MUSIC AT THE FRENCH ROYAL COURT CHAPTER 18 MUSIC AT THE FRENCH ROYAL COURT

During the Hundred Years’ War the fortunes of the French suffered a serious reversal--the English eventually captured the French capital, Paris. The medieval wheel of fortune began to turn positively for the French, however, when Joan of Arc (c1412-1431) led new king, Charles VII, to the city of Reims and had him crowned there on 16 July 1429. Although the winds of war were now blowing favorably, three generations of French kings preferred to reside not in Paris, but in the Loire Valley some 200 miles to the south. The French royal chapel of each of these kings was directed by Johannes Ockeghem (c1410-1497), a composer of renown who enjoyed unusual longevity and influence.

The French royal chapel With Johannes Ockeghem (presumably) at the far right, wearing glasses. The singers are chanting a Gloria from a large music book placed on a lectern.

JOHANNES OCKEGHEM Johannes Ockeghem was born in the Burgundian lands south of Brussels, but by 1451 had joined the French royal chapel in the Loire Valley, where he remained until his death in 1497. Surviving from Ockeghem’s pen are twenty-five chansons, six motets, and fifteen Masses. In his chansons Ockeghem demonstrates the first systematic attempt to structure compositions by using imitation (one voice duplicates the notes and rhythms of another for a brief span of time).

CANONIC CHANSON PRENEZ SUR MOI Ockeghem’s Prenez sur moi (c1460)is one of the earliest fully canonic chansons (there is no non-canonic supporting bass). The follower voices enter not at the unison or octave, but at the fourth. The beginning of the canonic chanson Prenez sur moi (Take from me).

OCKEGHEM’S MISSA PROLATIONUM Ockeghem was a master of musical artifice, posing and solving difficult technical problems in music. His Missa Prolationum (c1475) involves two separate mensuration canons worked out among the four voices. A mensuration canon is one in which two voices perform the same music at different rates of speed, one pulling farther and farther ahead of the other.

The beginning of the Kyrie of Ockeghem’s Missa Prolationum with the top two voices operating in 2/4 and ¾ time, and the bottom two in 6/8 and 9/8 time.

A MUSICAL JOKE FOR THE FRENCH KING The music theorist Heinrich Glarean tells the story of how the king of France, most likely King Louis XI, asked a singer of the court, apparently Josquin des Prez, to compose a piece in which he, too, could participate. The canonic chanson that Josquin created for this purpose is a musical joke in that, while the upper two voices work out a canon, the vox regis (voice of the king) holds the single pitch D. Moreover, to assure that the monotonic monarch didn’t stray in pitch, Josquin had the bass voice sound the same pitch (an octave lower) on every other of its notes.

The beginning of Josquin’s chanson Guillaume se va chauffer (William is going to warm himself; c1482)

PHILIPPE BASIRON AND THE PARAPHRASE MOTET In paraphrase technique a composer takes a pre-existing plainsong (Gregorian chant) and embellishes it somewhat, imparting to it a rhythmic profile; the elaborated chant then serves as the basic melodic material for a polyphonic composition. Paraphrase technique applied to a Mass creates a paraphrase Mass, and similarly when applied to a motet creates a paraphrase motet. A fine example of a paraphrase motet can be seen in the Salve, Regina (c1475) of Philippe Basiron (c1449-1491), a singer at the king’s Sainte-Chapelle in the central French town of Bourges.

The beginning of Philippe Basiron’s Salve, Regina as well as the chant, which serves as the basis of the paraphrase.

ANTOINE BUSNOYS AND THE IMITATIVE CHANSON Antoine Busnoys (c1435-1492) was born in the Burgundian lands of northern France, but as a youth moved south to the Loire Valley to the city of Tours, the abode of the king of France and his chapel master Johannes Ockeghem. Like his mentor Ockeghem, Busnoys was a master of the imitative chanson. Not only does his virelai Je ne puis vivre ainsy tousjours (I cannot live like this forever; c1460) incorporate abundant imitation at the unison, it sets a virelai text that includes an acrostic that forms the name Jacqueline de Hacqueville—perhaps the author of the poem or a paramour of the composer.

A garden of love wherein two gentlemen and two ladies perform a chanson Both ladies are singing from a rotulus (sheet music).