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Claude Le Jeune (1528 to 1530 – buried September 26, 1600) was a French composer of the late Renaissance. He was a primary representative of the musical movement called musique mesurée, and the important composer of the "Parisian" chanson, the predominant laic form within France in the latter half of the 16th century. His fame wwhen far flung inside Europe, & he ranks as one of a virtually all influential composers of the instance.
Life
He was innate at Valenciennes, where he probably received his early musical step by step training. Quondam fairly early inside life he became the Protestant. A 1st record of his musical activity is from either 1552, when little joe chansons attributed to him were published at Leuven, in the collection of works by many composers. Inside 1564 he moved to Paris. By this instance he got already acquired the bit of international fame, when evidenced per appearance of his title inside a listings of "contemporary composers of excellence" inside the manuscript copy of the Penitential Psalms of Orlande de Lassus, which were probably composed in the 1560s in Munich. Lassus will stand met Le Jeune in the mid 1550s during a hike to France; yet this has non been unquestionably established.
Around 1570 Le Jeune began his association with a Academie first state musique et delaware poésie, headed by Jean-Antoine de Baïf, an associatiin which was to be decisive each on Le Jeune's music & on the counsel taken per Academie. That Btheïf was a Catholic, who possibly wrote the sonnet extravagantly laudatory the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in 1572 (in which approximately 70,000 Protestants were murdered) appears not to have dissuaded Le Jeune from working with him, and Le Jeune continued to set his poetry, and follow the ideals of the Academie, into the 1580s.
Regrettably, Le Jeune was discovered bent on exist as andy skinner of an anti-Catholic tract around 1589, and was forced to flee Paris when you took a military blockade that season: lone a intervention of his friend, a composer Jacques Mauduit, at the city's St. Denis gate saved up his life & prevented a destruction of the manuscripts he carried sustaining him (based on data from Marin Mersenne, who wrote extensively just about two composers around his Harmonie universelle of 1637). More Huguenot composers were not then fortunate. Claude Goudimel, the super similar composer world health organization Le Jeune will keep around known, was murdered by a Catholic mob around Lyons during the St. Bartholomew's Day butchery inside late August 1572.
Next Le Jeune settled within La Rochelle, a fastness of the Huguenots, but erstwhile in the mid-1590s he must have returned to Paris, for his title appears within the listings of musicians of the royal family of Henry IV both in 1596 and 1600. Couple of more details from either late inside his life come known, however he must develop been composing successfully, judging per tremendous quantity of music which remained around manuscript at his demise, virtually all of which was published in the 1st 2 decades of the 17th century. He died inside Paris, & is buried in the Protestant memorial park of La Trinité.
Music and influence
Le Jeune was a best known composer of lay music inside France in a late 16th century, & his favorite form was the chanson. Fallowing 1570, most of a chansons he wrote incorporated a ideas of musique mesurée, the musical parallel to the poetic movement called vers mesurée, in which a music reflected a accurate stress accents of the French language. Around musique mesurée, accented versus unstressed syllables inside the text would become placed in the musical ratio of 2:1, i personally.e. the accented syllable may become the crotchet when an unstressed syllable can become an eighth note. Since the meter of a verse was unremarkably flexible, the symptom was a genre which is better transcribed forswearing meter, & which sounds to the modern ear to stand apace ever-changing meters, for example alternating 2/8, 3/8, etc.
Con to the chanson style of the Netherlands composers writing at the equivalent period, Le Jeune's "Parisian" chansons inside musique mesurée were lightly & homophonic in texture. It were sung a cappella, and were normally from either 3 to seven voices, though another time he wrote for when numerous when eight. Probably his best known lay function is his collection of 33 airs mesurés & Sixer chansons, wholly to verse form by Baïf, entitled Le printemps.
Probably his best known sacred act is his Dodécacorde, the series of Xii psalm settings which he published around La Rochelle in 1598. Both of a psalms is placed inside the different one of the Dozen modes as given by Zarlino. Occasionally of his psalm settings come for big forces: e.g. he utilizes Xvi voices within his setting of Psalm 52. Promulgated posthumously was the collection of everthing 150 psalms, Les 150 pseaumes, for Four & Five voices; a select few one were super popular, & were reprinted inside many European countries throughout a 17th century.
His endure completed function, published around 1606, was an collection of 36 songs based on eight-line verse form, divided into xii groups, both of which contained 3 settings within both of the twelve modes. A operate, Octonaires diamond state la vanité et inconstance du monde, according to verse form by Calvinists, and was for even groups of trio or iv voices. Based on data from Le Jeune's sister, world health organization wrote a introduction to the publication, he experienced arranged to complete an additional placed for other voices however died prior to finishing it.
Of Le Jeune's sacred music, the sum of 347 psalm settings, 38 sacred chansons, Xi motets, and the mass setting have survived. His lay output involved 146 airs, virtually all of which were in the style of musique mesurée, too when 66 chansons, & 43 Italian madrigals. Additionally, tercet implemental fantasias were published posthumously in 1612, likewise when a few works for lute. He was fortunate therein his copious manuscripts were published fallowing his demise: his friend, a equally talented & prolific composer Jacques Mauduit, was fated to use virtually all of his music misused.
Contemporary critics accused Le Jeune of violating occasionally of the system of expert melodic writing & counterpoint, for example using the melodic interval of the major sixth (something Palestrina would never have done), & oftentimes crossing voices; a bit of one compositional equipment were to turn into features of the Baroque style, premonitions of which were beginning to appear potentially around France towards a prevent of the 16th century.
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