Music and Influence
Almost everything Passereau wrote, or everything that has survived, are chansons. Since details of his biography are spotty, it is difficult to determine how much lost work there may be. He is known to have written one sacred composition, a motet, Unde veniet auxilium michi (the text is from Psalm 120, and used in the Office of the Dead).
Passereau's chansons are mostly light-hearted affairs, similar in content to the Italian frottola, although no direct influence from the earlier popular Italian form has been reliably demonstrated. He liked to use nonsense syllables, often in imitation of animals, as in Il est bel et bon, his most popular piece, which imitates the clucking of chickens. This composition was sung as far away as Venice. While Passereau may have gotten the idea from Janequin, who was writing onomatopoeic chansons as early as 1515 (Il est bel et bon was published in 1534), its popularity rivaled that of the music of Janequin, and printer Pierre Attaingnant devoted a book entirely to the music of the two composers (in 1536). It is possible that Francis I, who knew Passereau from his service at the French court, recommended the composer to the printer.
Additional features of Passereau's chansons include the use of quick declamation, chordal passages with occasional polyphony, generally syllabic word setting, satirical and ribald subjects, and catchy rhythms.
An additional indication of Passereau's popularity is his inclusion by François Rabelais as one of a list of popular musicians in Gargantua and Pantagruel.
Read more about this topic: Pierre Passereau
Famous quotes containing the words music and/or influence:
“I fear I agree with your friend in not liking all sermons. Some of them, one has to confess, are rubbish: but then I release my attention from the preacher, and go ahead in any line of thought he may have started: and his after-eloquence acts as a kind of accompaniment—like music while one is reading poetry, which often, to me, adds to the effect.”
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“To marry a man out of pity is folly; and, if you think you are going to influence the kind of fellow who has “never had a chance, poor devil,” you are profoundly mistaken. One can only influence the strong characters in life, not the weak; and it is the height of vanity to suppose that you can make an honest man of anyone.”
—Margot Asquith (1864–1945)