Burgundian School

Last updated
Composer Guillaume Dufay (left) and Gilles Binchois (right), Martin le Franc, "Champion des Dames" DufayBinchois.jpg
Composer Guillaume Dufay (left) and Gilles Binchois (right), Martin le Franc, "Champion des Dames"

The Burgundian School was a group of composers active in the 15th century in what is now northern and eastern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, centered on the court of the Dukes of Burgundy. The school inaugurated the music of Burgundy.

Contents

The main names associated with this school are Guillaume Dufay, Gilles Binchois, Antoine Busnois and (as an influence), the English composer John Dunstaple. The Burgundian School was the first phase of activity of the Franco-Flemish School, the central musical practice of the Renaissance in Europe.

Background

In late Medieval and early Renaissance Europe, cultural centers tended to move from one place to another due to changing political stability and the presence of either the spiritual or temporal power, for instance the Pope, Anti-pope or the Holy Roman Emperor. In the 14th century, the main centers of musical activity were northern France, Avignon, and Italy, as represented by Guillaume de Machaut and the ars nova , the ars subtilior , and Landini respectively; Avignon had a brief but important cultural flowering because it was the location of the Papacy during the Western Schism. When France was ravaged by the Hundred Years' War (1337–1453), the cultural center migrated farther east, to towns in Burgundy and the Low Countries, known then collectively as the Netherlands. [1]

During the reign of the House of Valois, Burgundy was the most powerful and stable political division in western Europe, and added, a bit at a time, Flanders, Brabant, Holland, Luxembourg, Alsace and Lorraine. Especially during the reigns of Philip the Good (1419–1467) and Charles the Bold (1467–1477), this entire area, loosely known as Burgundy, was a center of musical creativity. Most of the musical activity did not take place in what is modern-day Burgundy, which has its capital in Dijon (even though the Dukes of Burgundy maintained an administrative center there). The main centers of music-making were Brussels, Bruges, Lille, and Arras, as well as smaller towns in that same general area. [1]

Musicians from the region came to Burgundy to study and further their own careers as the reputation of the area spread. The Burgundian rulers were not merely patrons of the arts, but took an active part: Charles the Bold himself played the harp, and composed chansons and motets (although none have survived with reliable attribution). The worldly dukes also encouraged the composition of secular music to a degree seen only rarely before in European music history, a characteristic which itself defines the Burgundian epoch as a Renaissance phenomenon. [2]

This migration of musical culture east from Paris to Burgundy also corresponds with the conventional (and by no means universally accepted) division of music history into Medieval and Renaissance; while Guillaume de Machaut is often considered to be one of the last Medieval composers, Dufay is often considered to be the first significant Renaissance composer.

Charles the Bold was killed in 1477 in the Battle of Nancy, during one of his attempts to add territory to his empire. After his death, music continued to flourish as before, but the region was split politically, with the duchy of Burgundy being absorbed into France, and most of the Low Countries becoming part of the holdings of the Spanish Habsburgs. Both the French court and the Habsburgs were patrons of music; however, a French style began to diverge from that of the Low Countries, especially in secular music, and in the period after 1500.

Composers

The history of Burgundian music began with the organization of the chapel in 1384; twenty years later, it rivaled the famous establishment at Avignon in splendor. Names associated with this early phase of Burgundian music include Johannes Tapissier and Nicolas Grenon, who carried the tradition across to the next phase of the chapel, when it was reorganized in 1415. Other early composers there were Hugo and Arnold de Lantins, both of whom Dufay later met in Italy.

Of all the names associated with the Burgundian School, the most famous was Guillaume Dufay, who was probably the most famous composer in Europe in the 15th century. He wrote music in many of the forms which were current, music which was melodic, singable and memorable (more than half of his sacred music consists of simple harmonizations of plainsong, for example). Contemporary with Dufay were composers such as Gilles Binchois, who was at the Burgundian court between approximately 1430 and 1460, and Hayne van Ghizeghem, a composer, singer and soldier who may have been killed in the last military campaign of Charles the Bold.

After the death of Dufay in 1474, the most prominent Burgundian musician was Antoine Busnois, who was also a prolific composer of chansons, and who possibly wrote the famous L'homme armé tune.

Musical style and forms

Burgundian cadence on D; note the parallel fourths between upper voices. Play (help*info) Burgundian cadence on D.png
Burgundian cadence on D; note the parallel fourths between upper voices. Loudspeaker.svg Play  (help·info)

Burgundian composers favored secular forms, at least while they worked in Burgundian lands; much sacred music survives, especially from those composers who spent time in Italy, for example in the papal choir. The most prominent secular forms used by the Burgundians were the four formes fixes (rondeau, ballade, virelai, and bergerette), all generically known as chansons. Of the four, the rondeau was by far the most popular; at any rate more rondeaux have survived than any other form. Most of the rondeaux were in three voices, and in French, though there are a few in other languages. In most of the rondeaux, the uppermost voice (the "superius") was texted, and the other voices were most likely played by instruments. The bergerette was developed by the Burgundians themselves; it was like a virelai, but shorter, having only one stanza.

Most of the composers also wrote sacred music in Latin; this was to remain true for the next several generations. They wrote both masses and motets, as well as cycles of Magnificats. During the period, the mass transformed from a group of individual sections written by different composers, often using a head-motif technique, to unified cycles based on a cantus firmus. Dufay, Binchois, Busnois, Reginald Liebert and others all wrote cyclic masses. One of the favorite tunes used as a cantus firmus was the renowned l'homme armé, which was set not only by the Burgundians but by composers of subsequent centuries; indeed it was the most common tune used as a basis for mass composition in all of music history, with more than forty surviving masses featuring the melody. David Fallows writes of it in the New Grove : "It is hard to think of any other melody in the history of music that has yielded so much music of the highest quality." [4]

During the period the motet transformed from the isorhythmic model of the 14th century to the smoothly polyphonic, sectional composition seen in the work of the later Burgundians such as Busnois. In the motets, as well as the masses and other sacred music, a common musical technique employed was fauxbourdon, a harmonization of an existing chant in parallel 6-3 chords, occasionally ornamented to prevent monotony. Composition using fauxbourdon allowed sung text to be clearly understood, but yet avoided the plainness of simple chant. Burgundian motets tended to be in Latin, written for three voices with the top voice being the most important. An example of a Burgundian motet is Quam pulchra es, written by Dunstaple in the early 15th century.

Instrumental music was also cultivated at the Burgundian courts, often for dancing. A peculiarity of the Burgundian instrumental style is that the dukes preferred music for loud instruments (trumpets, tambourins, shawms, bagpipes) and more of this survives than for other current instruments such as the lute or the harp. In contemporary practice, the loud instruments would usually play from an elevated location, such as a balcony, while the other instruments would play closer to the dancers. [1]

Instrumental forms included the basse danse , or bassadanza, which was a ceremonial dance of a rather dignified character, and relatively slow tempo. Typically it was in a duple meter subdivided into threes (in modern notation, 6/8), and often the dance would be immediately followed by a quick dance, the tordion or pas de Brabant. [5]

The Burgundian School was the first generation of what is sometimes known as the Netherlands School, several generations of composers spanning 150 years who composed in the polyphonic style associated with the mainstream of Renaissance practice. Later generations, which were no longer specifically associated with either the court or the region of Burgundy but were interlinked by adjacent geography and by common musical practice, included such names as Johannes Ockeghem, Jacob Obrecht, Josquin des Prez, Adrian Willaert and Orlandus Lassus.

Manuscript sources

There are approximately 65 manuscript sources which contain music by Burgundian composers. The most prominent of these include:

Burgundian composers

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 Wright, Grove
  2. ↑ Reese, pp. 4–8
  3. ↑ White, John D. (1976). The Analysis of Music, pp.129–130. ISBN   0-13-033233-X.
  4. ↑ David Fallows. "L'homme armé." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/16553 (accessed July 22, 2010).
  5. ↑ Gleason, pp. 101–102.[ full citation needed ]
  6. ↑ Gleason, 95–96[ full citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motet</span> Vocal musical composition in Western classical music

In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margaret Bent, "a piece of music in several parts with words" is as precise a definition of the motet as will serve from the 13th to the late 16th century and beyond. The late 13th-century theorist Johannes de Grocheo believed that the motet was "not to be celebrated in the presence of common people, because they do not notice its subtlety, nor are they delighted in hearing it, but in the presence of the educated and of those who are seeking out subtleties in the arts".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Renaissance music</span> Western musical period between the 15th and 17th centuries

Renaissance music is traditionally understood to cover European music of the 15th and 16th centuries, later than the Renaissance era as it is understood in other disciplines. Rather than starting from the early 14th-century ars nova, the Trecento music was treated by musicology as a coda to Medieval music and the new era dated from the rise of triadic harmony and the spread of the ' contenance angloise ' style from Britain to the Burgundian School. A convenient watershed for its end is the adoption of basso continuo at the beginning of the Baroque period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gilles Binchois</span> Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance

Gilles de Bins dit Binchois was a Franco-Flemish composer of early Renaissance music. A central figure of the Burgundian School, Binchois and his colleague Guillaume Du Fay were deeply influenced by the contenance angloise style of John Dunstaple. His efforts in consolidating a 'Burgundian tradition' would be important for the formation of the Franco-Flemish School. One of the three most famous composers of the early 15th century, Binchois is often ranked behind Du Fay and Dunstable by contemporary scholars, but his works were still widely cited, emulated and used as source material after his death.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johannes Ockeghem</span> Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer (c. 1410–1497)

Johannes Ockeghem was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of early Renaissance music. Ockeghem was the most influential European composer in the period between Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez, and he was—with his colleague Antoine Busnois—the leading European composer in the second half of the 15th century. He was an important proponent of the early Franco-Flemish School.

The designation Franco-Flemish School, also called Netherlandish School, Burgundian School, Low Countries School, Flemish School, Dutch School, or Northern School, refers, somewhat imprecisely, to the style of polyphonic vocal music composition originating from France and from the Burgundian Netherlands in the 15th and 16th centuries as well as to the composers who wrote it. The spread of their technique, especially after the revolutionary development of printing, produced the first true international style since the unification of Gregorian chant in the 9th century. Franco-Flemish composers mainly wrote sacred music, primarily masses, motets, and hymns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guillaume Du Fay</span> French Renaissance composer (1397–1474)

Guillaume Du Fay was a French composer and music theorist of the early Renaissance. Considered the leading European composer of his time, his music was widely performed and reproduced. Du Fay was well-associated with composers of the Burgundian School, particularly his colleague Gilles Binchois, but was never a regular member of the Burgundian chapel himself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Dunstaple</span> English composer (1390–1453)

John Dunstaple was an English composer whose music helped inaugurate the transition from the medieval to the Renaissance periods. The central proponent of the Contenance angloise style, Dunstaple was the leading English composer of his time, and is often coupled with William Byrd and Henry Purcell as England's most important early music composers. His surviving music is exclusively vocal, and frequently uses isorhythms, while pioneering the prominent use of harmonies with thirds and sixths. His style would have an immense influence on the subsequent music of continental Europe, inspiring composers such as Du Fay, Binchois, Ockeghem and Busnois.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antoine Busnois</span> French composer and poet (c. 1430–1492)

Antoine Busnois was a French composer, singer and poet of early Renaissance music. Busnois and colleague Johannes Ockeghem were the leading European composers of the second half the 15th century, and central figures of the early Franco-Flemish School.

Gaspar van Weerbeke was a Netherlandish composer of the Renaissance. He was of the same generation as Josquin des Prez, but unique in his blending of the contemporary Italian style with the older Burgundian style of Dufay.

Arnold de Lantins was a Netherlandish composer of the late medieval and early Renaissance eras. He is one of a few composers who shows aspects of both medieval and Renaissance style, and was a contemporary of Dufay during Dufay's sojourn in Italy.

Hugo de Lantins was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Medieval era and early Renaissance. He was active in Italy, especially Venice, and wrote both sacred and secular music; he may have been a relative of Arnold de Lantins, another composer active at the same time in the same area.

Johannes Cesaris was a French composer of the late Medieval era and early Renaissance. He was one of the composers of the transitional style between the two epochs, and was active at the Burgundian court in the early 15th century.

Fauxbourdon – French for false drone – is a technique of musical harmonisation used in the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, particularly by composers of the Burgundian School. Guillaume Dufay was a prominent practitioner of the form, and may have been its inventor. The homophony and mostly parallel harmony allows the text of the mostly liturgical lyrics to be understood clearly.

France has a rich music history that was already prominent in Europe as far back as the 10th century. French music originated as a unified style in medieval times, focusing around the Notre-Dame school of composers. This group developed the motet, a specific musical composition. Notable in the high Middle Ages were the troubadours and trouvères soon began touring France, composing and performing many original songs. The styles of ars nova and ars subtilior sprung up in the 14th century, both of which focused on secular songs. As Europe moved into the Renaissance age, the music of France evolved in sophistication. The popularity of French music in the rest of Europe declined slightly, yet the popular chanson and the old motet were further developed during this time. The epicenter of French music moved from Paris to Burgundy, as it followed the Burgundian School of composers. During the Baroque period, music was simplified and restricted due to Calvinist influence. The air de cour then became the primary style of French music, as it was secular and preferred by the royal court.

Burgundy became a major center for musical development during the Renaissance era. Among the dances Burgundy has produced is the elegant, energetic basse danse and the bransle which was associated with the lower-classes in the Middle Ages while the upper-class likely danced pavanes and galliards. Modern Burgundy is home to music festivals like the Ainey International Music Festival.

In Renaissance music, the cyclic mass was a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass, in which each of the movements – Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei – shared a common musical theme, commonly a cantus firmus, thus making it a unified whole. The cyclic mass was the first multi-movement form in western music to be subject to a single organizing principle.

Johannes Ghiselin (Verbonnet) was a Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in France, Italy and in the Low Countries. He was a contemporary of Josquin des Prez, and a significant composer of masses, motets, and secular music. His reputation was considerable, as shown by music printer Ottaviano Petrucci's decision to print a complete book of his masses immediately after his similar publication of masses by Josquin – only the second such publication in music history.

Reginaldus Libert was a French composer of the early Renaissance. He was a minor member of the Burgundian School, a contemporary of Guillaume Dufay, and one of the first to use fauxbourdon in a mass setting.

Johannes Legrant was a French or Burgundian composer of the early Renaissance.

The Loire Valley chansonniers are a related group of songbooks copied in the Loire Valley region of central France c. 1465-c. 1475 and produced in the context of the French royal court. They consist of six chansonniers: Copenhagen, Dijon, Nivelle, Laborde, Leuven and Wolfenbüttel. The songbooks, smaller than a modern paperback, personalized and lavishly decorated, are the earliest surviving examples of a new genre which offered a combination of words, music, and illuminations.

References

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.