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Italianism and Claude Le Jeune*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2008
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In section iii of his paper ‘Ut musica poesis’, Howard Mayer Brown remarked upon Italian musical presence in France in three main areas: music theory, techniques of composition and interpretation, and poetry. The works of Claude Le Jeune (c. 1530–1600) seem to me to illustrate his comments in a particularly striking fashion, and although my study of Italian influence on Le Jeune's work is incomplete, I think it is possible to make some preliminary observations.
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1 ‘And they say that Claude Le Jeune showed his musical works in five, six and seven parts to the masters of Flanders and Italy, who refused even to look at them or give him an audience until he had composed for two voices, which he did so badly that he himself admitted that he did not understand the true composition of music.’ Facsimile ed. Lesure, F. (Paris, 1965), ii, p. 202Google Scholar.
2 Le Jeune's, collection of Melanges (1585)Google Scholar features a completely original organisation, apparently intermediate between the theories of Glarean and Zarlino. See His, I., ‘Le Livre de melanges de Claude Le Jeune (Anvers: Plantin, 1585) au coeur du débat modal de la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle’, Claude Le Jeune et son temps, ed. Bonniffet, P. (Berne, forthcoming)Google Scholar.
3 Brossard, (Catalogue, 1724, in ParisGoogle Scholar, Bibliothèque Nationale, Rés. Vm8 21) comments on the Octonaires: ‘les Maîtres du Mans, de Rouen & c qui envoyent des paroles pour composer des Motets pour les prix qu'on y distribue le jour de Sainte Cecille tous les Ans marquent toujours le mode sur lequel il faut qu'ils soient composez, et ne manquent point de renvoyer auxd. Octonaires de Claudin le Jeune pour y voir et examiner comment chaque mode y est traité et noté’ (‘the masters from Le Mans, Rouen and elsewhere who send words for setting as motets [to compete] for the prizes awarded on St Cecilia's Day each year always indicate the mode in which they should be composed and never fail to refer to the said Octonaires of Claude Le Jeune to find out and study how each mode is dealt with and noted’). The manuscript Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, n.a.f. 4679 shows that the Dodecacorde was studied as a treatise.
4 The air is edited by Walker, D. P. and Lesure, F. in Le Jeune, , Airs of 1608, 4 vols., AIM Miscellanea 1–4 (Rome, 1951–1959)Google Scholar; the chanson, with its variants, is edited in His, I., ‘Les Mélanges de Claude Le Jeune (Anvers: Plantin, 1585): transcription et étude critique’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Tours, 1990)Google Scholar. It is also included in The Sixteenth-Century Chanson 16, ed. J. A.Bernstein (New York, 1989).
5 See Chailley, J., ‘Esprit et technique du chromatisme de la Renaissance’, Musique et poésie au XVIe siècle, ed. Jacquot, J. (Paris, 1954), pp. 225–39Google Scholar.
6 On Bertrand's use of the genera, see Vaccaro, J.-M., ‘Les préfaces d'Anthoine de Bertrand’, Revue de Musicologie, 74 (1988), pp. 221–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
7 See His, I., ‘Les modèles italiens de Claude Le Jeune’, Revue de Musicologie, 77 (1991), pp. 25–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
8 The supplementary strophes of text, printed below the music in the first edition of the Melanges of 1585, disappear from the Parisian editions of 1586–7 and 1606 and are not included in the Second livre de meslanges of 1612; it is in the latter volumes that the Italian pieces are designated as madrigals.
9 See Assenza, C., Giovan Ferretti tra canzonetta e madrigale (Florence, 1989)Google Scholar.
10 Examples include Rossignol mon mignon, D'où vient l'amour and J'ay senti les deux maux.
11 Settings exist by Arcadelt (or Gero), Perissone, Lassus, Rampollini, Castro and Del Mel.
12 Castro's madrigal is edited in Bernstein, J. A., The Sixteenth-Century Chanson 5 (New York, 1989)Google Scholar.
13 See R. Freedman, ‘Claude Le Jeune, Adrian Willaert and the Art of Musical Translation’, pp. 123–48 above.
14 ‘The Chansons of Claude Le Jeune’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1955), pp. 221–2Google Scholar.
15 This figure, which can be seen on title pages by the printer Haultin of La Rochelle, shows a winged woman, poorly dressed but radiant, holding an open book, treading on a skeleton, and leaning on a cross from which a horse's bit is suspended.
16 The Dix pseaumes (1564) are dedicated to ‘Messieurs de la Noe et de Teligni’ and the preface explains that Le Jeune was in their service.
17 See Meier, H., ‘Zur Chronologie der Musica nova Adrian Willaerts’, Analecta Musicologica, 8 (1973), pp. 71–96Google Scholar.
18 See Carver, A., Cori spezzati: the Development of Sacred Polychoral Music to the Time of Schütz, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1988), i, pp. 12–14Google Scholar.
19 A four-voice setting of the text by Guillaume Boni was published in 1576.
20 Song of Solomon v.8–17, vi.1, ii.16–17.
21 Nìnfe qui m'as asservi and Si one feu d'amour, ed. in Walker and Lesure, Airs, nos. 47 and 55.
22 The measured psalm is Loué-tous ce Dieu qui est dous; see Carver, pp. 40–1.
23 See Silbiger, A., ‘An Unknown Partbook of Early Sixteenth-Century Polyphony’, Studi Musicali, 6 (1977), pp. 43–67Google Scholar.
24 Metamorphoses, book 3, verses 379–401.
25 See His, I., ‘Claude Le Jeune et le rythme prosodique: le tournant des années 1570’, Revue de Musicologie, 79 (1993), pp. 201–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
26 See Newcomb, A., The Madrigal at Ferrara, 1579–1597, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1980), i, pp.203–4Google Scholar. Newcomb notes the Italian influence on Thibault de Courville, very evident in his air Si je languis (1614).
27 See Yates, F. A., The French Academies of the Sixteenth Century (London, 1947), p. 6Google Scholar.
28 Ibid., p. 7. See also Liuzzi, F., I musicisti in Francia (Rome 1946), pp. 97–9Google Scholar.
29 Piteuse Echo, qui erres en ces bois,
Repons au son de ma dolente voix
D'ou ay-je peu ce grand mal concevoir,
Qui m'oste ainsi de raison le devoir? De voir.
Qui est l'autheur de ces maulx avenues? Venus.
Comment en sont tous mes sens devenuz? Nuds.
Qu'estois-je avant qu'entrer en ce passaige? Saige.
Et maintenant que sens-je en mon couraige? Raige.
Qu'est-ce qu' aimer, & s'en plaindre souvent? Vent.
Que suis-je donq', lors que mon coeur en fend? Enfant.
Qui est la fin de prison si obscure? Cure.
Dy moy, quelle est celle pour qui j'endure? Dure.
Sent-elle point la douleur qui me poingt? Point.
O que cela me vient bien mal à point!
Me fault il donq' (ô debile entreprise)
Lascher ma proie avant que l'avoir prise?
Si vault-il mieux avoir coeur moins hautain,
Qu'ainsi languir soubs espoir incertain.
(Piteous Echo, who wander in these woods, / Answer the sound of my plaintive voice. / Whence can I have conceived this great pain / That takes away from me the exercise of reason? From seeing. / Who is the author of these pains befallen? Venus. / How have my senses become from them? Laid bare. / What was I before I took this path? Wise. / And now what do I feel in my valour? Madness. / What is it to love, and to complain of it often? Wind. / What am I then, when my heart breaks from it? A child. / What is the end of this dark prison? Care. / Tell me, what is she for whom I suffer? Harsh. / Does she not feel the pain that wounds me? Not at all. / O how bad this is for me to hear! / Must I then (o feeble enterprise) / Release my prey before I have caught it? / Thus is it better to have a heart less proud / Than to languish so with uncertain hopes.)
This text was published in 1549.
30 Gentian's chanson appears in Attaingnant's Trente quatriesme livre (1549), and sets the following text:
Quel est le coeur qui ce vaincueur a prins? Cueur aprins.
Quelle est la peine quelle endure? Dure.
Qu'auront les tiens qui tant apres ont cours? Prompt secours.
Par ton secours seront ilz resiouys? Ouys.
Mais qu'auront ilz parfaicte iouyssance? Iouyssance …
(What is the heart that this victor has seized? Tamed [?] heart. / What is the pain that endures? Harsh. / What will yours have, that have pursued so much? Swift help. / By your help will they be glad? Yes. / But will they have perfect pleasure? Pleasure …).
31 Examples include Bertoldo's, Son io son altri (6 vv., 1561)Google Scholar; Marenzio's, O tu che fra le selve (8 vv., 1580)Google Scholar; Anerio's, lam da sommo (8 vv., 1585)Google Scholar; Mosto's, Ecco, s'in questi boschi (10 vv., 1578)Google Scholar; and Oristagno's, Quanto più al mio gran duol (10 vv., 1588)Google Scholar. See Kroyer, T., 'Dialog und Echo in der alten Chormusik', Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters (1909), pp. 13–33Google Scholar. See also Vogel, E., Einstein, A., Lesure, F. and Sartori, C., Bibliografia della musica italiana profana pubblicata dal 1500 al 1700, 3 vols. (Pomezia, 1977)Google Scholar, index.
32 O voix ô de nos voix le pourtrait sans visage,
L'image sans peinture, et sans langue la voix,
Qui nous donne toujours és lieux obscurs et coys
De la fin de nos mots un plaisant tesmoignage.
Que cachent les amans en leur courage? Rage.
Qui fait qu'ils sont ainsi, & chauds & froids? Effroys.
Mais n'esperent-ils pas quelque-fois? Quelquefois.
Et qui est-ce à la fin qui les soulage? L'age.
C'est done bien une chose amère qu'aymer? Mer.
Mais qui fait cet amour trop amer? Trop pâmer.
Où est done de ce Dieu l'aesle folle? Elle vole.
D'ou est-il descendu, est-ce des cieux? Des yeux.
On peut done sans danger, de toy estre amoureux,
Puis qu'on ne void en toy qu'une aveugle parole.
(O voice, o of our voices the portrait without a face, / The image without painting, and voice without tongue, / Who in dark and quiet places always gives us / A pleasant testimony to the ends of our words? / What do lovers hide in their valour? Madness. / What makes them so, both hot and cold? Fright. / But do they not hope, sometimes? Sometimes. / And what is it that in the end brings them relief? Age. / Then it is thus a bitter thing to be in love? Sea. / But what makes this love so bitter? Too much swooning. / Where is then the wild wing of this god? It flies. / From where is it come, from the heavens? From the eyes. / Then one may be in love with you without danger, / For we see nothing in you but blind words.) This song was published in 1612.
33 Rossignol mon mignon (1572), O pas en vain perdus (1572), Quell'eau quel air (1585), L'aspre fureur (1585), Je ne me plain (1585), Si ma dame eust jadis (1585), Amour & Mars (1585), Arreste un peu mon Coeur (1585), Voicy du gay printemps (1603), Amour, quand fus-tu né? (1603), Cerles mon oeil (1612), Quand sur nostre horizon (1612), and O voix ô de nos voix (1612).
34 Amour, quand-fus-tu né?, Amour et Mars, Arreste un peu mon coeur, and O voix ô de nos voix.
35 See J.-P. Ouvrard, 'Le sonnet ronsardien en musique: du Supplément de 1552 à 1580', and Bossuyt, I., ‘Jean de Castro: Chansons, odes et sonets de Pierre Ronsard (1576)’, both in Revue de Musicologie, 74 (1988), pp. 149-64, on pp. 159-61, and pp. 173-87, on p. 177CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 Levy, 'The Chansons of Claude Le Jeune', pp. 302 and 231.
37 Ibid., p. 215.
38 Reproduced in facsimile by Dobbins, F. in ‘Les madrigalistes français et la Pléiade’, La chanson à la Renaissance, ed. Vaccaro, J.-M. (Tours, 1981), p. 170Google Scholar.
39 See Duneton, C., La puce à l'oreille (Paris, 1978)Google Scholar. The expression meant 'to suffer from the itches of love'.
40 The version published in the Airs of 1608 results from a later revision; it features rhyming verses, which Baïf did not use. The revisions are probably the work of Agrippa d'Aubigné and/or Odet de la Noue (see the preface to the Walker and Lesure edition of the Airs). I have given here Baïf's version as set by de Courville, Thibault (published in Airs mis en musique par Fabrice Marin Caietain [Paris: Le Roy and Ballard, 1578])Google Scholar since it is probably closer to the text set by Le Jeune before the revisions were effected.
41 See Yates, F. A., 'Poésie et musique dans les "Magnificences" au mariage du due de Joyeuse', Musique et poésie au XVIe siècle, ed. Jacquot, , pp. 241–64Google Scholar.
42 Some of the best-known examples of the genre are Lassus's Matona mia cara (1581), the ‘imitatione del tedesco’ (Mi star pone compagne io) in Orazio Vecchi's Veglie di Siena (1604), and the ‘Thedesco’ in Adriano Banchieri's Barca di Venetia per Padova (1623), which repeats ‘Brindes io io io sgott mi trinc con el flascon’Google Scholar.
43 For example, the air text which begins ‘A l'aid à l'aid'helas je suis blessé / A l'eau à l'eau dedans dehors je suis tout en feu’ resembles ‘Aqua madonna al foco’ or ‘Aqua aiuto al foco’; a more systematic study of such relationships is needed.
44 According to Jean Guichard, to whom I am grateful for the French translation, the dialect forms here are more characteristically Venetian. There are no German words; only the word ‘trinc’ recalls the German ‘trink’.
45 A manuscript mass attributed to Le Jeune survives in the chapter archives of Turin, a city whose position on the border between France and Italy is important.
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