Musique mesurée
Encyclopedia
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 metric
fluidity, in an attempt to imitate contemporary understanding of Ancient Greek music. Although this compositional method did not attain popularity at first, it attracted some of the most famous composers of the time. Its basis in a desire to re-create the artistic ethos
of Ancient Greece
, especially in respect to text declamation, had a strong similarity to contemporary movements in Italy, such as the work of the Florentine Camerata
which engendered the first opera
s, and brought about the beginning of the Baroque
era in music.
, under the direction of Jean-Antoine de Baïf
, a group of poets known as the Pléiade attempted to recreate the metrical effect of ancient Greek and Latin poetry in French, using the quantitative principles of those languages. The attempt was more than an academic one: Baïf and his associates, horrified by the barbarity of the age, including the bloody religious wars which raged throughout the last decades of the century, sought to improve mankind by bringing back the ancient diction, which was believed to have had a positive ethical effect on its hearers. For this attempt they had the approval of the current king of France, Charles IX
, and they met in secret to plan their musical revolution. Baïf, with the royal patent, founded the Académie de Poésie et de Musique
in 1570, along with his intimate musical associate Joachim Thibault de Courville
. Poet Pierre de Ronsard
was also involved in the group.
As originally planned, the members of the Académie would be in a hierarchy of two grades: first, the composers and singers, known as the professionnels, and after that, the gentleman listeners, known as the auditeurs, who were also to provide financial backing for the enterprise. Aside from this small group of aristocrats, no one else was invited. The concerts took place at Baïf's house in Paris: Charles IX himself, who provided much of the patronage, was often present.
Some of the house rules have been recorded. There was to be no talking, or disturbances of any kind, during the singing, and anyone who came in late had to wait until the end of a piece to be seated – rather like modern concert-hall etiquette. Musicians were to rehearse every day, and no music was to be copied or taken away from the area of performance. The music was so closely guarded, at least during the early years of the Académie, that no music of the originating composer – Courville – is known to have survived.
The Académie was short-lived, and probably did not survive after 1573, the year of the death of Charles IX. Another similar group, the Académie du Palais, which met at the Louvre
after 1573 with the backing of the new king, Henri III, seemed to carry on some of the work of the previous group, but its aim seems to have been more to debate philosophical issues than to reform humanity through reviving Ancient Greek and Latin poetry and music. The activities, if any, of the original Académie after this time are poorly-documented: while the musicians continued to meet, it is not known if they met in a formal setting, as they had prior to the death of Charles IX. This was during a period of increasing religious turmoil, ending in the fighting in Paris in 1589, and the assassination of the king; associations of humanists such as the Académie, which included both Catholics and Protestants, became increasingly difficult (Baïf, a Catholic, even wrote a sonnet in 1572 praising the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre
; Claude Le Jeune
, a Protestant, was nearly murdered during the siege of Paris in 1589).
Even though the original Académie had faded away within a few years of its founding, several prominent composers found the concept of musique mesurée to be so attractive as to make it their primary compositional method. The most famous of these was Claude Le Jeune
, followed by Jacques Mauduit
, Eustache Du Caurroy
, Nicolas de la Grotte
, and Guillaume Costeley
.
s. Most of the chanson
s written in the style were for five voices, unaccompanied, although instruments began to be used as accompaniment before long. Typically they consisted of a strophe
and a refrain
; the refrain would have the same music each time it recurred. As composers realized the adaptability of the musical style to other forms, they began to employ it elsewhere, for example in sacred music, such as psalm settings.
The texture of the music was almost uniformly homophonic
, with all the voices singing essentially the same rhythm. The repeating pattern of longs and shorts, following the poetry, was irregular, leading to the perception to a modern ear of irregular meters. Occasional short melismas – decorative passages to ease the monotonous rhythm – appeared in many of the parts, especially in the work of Claude Le Jeune.
Long and short syllables were invariably set in a 2:1 relation, for example quarter-notes on the longs and eighth-notes on the shorts. This was in order to mirror long and short syllables used in classical poetry, which in contemporary poetry would be stress accents. In modern notation, the meters would be irregular; often music in the musique mesurée is left unbarred in modern transcription, or given bar lines only at the end of phrases.
In addition to their use of ancient metres, composers of musique mesurée also used later interpretations of classical musical mode
s in order to move the emotions of their listeners, as it was described in ancient Greek sources.
, the secular style of song which dominated the musical scene in France beginning in the 1580s, used the principles of musique mesurée with the difference that it usually used rhyming verse. In addition, even in the late 17th century, the influence of musique mesurée can be seen in the style of French recitative
, both in opera
and in sacred music.
Composers that continued using the methods of musique mesurée into the 17th century included Jacques Mauduit, who used it for creating large works for mixed vocal and instrumental forces, roughly in the Venetian style, and Eustache Du Caurroy, who used the method for psalm settings. Marin Mersenne
, in his Harmonie universelle of 1636-7, praised Du Caurroy as the finest practitioner of the style.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
in the late 16th century. In musique mesurée, longer syllables in the French language
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
were set to longer note values, and shorter syllables to shorter, in a homophonic texture but in a situation of metric
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...
fluidity, in an attempt to imitate contemporary understanding of Ancient Greek music. Although this compositional method did not attain popularity at first, it attracted some of the most famous composers of the time. Its basis in a desire to re-create the artistic ethos
Ethos
Ethos is a Greek word meaning "character" that is used to describe the guiding beliefs or ideals that characterize a community, nation, or ideology. The Greeks also used this word to refer to the power of music to influence its hearer's emotions, behaviors, and even morals. Early Greek stories of...
of Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
, especially in respect to text declamation, had a strong similarity to contemporary movements in Italy, such as the work of the Florentine Camerata
Florentine Camerata
The Florentine Camerata was a group of humanists, musicians, poets and intellectuals in late Renaissance Florence who gathered under the patronage of Count Giovanni de' Bardi to discuss and guide trends in the arts, especially music and drama...
which engendered the first opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s, and brought about the beginning of the Baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
era in music.
History
Pieces written as musique mesurée were settings of the poetical form known as vers mesurés. Beginning in the late 1560s in ParisParis
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...
, under the direction of 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...
, a group of poets known as the Pléiade attempted to recreate the metrical effect of ancient Greek and Latin poetry in French, using the quantitative principles of those languages. The attempt was more than an academic one: Baïf and his associates, horrified by the barbarity of the age, including the bloody religious wars which raged throughout the last decades of the century, sought to improve mankind by bringing back the ancient diction, which was believed to have had a positive ethical effect on its hearers. For this attempt they had the approval of the current king of France, Charles IX
Charles IX of France
Charles IX was King of France, ruling from 1560 until his death. His reign was dominated by the Wars of Religion. He is best known as king at the time of the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.-Childhood:...
, and they met in secret to plan their musical revolution. Baïf, with the royal patent, founded the Académie de Poésie et de Musique
Académie de Poésie et de Musique
The Académie de Poésie et de Musique, later re-named the Académie du Palais, was the first Academy in France. It was founded in 1570 under the auspices of Charles IX of France by the poet Jean-Antoine de Baïf and the musician Joachim Thibault de Courville....
in 1570, along with his intimate musical associate Joachim Thibault de Courville
Joachim Thibault de Courville
Joachim Thibault de Courville was a French composer, singer, lutenist, and player of the lyre, of the late Renaissance. He was a close associate of poet Jean Antoine de Baïf, and with Baïf was the co-founder of the Académie de Poésie et de Musique, which attempted to re-create the storied ethical...
. Poet Pierre de Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard
Pierre de Ronsard was a French poet and "prince of poets" .-Early life:...
was also involved in the group.
As originally planned, the members of the Académie would be in a hierarchy of two grades: first, the composers and singers, known as the professionnels, and after that, the gentleman listeners, known as the auditeurs, who were also to provide financial backing for the enterprise. Aside from this small group of aristocrats, no one else was invited. The concerts took place at Baïf's house in Paris: Charles IX himself, who provided much of the patronage, was often present.
Some of the house rules have been recorded. There was to be no talking, or disturbances of any kind, during the singing, and anyone who came in late had to wait until the end of a piece to be seated – rather like modern concert-hall etiquette. Musicians were to rehearse every day, and no music was to be copied or taken away from the area of performance. The music was so closely guarded, at least during the early years of the Académie, that no music of the originating composer – Courville – is known to have survived.
The Académie was short-lived, and probably did not survive after 1573, the year of the death of Charles IX. Another similar group, the Académie du Palais, which met at the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
after 1573 with the backing of the new king, Henri III, seemed to carry on some of the work of the previous group, but its aim seems to have been more to debate philosophical issues than to reform humanity through reviving Ancient Greek and Latin poetry and music. The activities, if any, of the original Académie after this time are poorly-documented: while the musicians continued to meet, it is not known if they met in a formal setting, as they had prior to the death of Charles IX. This was during a period of increasing religious turmoil, ending in the fighting in Paris in 1589, and the assassination of the king; associations of humanists such as the Académie, which included both Catholics and Protestants, became increasingly difficult (Baïf, a Catholic, even wrote a sonnet in 1572 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...
; Claude Le Jeune
Claude Le Jeune
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...
, a Protestant, was nearly murdered during the siege of Paris in 1589).
Even though the original Académie had faded away within a few years of its founding, several prominent composers found the concept of musique mesurée to be so attractive as to make it their primary compositional method. The most famous of these was Claude Le Jeune
Claude Le Jeune
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...
, followed by 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...
, Eustache Du Caurroy
Eustache Du Caurroy
Eustache du Caurroy was a French composer of the late Renaissance. He was a prominent composer of both secular and sacred music at the end of the Renaissance, including musique mesurée, and he was also influential on the foundation of the French school of organ music as exemplified in the work of...
, Nicolas de la Grotte
Nicolas de la Grotte
Nicolas de La Grotte was a French composer and keyboard player of the Renaissance. He was well known as a performer on the organ and on the spinet, as well as a composer of chansons; in addition he was one of very few French composers of the 16th century with a surviving composition written...
, and Guillaume Costeley
Guillaume Costeley
Guillaume Costeley was a French composer of the Renaissance. He was the court organist to Charles IX of France and famous for his numerous chansons, which were representative of the late development of the form; his work in this regard was part of the early development of the style known as...
.
Musical style
When musique mesurée first appeared, it was used mainly in French secular songs known as chansonChanson
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. Most of the 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 written in the style were for five voices, unaccompanied, although instruments began to be used as accompaniment before long. Typically they consisted of a strophe
Strophe
A strophe forms the first part of the ode in Ancient Greek tragedy, followed by the antistrophe and epode. In its original Greek setting, "strophe, antistrophe and epode were a kind of stanza framed only for the music," as John Milton wrote in the preface to Samson Agonistes, with the strophe...
and a refrain
Refrain
A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...
; the refrain would have the same music each time it recurred. As composers realized the adaptability of the musical style to other forms, they began to employ it elsewhere, for example in sacred music, such as psalm settings.
The texture of the music was almost uniformly homophonic
Homophony
In music, homophony is a texture in which two or more parts move together in harmony, the relationship between them creating chords. This is distinct from polyphony, in which parts move with rhythmic independence, and monophony, in which all parts move in parallel rhythm and pitch. A homophonic...
, with all the voices singing essentially the same rhythm. The repeating pattern of longs and shorts, following the poetry, was irregular, leading to the perception to a modern ear of irregular meters. Occasional short melismas – decorative passages to ease the monotonous rhythm – appeared in many of the parts, especially in the work of Claude Le Jeune.
Long and short syllables were invariably set in a 2:1 relation, for example quarter-notes on the longs and eighth-notes on the shorts. This was in order to mirror long and short syllables used in classical poetry, which in contemporary poetry would be stress accents. In modern notation, the meters would be irregular; often music in the musique mesurée is left unbarred in modern transcription, or given bar lines only at the end of phrases.
In addition to their use of ancient metres, composers of musique mesurée also used later interpretations of classical musical 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 in order to move the emotions of their listeners, as it was described in ancient Greek sources.
Influence
While musique mesurée was created and sung by a small group of people for a limited audience, and for the most part in secret, it was to have a profound effect on French music for the next hundred years. The air de courAir 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...
, the secular style of song which dominated the musical scene in France beginning in the 1580s, used the principles of musique mesurée with the difference that it usually used rhyming verse. In addition, even in the late 17th century, the influence of musique mesurée can be seen in the style of French recitative
Recitative
Recitative , also known by its Italian name "recitativo" , is a style of delivery in which a singer is allowed to adopt the rhythms of ordinary speech...
, both in opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and in sacred music.
Composers that continued using the methods of musique mesurée into the 17th century included Jacques Mauduit, who used it for creating large works for mixed vocal and instrumental forces, roughly in the Venetian style, and Eustache Du Caurroy, who used the method for psalm settings. 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"...
, in his Harmonie universelle of 1636-7, praised Du Caurroy as the finest practitioner of the style.