French Renaissance - Music of The French Renaissance

Music of The French Renaissance

Burgundy, the mostly French-speaking area adjacent to and east of France, was the musical center of Europe in the early and middle 15th century. Many of the most famous musicians in Europe either came from Burgundy, or went to study with composers there; in addition there was considerable interchange between the Burgundian court musical establishment and French courts and ecclesiastical organizations in the late 15th century. The Burgundian style gave birth to the Franco-Flemish style of polyphony which dominated European music in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. However, by the end of the 15th century, a French national character was becoming distinct in music of the French royal and aristocratic courts, as well as the major centers of church music. For the most part French composers of the time shunned the sombre colors of the Franco-Flemish style and strove for clarity of line and structure, and, in secular music such as the chanson, lightness, singability, and popularity. Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois are two notable examples from the Burgundian school during the early Renaissance period.

The most renowned composer in Europe, Josquin Des Prez, worked for a time in the court of Louis XII, and likely composed some of his most famous works there (his first setting of Psalm 129, De profundis, was probably written for the funeral of Louis XII in 1515). Francis I, who became king that year, made the creation of an opulent musical establishment a priority. His musicians went with him on his travels, and he competed with Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520 for the most magnificent musical entertainment; likely the event was directed by Jean Mouton, one of the most famous motet composers of the early 16th century after Josquin.

By far the most significant contribution of France to music in the Renaissance period was the chanson. The chanson was a variety of secular song, of highly varied character, and which included some of the most overwhelmingly popular music of the 16th century: indeed many chansons were sung all over Europe. The chanson in the early 16th century was characterised by a dactylic opening (long, short-short) and contrapuntal style which was later adopted by the Italian canzona, the predecessor of the sonata. Typically chansons were for three or four voices, without instrumental accompaniment, but the most popular examples were inevitably made into instrumental versions as well. Famous composers of these "Parisian" chansons included Claudin de Sermisy and Clément Janequin. Janequin's La guerre, written to celebrate the French victory at Marignano in 1515, imitates the sounds of cannon, the cries of the wounded, and the trumpets signaling advance and retreat. A later development of the chanson was the style of musique mesurée, as exemplified in the work of Claude Le Jeune: in this type of chanson, based on developments by the group of poets known as the Pléiade under Jean-Antoine de Baïf, the musical rhythm exactly matched the stress accents of the verse, in an attempt to capture some of the rhetorical effect of music in Ancient Greece (a coincident, and apparently unrelated movement in Italy at the same time was known as the Florentine Camerata). Towards the end of the 16th century the chanson was gradually replaced by the air de cour, the most popular song type in France in the early 17th century.

The era of religious wars had a profound effect on music in France. Influenced by Calvinism, the Protestants produced a type of sacred music much different from the elaborate Latin motets written by their Catholic counterparts. Both Protestants and Catholics (especially the Protestant sympathizers among them) produced a variation of the chanson known as the chanson spirituelle, which was like the secular song but was fitted with a religious or moralizing text. Claude Goudimel, a Protestant composer most noted for his Calvinist-inspired psalm settings, was murdered in Lyon during the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. However, not only Protestant composers were killed during the era of conflict; in 1581, Catholic Antoine de Bertrand, a prolific composer of chansons, was murdered in Toulouse by a Protestant mob.