Gilles Joye was a Franco-Flemish composer of the 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...

. A member of the Burgundian school

Burgundian School

The Burgundian School is a term used to denote a group of composers active in the 15th century in what is now northern and eastern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, centered on the court of the Dukes of Burgundy. The main names associated with this school are Guillaume Dufay, Gilles Binchois,...

, he was known mainly for his secular songs which were in a lyrical and graceful style.

Life

He may have come from Kortrijk

Kortrijk

Kortrijk ; , ; ) is a Belgian city and municipality located in the Flemish province West Flanders...

, since an Oliver Joye, possibly his father, has been identified there in 1420. Gilles seems to have had an excellent musical education, probably at either Kortrijk or Bruges

Bruges

Bruges is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located in the northwest of the country....

, where he was hired as a singer in 1449. Documents from the cathedral archives show that he was often in trouble: engaging in street brawls, frequenting brothels, refusing to take part in regular singing events, and in particular visiting a notorious prostitute of the town named "Rosabelle". In spite of these activities, he was made a priest, and became a canon

Canon (fiction)

In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...

 at Cleves in 1453 and at St. Donatian

Saint Donatian

Saint Donatian is the patron saint of Bruges, Belgium, where his relics were enshrined in the ninth century. He was the bishop of Reims from 360 until his death in 390. His feast day is celebrated on October 14....

 in 1459.

Between 1454 and 1459 no record of his activities survives in the Low Countries

Low Countries

The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

; based on his composition of an Italian ballata

Ballata

The ballata is an Italian poetic and musical form, which was in use from the late 13th to the 15th century. It has the musical structure AbbaA, with the first and last stanzas having the same texts. It is thus most similar to the French musical 'forme fixe' virelai...

on a poem by a contemporary Florentine

Florence

Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....

, it has been suggested that he spent some time in Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, as did so many other Franco-Flemish composers of his and succeeding generations. By 1459 he was back at St. Donatian in Bruges.

In 1462 he was hired as a singer by the Burgundian

Burgundians

The Burgundians were an East Germanic tribe which may have emigrated from mainland Scandinavia to the island of Bornholm, whose old form in Old Norse still was Burgundarholmr , and from there to mainland Europe...

 court chapel, a position he retained officially until 1471, although he had ceased to perform his duties in 1468. Between 1465 and 1473 he was also a rector

Rector

The word rector has a number of different meanings; it is widely used to refer to an academic, religious or political administrator...

 at Delft

Delft

Delft is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland , the Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam and The Hague....

. After 1471 he most likely returned to St. Donatian. He died in Bruges, and was buried in the church of St. Donatian.

A portrait of Joye has survived, possibly painted by Hans Memling

Hans Memling

Hans Memling was a German-born Early Netherlandish painter.-Life and works:Born in Seligenstadt, near Frankfurt in the Middle Rhein region, it is believed that Memling served his apprenticeship at Mainz or Cologne, and later worked in the Netherlands under Rogier van der Weyden...

 in 1472. Currently it is in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts

Williamstown, Massachusetts

Williamstown is a town in Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,754 at the 2010 census...

.

Music

All of Joye's surviving music is vocal and secular, and for three voices only. Four of his works are rondeaux

Rondeau (music)

The rondeau was a Medieval and early Renaissance musical form, based on the contemporary popular poetic rondeau form. It is distinct from the 18th century rondo, though the terms are likely related...

, in French (though the text for one rondeau is lost), and one is an Italian ballata, probably written between 1454 and 1459 when he may have been in Italy. Joye's songs are typical of the Burgundian secular music of the period; they are melodic, clear, and lyrical in style. One of them, Ce qu'on fait, is frankly obscene. No sacred music is known for certain to have been written by Joye, but two anonymous masses

Mass (music)

The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable portions of the Eucharistic liturgy to music...

 based on the contemporary lyric O rosa bella

O Rosa Bella

O Rosa Bella is a popular 15th century chanson, originally attributed to John Dunstable, but now to John Bedingham...

have been attributed to Joye for stylistic reasons; in addition, the similarity of O rosa bella to the name of his favorite prostitute, along with the general irreverent character evident in his life and other work, may support this hypothesis.

Joye is one of the composers mentioned in Guillaume Crétin

Guillaume Crétin

-Life:He was treasurer of the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes, then cantor of the Sainte-Chapelle de Paris and ordinary almoner to Francis I of France....

's famous poem Déploration sur le trépas de Jean Ockeghem written on the death of Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem was the most famous composer of the Franco-Flemish School in the last half of the 15th century, and is often considered the most...

 in 1497; in it he is one of the angels welcoming Ockeghem into Heaven

Heaven

Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...

. The composers mentioned by Crétin have long been used as a list of those considered most famous in the late 15th century, thus indicating Joye's reputation, in spite of the small number of his works which have survived.

Works

1. Ce qu'on fait a catimini (3 voices, rondeau, in French)
2. Mercy mon dueil je ne supplied (3 voices, rondeau, in French)
3. Non pas que je veuille penser (3 voices, rondeau, in French)
4. Textless rondeau, also for three voices
5. Poy ché crudel Fortuna et rio Distino (3 voices, ballata, in Italian)