Faà di Bruno, Giovanni Matteo [Horatio, Orazio] 83

2. The 16th century.

After the period described (inaccurately) as ‘Franco-Flemish’, music written in France lost much of the supremacy it had maintained in Europe since the 13th century, and the western European countries seem to have concentrated more on their individual repertories. In France itself there was a tendency to neglect the legacy of Josquin des Prez in favour of the Parisian Chanson and other music accessible to a wider public, while the mass and the motet showed the effect of secular influence, at least until the work of Lassus became dominant. Closer contact between poets and composers led to a refinement of the rules regulating the relationship between the two arts during the Pléiade period. However, Italian influence was the most striking feature of the century in France, as in most other parts of Europe. The madrigal had a crucial influence on the evolution of polyphonic song, particularly towards the end of the century, while the many Italian musicians active in France included the Mantuan Alberto da Ripa at the court of François I, Francesco de Layolle in Lyons (the centre of what was virtually a colony of Florentine emigrés) and Balthasar de Beaujoyeux and other violinists at the courts of Charles IX and Henri III.

When François I established Paris as the undisputed political and cultural capital of the country, the need seems to have arisen for the first time to create some kind of national tradition. The anonymous author of L’art, science et pratique de plaine musique (Lyons, 1557) referred to Charlemagne, describing him as anxious ‘to teach the French people the very devout art and science of singing well’, and mentioned Robert ‘the Pious’, Gregory the Great and Charles ‘the Bold’ as composers thanks to whom ‘music is now the ornament of the chapels of princes and the diversion of high and noble courts … now prospering in many provinces’. Baïf’s Académie de Poésie et de Musique had Charles IX as its ‘protecteur et premier auditeur’ and according to its statutes its purpose was to serve ‘the growth of our State and the adornment of the name of the French people’.

(i) The Chapelle Royale and the princely chapels.

(ii) The Reformation and religious conflicts.

(iii) The university, the académies, the salons and guilds.

(iv) Music publishing.

(v) Instrument making.

France, §I, 2: Art music: The Burgundian court

(i) The Chapelle Royale and the princely chapels.

François I (1515–47) made his court an instrument of power marked by a new tendency towards centralization. Although Louis XII had composers such as Mouton, Divitis and Sermisy in his chapel, on his death the chambre consisted of only a handful of instrumentalists. Towards the middle of the 1520s the new king set up his chapelle de musique, reserved for great occasions and in the charge of a maître (Cardinal de Tournon), while its musical direction was entrusted to one and then to two sous-maîtres (Sermisy and Jean-Loys Hérault de Servissas in 1547). At the end of the reign a composeur (Pierre Sandrin) was added. François I introduced French violinists into the écurie to perform alongside the mainly Italian trumpeters, sackbut players and oboists and the Swiss fife and drum players. About 1526 he also founded a chapelle de plain-chant to provide music for the daily offices at court, directed by a maître et surintendant. The major development after 1530 was in the music of the chambre: this body of singers, lutenists and organists steadily grew in numbers, and on the king’s death in 1547 it had some 25 members.

François I’s successors retained the administrative framework he had created. Henri II (1547–59) recruited both Jacques Arcadelt and Janequin, making the latter compositeur ordinaire in his old age, but Charles IX (1560–74) took the greatest personal interest in music, giving his patronage to Baïf’s Académie and showing particular appreciation of the works of Lassus, whom he attempted to bring to his court, and of the ‘chromatic music’ of Nicola Vicentino. Charles also had motets by Jean Maillard and the Proverbes de Salomon of his maître de chapelle Nicolas Millot dedicated to him.

Under François I a kind of royal liturgy had developed around such texts such as Domine salvum fac regem, sung at the king’s coronation as early as 1223 and now serving as an official symbol of loyalty to the sovereign. Jean Mouton, who had earlier celebrated the birth of Louis XII’s daughter Renée in 1510 with a Non nobis Domine, composed a four-part work on this text, possibly for the coronation of François I, while his motet Exalta regina Galliae was in effect a celebration of the king’s victory at Marignan. Two other composers, Jean Maillard (1552) and Guillaume Costeley (1570), subsequently wrote music on the Domine salvum text, although we do not know for what occasions. Music was also composed for peace celebrations, royal births and weddings, both by ‘official’ composers such as Sermisy and by others whose links with the court are more obscure.

François I used his musicians to display his power: they were present at all events involving the royal family and accompanied him on his travels, as when he went to Bologna to meet Pope Leo X in 1515, at his meeting with Henry VIII at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520, and at the negotiations for the Treaty of Nice in 1538.

Many princes and cardinals followed the example of the court and maintained their own chapels. Composers such as Valentin Bakfark and Simon Joly enjoyed the patronage of Cardinal François de Tournon, administrative head of the Chapelle Royale; François de Clermont, cardinal of Auch, employed Jean Lhéritier as his maître de chapelle after attracting Janequin to Auch Cathedral for a time; the Cardinal of Ferrara, Ippolito d’Este, appointed Pierre Sandrin as his maître de chapelle; Jean, Cardinal of Lorraine, and his nephew François de Guise both had well-equipped chapels; Count Guy de Bourbon, King of Navarre, employed the organist Nicolas de La Grotte, who subsequently pursued a career at court; and François, Duke of Anjou, King Henri III’s brother, engaged Claude Le Jeune as his maître de chapelle. Although Lorraine was not part of the kingdom at that time, it was governed by music-loving dukes, notably Duke Charles III (1545–1608), to whom Fabrice Marin Caietain and Paschal de L’Estocart dedicated works.

France, §I, 2: Art music: The Burgundian court