appears not to have dissuaded Le Jeune from working with him, and Le Jeune continued to set his poetry, and follow the ideals of the Academie, into the 1580s. In 1581, in collaboration with Baïf, d'Aubigné
and Ronsard, he wrote incidental music for the wedding of the Duke of Joyeuse and the queen's half-sister, Marie de Lorraine
.
Unfortunately, Le Jeune was found out to be the author of an anti-Catholic tract in 1589, and was forced to flee Paris during the siege that year: only the intervention of his friend, the composer Jacques Mauduit
, at the city's St. Denis gate saved his life and prevented the destruction of the manuscripts he carried with him (according to Marin Mersenne
, who wrote extensively about both composers in his Harmonie universelle of 1637). Other Huguenot
composers were not so fortunate. Claude Goudimel
, a very similar composer who Le Jeune may have known, was murdered by a Catholic mob in Lyon
during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in late August 1572.
Next, Le Jeune settled in La Rochelle
, a stronghold of the Huguenots, but sometime in the mid-1590s he must have returned to Paris, for his name appears in a list of musicians of the royal household of Henry IV
both in 1596 and 1600. Few other details from late in his life are known, but he must have been composing prolifically, judging by the enormous quantity of music which remained in manuscript at his death, most of which was published in the first two decades of the 17th century. He died in Paris, and is buried in the Protestant cemetery of La Trinité.
, the musical analogue to the poetic movement known as vers mesurée, in which the music reflected the exact stress accents of the French language. In musique mesurée, stressed versus unstressed syllables in the text would be set in a musical ratio of 2:1, i.e. a stressed syllable could get a quarter note while an unstressed syllable could get an eighth note. Since the meter of the verse was usually flexible, the result was a musical style which is best transcribed without meter, and which sounds to the modern ear to have rapidly changing meter
s, for example alternating 2/8, 3/8, etc.
In opposition to the chanson style of the Netherlandish
composers writing at the same time, Le Jeune's "Parisian" chansons in musique mesurée were usually light and homophonic in texture. They were sung a cappella
, and were usually from three to seven voices, though sometimes he wrote for as many as eight. Probably his most famous secular work is his collection of thirty-three airs mesurés and six chansons, all to poems by Baïf, entitled Le printemps. Occasionally he wrote in a contrapuntal idiom reminiscent of the more severe style of his Netherlandish contemporaries, sometimes with a satirical intent; and in addition he sometimes used melodic intervals which were "forbidden" by current rules, such as the expressive diminished fourth; these strictures were codified by contemporary theorists such as Gioseffe Zarlino in Venice, and were well known to Le Jeune.
Le Jeune also was keenly aware of the current humanist research into ancient Greek music theory. Greek use of the modes and the three genera intrigued him, and in his music he used both the diatonic genus
(a tetrachord
made up of semitone, tone, and tone) and the chromatic genus
(a tetrachord made up of semitone, semitone, and an augmented second).
(The enharmonic genus
, consisting of quarter tone, quarter tone, and major third, was rarely used in the 16th century, although Italian theorist and composer Nicola Vicentino
constructed an instrument allowing it to be used in performance.) His chansons using the chromatic genus are among the most chromatic
compositions prior to the madrigals of Gesualdo
.
Probably Le Jeune's most famous sacred work is his Dodécacorde, a series of twelve psalm settings which he published in La Rochelle in 1598. Each of the psalms is set in a different one of the twelve mode
s as given by Zarlino
. Some of his psalm settings are for large forces: for example he uses sixteen voices in his setting of Psalm 52. Published posthumously was a collection of all 150 psalms, Les 150 pseaumes, for four and five voices; some of these were extremely popular, and were reprinted in several European countries throughout the 17th century.
His last completed work, published in 1606, was a collection of thirty-six songs based on eight-line poems, divided into twelve groups, each of which contained three settings in each of the twelve modes. The work, Octonaires de la vanité et inconstances du monde (Eight-line Poems on the Vanity and Inconstancy of the World), based on poems by the Calvinist
preacher Antoine Chardieu, was for groups of three or four voices. According to Le Jeune's sister Cecile, who wrote the introduction to the publication, he had intended to complete another set for more voices but died before finishing it. It was one of the last collections of chanson
s of the Renaissance, of any type; following its publication, the air de cour
was the predominant genre of secular song composition in France.
Of Le Jeune's sacred music, a total of 347 psalm settings, thirty-eight sacred chansons, eleven motet
s, and a mass
setting have survived. His secular output included 146 airs, most of which were in the style of musique mesurée, as well as sixty-six chansons, and forty-three Italian madrigal
s. In addition, three instrumental fantasia
s were published posthumously in 1612, as well as some works for lute
. He was fortunate in that his copious manuscripts were published after his death: his friend, the equally gifted and prolific composer Jacques Mauduit, was fated to have most of his music lost.
Contemporary critics accused Le Jeune of violating some of the rules of good melodic writing and counterpoint
, for example using the melodic interval
of the major sixth (something Palestrina
would never have done), and frequently crossing voices
; some of these compositional devices were to become features of the Baroque
style, premonitions of which were beginning to appear even in France towards the end of the 16th century.
Psalms
Secular works
Franco-Flemish School
In music, the Franco-Flemish School or more precisely the Netherlandish School refers, somewhat imprecisely, to the style of polyphonic vocal music composition in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, and to the composers who wrote it...
composer of the late Renaissance
Renaissance music
Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...
. He was the primary representative of the musical movement known as musique mesurée
Musique mesurée
Musique mesurée, or Musique mesurée à l'antique, was a style of vocal musical composition in France in the late 16th century. In musique mesurée, longer syllables in the French language were set to longer note values, and shorter syllables to shorter, in a homophonic texture but in a situation of...
, and a significant composer of the "Parisian" chanson
Chanson
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...
, the predominant secular form in France in the latter half of the 16th century. His fame was widespread in Europe, and he ranks as one of the most influential composers of the time.
Life
He was born in ValenciennesValenciennes
Valenciennes is a commune in the Nord department in northern France.It lies on the Scheldt river. Although the city and region had seen a steady decline between 1975 and 1990, it has since rebounded...
, where he probably received his early musical training. Sometime fairly early in life he became a Protestant. The first record of his musical activity is from 1552, when four chansons attributed to him were published at Leuven
Leuven
Leuven is the capital of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region, Belgium...
, in anthologies of works by several composers. In 1564 he moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where he became acquainted with the Huguenots. By this time he had already acquired some international fame, as evidenced by the appearance of his name in a list of "contemporary composers of excellence" in a manuscript copy of the Penitential Psalms of Orlande de Lassus
Orlande de Lassus
Orlande de Lassus was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance...
, which were probably composed in the 1560s in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
. Lassus may have met Le Jeune in the mid-1550s during a trip to France; however this has not been definitely established.
In 1570 Le Jeune began his association with the Academie de musique et de poésie, headed by Jean-Antoine de Baïf
Jean-Antoine de Baïf
Jean Antoine de Baïf was a French poet and member of the Pléiade.-Life:He was born in Venice, the natural son of the scholar Lazare de Baïf, who was at that time French ambassador at Venice...
, an association which was to be decisive both on Le Jeune's music and on the direction taken by the Academie. That Baïf was a Catholic, who even wrote a sonnet extravagantly praising the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre
St. Bartholomew's Day massacre
The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572 was a targeted group of assassinations, followed by a wave of Roman Catholic mob violence, both directed against the Huguenots , during the French Wars of Religion...
in 1572 (in which somewhere between 5,000 and 30,000 Protestants were murdered) appears not to have dissuaded Le Jeune from working with him, and Le Jeune continued to set his poetry, and follow the ideals of the Academie, into the 1580s. In 1581, in collaboration with Baïf, d'Aubigné
D'Aubigne
d'Aubigné may refer to:*Jean-Henri Merle d'Aubigné*Théodore-Agrippa d'Aubigné...
and Ronsard, he wrote incidental music for the wedding of the Duke of Joyeuse and the queen's half-sister, Marie de Lorraine
Mary of Guise
Mary of Guise was a queen consort of Scotland as the second spouse of King James V. She was the mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, and served as regent of Scotland in her daughter's name from 1554 to 1560...
.
Unfortunately, Le Jeune was found out to be the author of an anti-Catholic tract in 1589, and was forced to flee Paris during the siege that year: only the intervention of his friend, the composer Jacques Mauduit
Jacques Mauduit
Jacques Mauduit was a French composer of the late Renaissance. He was one of the most innovative French composers of the late 16th century, combining voices and instruments in new ways, and importing some of the grand polychoral style of the Venetian School from Italy; he also composed a famous...
, at the city's St. Denis gate saved his life and prevented the destruction of the manuscripts he carried with him (according to Marin Mersenne
Marin Mersenne
Marin Mersenne, Marin Mersennus or le Père Mersenne was a French theologian, philosopher, mathematician and music theorist, often referred to as the "father of acoustics"...
, who wrote extensively about both composers in his Harmonie universelle of 1637). Other Huguenot
Huguenot
The Huguenots were members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France during the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the 17th century, people who formerly would have been called Huguenots have instead simply been called French Protestants, a title suggested by their German co-religionists, the...
composers were not so fortunate. Claude Goudimel
Claude Goudimel
Claude Goudimel was a French composer, music editor and publisher, and music theorist of the Renaissance.-Biography:...
, a very similar composer who Le Jeune may have known, was murdered by a Catholic mob in Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
during the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in late August 1572.
Next, Le Jeune settled in La Rochelle
La Rochelle
La Rochelle is a city in western France and a seaport on the Bay of Biscay, a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Charente-Maritime department.The city is connected to the Île de Ré by a bridge completed on 19 May 1988...
, a stronghold of the Huguenots, but sometime in the mid-1590s he must have returned to Paris, for his name appears in a list of musicians of the royal household of Henry IV
Henry IV of France
Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....
both in 1596 and 1600. Few other details from late in his life are known, but he must have been composing prolifically, judging by the enormous quantity of music which remained in manuscript at his death, most of which was published in the first two decades of the 17th century. He died in Paris, and is buried in the Protestant cemetery of La Trinité.
Music and influence
Le Jeune was the most famous composer of secular music in France in the late 16th century, and his preferred form was the chanson. After 1570, most of the chansons he wrote incorporated the ideas of musique mesuréeMusique mesurée
Musique mesurée, or Musique mesurée à l'antique, was a style of vocal musical composition in France in the late 16th century. In musique mesurée, longer syllables in the French language were set to longer note values, and shorter syllables to shorter, in a homophonic texture but in a situation of...
, the musical analogue to the poetic movement known as vers mesurée, in which the music reflected the exact stress accents of the French language. In musique mesurée, stressed versus unstressed syllables in the text would be set in a musical ratio of 2:1, i.e. a stressed syllable could get a quarter note while an unstressed syllable could get an eighth note. Since the meter of the verse was usually flexible, the result was a musical style which is best transcribed without meter, and which sounds to the modern ear to have rapidly changing meter
Meter (music)
Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...
s, for example alternating 2/8, 3/8, etc.
In opposition to the chanson style of the Netherlandish
Franco-Flemish School
In music, the Franco-Flemish School or more precisely the Netherlandish School refers, somewhat imprecisely, to the style of polyphonic vocal music composition in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, and to the composers who wrote it...
composers writing at the same time, Le Jeune's "Parisian" chansons in musique mesurée were usually light and homophonic in texture. They were sung a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
, and were usually from three to seven voices, though sometimes he wrote for as many as eight. Probably his most famous secular work is his collection of thirty-three airs mesurés and six chansons, all to poems by Baïf, entitled Le printemps. Occasionally he wrote in a contrapuntal idiom reminiscent of the more severe style of his Netherlandish contemporaries, sometimes with a satirical intent; and in addition he sometimes used melodic intervals which were "forbidden" by current rules, such as the expressive diminished fourth; these strictures were codified by contemporary theorists such as Gioseffe Zarlino in Venice, and were well known to Le Jeune.
Le Jeune also was keenly aware of the current humanist research into ancient Greek music theory. Greek use of the modes and the three genera intrigued him, and in his music he used both the diatonic genus
Diatonic genus
In ancient Greek music theory, the diatonic genus is the division of the tetrachord from which the modern diatonic scale evolved. The distinguishing characteristic of the diatonic genus is that its largest interval is about the size of a major second...
(a tetrachord
Tetrachord
Traditionally, a tetrachord is a series of three intervals filling in the interval of a perfect fourth, a 4:3 frequency proportion. In modern usage a tetrachord is any four-note segment of a scale or tone row. The term tetrachord derives from ancient Greek music theory...
made up of semitone, tone, and tone) and the chromatic genus
Chromatic genus
In Ancient Greek music theory, the chromatic genus is a genus of the tetrachord characterized by an upper interval of a minor third. The two middle notes of the tetrachord were movable while the two outer notes were immovable...
(a tetrachord made up of semitone, semitone, and an augmented second).
(The enharmonic genus
Enharmonic genus
The enharmonic genus has historically been the most mysterious and controversial of the three Greek genera of tetrachords. Its characteristic interval is a major third, leaving the remainder of the tetrachord to be divided by two intervals smaller than a semitone...
, consisting of quarter tone, quarter tone, and major third, was rarely used in the 16th century, although Italian theorist and composer Nicola Vicentino
Nicola Vicentino
Nicola Vicentino was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most visionary musicians of the age, inventing, among other things, a microtonal keyboard, and devising a practical system of chromatic writing two hundred years before the rise of equal...
constructed an instrument allowing it to be used in performance.) His chansons using the chromatic genus are among the most chromatic
Chromaticism
Chromaticism is a compositional technique interspersing the primary diatonic pitches and chords with other pitches of the chromatic scale. Chromaticism is in contrast or addition to tonality or diatonicism...
compositions prior to the madrigals of Gesualdo
Carlo Gesualdo
Carlo Gesualdo, known as Gesualdo di Venosa or Gesualdo da Venosa , Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, was an Italian nobleman, lutenist, composer, and murderer....
.
Probably Le Jeune's most famous sacred work is his Dodécacorde, a series of twelve psalm settings which he published in La Rochelle in 1598. Each of the psalms is set in a different one of the twelve mode
Musical mode
In the theory of Western music since the ninth century, mode generally refers to a type of scale. This usage, still the most common in recent years, reflects a tradition dating to the middle ages, itself inspired by the theory of ancient Greek music.The word encompasses several additional...
s as given by Zarlino
Gioseffo Zarlino
Gioseffo Zarlino was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. He was possibly the most famous music theorist between Aristoxenus and Rameau, and made a large contribution to the theory of counterpoint as well as to musical tuning.-Life:Zarlino was born in Chioggia, near Venice...
. Some of his psalm settings are for large forces: for example he uses sixteen voices in his setting of Psalm 52. Published posthumously was a collection of all 150 psalms, Les 150 pseaumes, for four and five voices; some of these were extremely popular, and were reprinted in several European countries throughout the 17th century.
His last completed work, published in 1606, was a collection of thirty-six songs based on eight-line poems, divided into twelve groups, each of which contained three settings in each of the twelve modes. The work, Octonaires de la vanité et inconstances du monde (Eight-line Poems on the Vanity and Inconstancy of the World), based on poems by the Calvinist
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
preacher Antoine Chardieu, was for groups of three or four voices. According to Le Jeune's sister Cecile, who wrote the introduction to the publication, he had intended to complete another set for more voices but died before finishing it. It was one of the last collections of chanson
Chanson
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...
s of the Renaissance, of any type; following its publication, the air de cour
Air de cour
The Air de cour was a popular type of secular vocal music in France in the very late Renaissance and early Baroque period, from about 1570 until around 1650...
was the predominant genre of secular song composition in France.
Of Le Jeune's sacred music, a total of 347 psalm settings, thirty-eight sacred chansons, eleven motet
Motet
In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...
s, and a mass
Mass
Mass can be defined as a quantitive measure of the resistance an object has to change in its velocity.In physics, mass commonly refers to any of the following three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent:...
setting have survived. His secular output included 146 airs, most of which were in the style of musique mesurée, as well as sixty-six chansons, and forty-three Italian madrigal
Madrigal (music)
A madrigal is a secular vocal music composition, usually a partsong, of the Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Traditionally, polyphonic madrigals are unaccompanied; the number of voices varies from two to eight, and most frequently from three to six....
s. In addition, three instrumental fantasia
Fantasia (music)
The fantasia is a musical composition with its roots in the art of improvisation. Because of this, it seldom approximates the textbook rules of any strict musical form ....
s were published posthumously in 1612, as well as some works for lute
Lute
Lute can refer generally to any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back, or more specifically to an instrument from the family of European lutes....
. He was fortunate in that his copious manuscripts were published after his death: his friend, the equally gifted and prolific composer Jacques Mauduit, was fated to have most of his music lost.
Contemporary critics accused Le Jeune of violating some of the rules of good melodic writing and counterpoint
Counterpoint
In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and rhythm and are harmonically interdependent . It has been most commonly identified in classical music, developing strongly during the Renaissance and in much of the common practice period,...
, for example using the melodic interval
Interval (music)
In music theory, an interval is a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. Two-note combinations are also called dyads...
of the major sixth (something Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition...
would never have done), and frequently crossing voices
Voice crossing
In music, voice crossing is the intersection of melodic lines in a composition, leaving a lower voice on a higher pitch than a higher voice...
; some of these compositional devices were to become features of the Baroque
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
style, premonitions of which were beginning to appear even in France towards the end of the 16th century.
Media
Selected recordings
- Missa ad Placitum. Benedicite Dominum. Tristia obsedit me. Magnificat. Ensemble Clément JanequinEnsemble Clément JanequinThe Ensemble Clément Janequin is a French early music ensemble founded in 1978 and specializing in the chansons of the Renaissance and early Baroque.The founder, and leader, is the countertenor Dominique Visse...
, dir. Visse (HMC 901607)
Psalms
- Dix Psaumes de David (1564) 10 of 10 psalms. Ludus modalis, dir. Bruno Boterf. Ramée 2011
- Dodécacorde (1598) - 7 of 12 psalms. Ensemble Vocale Sagittarius, dir. Michel Laplénie. Accord 2003
- Psalms - Muze honorons l’illustre et grand Henry inc. Dieu nous te loüons (French Te Deum from Pseaumes en vers mesurez) Les Pages & Les Chantres, dir. Schneebeli (Alpha) 2002
- Airs et psaumes mesurés à l'antique. Claudine Ansermet soprano, Paolo Cherici, lute (Symphonia)
- Psaumes de la Réforme de Clément MarotClément MarotClément Marot was a French poet of the Renaissance period.-Youth:Marot was born at Cahors, the capital of the province of Quercy, some time during the winter of 1496-1497. His father, Jean Marot , whose more correct name appears to have been des Mares, Marais or Marets, was a Norman from the Caen...
et Théodore de Bèze Trio Viva Lux, dir. Houette (SM)
Secular works
- Le printemps – 12 of 39 chansons Huelgas EnsembleHuelgas EnsembleThe Huelgas Ensemble is a Belgian early music group formed by the Flemish conductor Paul Van Nevel in 1971. The group's performance and extensive discography focuses on renaissance polyphony...
Paul Van NevelPaul Van NevelPaul Van Nevel is a Belgian conductor, musicologist and art historian. In 1971 he founded the Huelgas Ensemble, a choir dedicated to polyphony from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Van Nevel is known for hunting out little known polyphonic medieval works to perform.He grew up in a musical...
(Sony) - Le printemps – 39 of 39 chansons (2CD), Feuille (Arion)
- Meslanges et fantasies de violes Ensemble Clément JanequinEnsemble Clément JanequinThe Ensemble Clément Janequin is a French early music ensemble founded in 1978 and specializing in the chansons of the Renaissance and early Baroque.The founder, and leader, is the countertenor Dominique Visse...
& Ensemble Les Éléments 1995 (HMC) - Octonaires de la vanité du monde 2CD Ensemble Jacques Feuille 1973 (Arion)
- Les saisons. 6 Octonaires. La bataille. (on Inconstance et vanité 1601) Anne Quentin (Astree)
- Chansons - Autant qu’emport le vent Ensemble Clément Janequin (HM)