Nicolas Payen - Music and Influence

Music and Influence

Payen's music is both sacred and secular, and all surviving music is vocal, although some of his chansons were later arranged for lute. Thirteen motets and five chansons have survived with attribution to him. The motets include some written for state occasions, such as Carole cur defles, for the death of Queen Isabella, in 1545. One, In Gott gelaub ich das er hat, is in German. All are for four or five voices. His chansons are all for four voices, and all are in French.

His name appears in association with the controversial term musica reservata, a style of composition and performance beginning around the mid-16th century, which most likely involved intensely expressive setting of text, chromatic part-writing, and small audiences of connoisseurs. The Bavarian ambassador to the court of Charles V wrote a letter to his employer, Albrecht V, Duke of Bavaria, expressing what would happen when Payen would become maestro di capilla of the Flemish Chapel (capilla flamenca) for the Habsburg king: "musica reservata will become even more fashionable now than before, since Canis was not able to reconcile himself to it." Thus Payen was a composer in a progressive style to Canis's more conservative bent.

For further informations Laura Pollie Mc Dowell, "Nicolas Payen - Motets and chansons", A-R Edition, Middleton, 2006 ISBN 978-0-89579-593-9