Antoine de Févin

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Antoine de Févin (* around 1470 in Arras ; † late 1511 or early 1512 in Blois ) was a Franco-Flemish composer , singer and cleric of the Renaissance .

Live and act

According to a family chronicle from 1627, Antoine de Févin belonged to a family of the lower nobility who had moved from their ancestral home Febvin-Palfart near Saint-Omer to Arras in 1396 . Antoine's father Pierre de Févin († 1506) was a lay judge in Arras in 1474 . His younger son Antoine likely left Arras in the late 1480s. In the chronicle he is referred to as "prêtre, chantre du roi Louis XII., Mort a Blois" (priest, singer of King Louis XII. , Died in Blois). However, no further evidence was found for any of the activities mentioned. He could have become a priest in the 1490s. After the poet Guillaume Crétin called him “maistre Anthoyne Févin” in his obituary after his death, it has sometimes been assumed that he had obtained the title of Magister Artium at a university . This conclusion is rather unlikely; rather, this statement is to be assessed in the sense of a general mastery in the field of music.

A whole series of evidence suggests that he moved to Paris and got a job at the French royal court or at least was associated with this institution; In view of the meager sources of information, however, evidence for these statements is unlikely in the future either. There is only one letter from Asti in northern Italy, where King Louis XII. writes to France on April 18, 1507, that portraits of a Parisian painter and one of Févin's excellent chansons should be sent to him as soon as these have been completed, to be presented to the ladies in Italy. A choir book, which with great certainty comes from the vicinity of the French court orchestra, contains a substantial part of the motets and especially the chansons by Antoine de Févin. Later, the poet Guillaume Crétin laments the death of the two members of the royal chapel Jean Braconnier (called Lourdault; † 1512, active since 1478) and the recently deceased Antoine de Févin; after Braconnier died in January 1512, this results in Févin's death in late 1511 or early 1512.

meaning

The Swiss chronicler and music theorist Heinrich Glarean (1488–1563) wrote in 1547 that Févin was a follower or student of Josquin Desprez and that he died young. His compositional work, which exclusively contains vocal music, falls into a music-historical time of change; this particularly applies to the meanwhile complete equality of all voices as carriers of counterpoint with imitation and also of the text. With Févin this coincides with an obviously very fruitful compositional imagination, so that his works can in a certain sense be considered future-oriented. Together with his other colleagues at the French court orchestra, Antonius Divitis and Jean Mouton , he established the tradition of the parody mass , after there were individual previous works of this type by Johannes Ockeghem , Jacob Obrecht and Josquin Desprez. Josquin's compositional techniques are omnipresent in Févin's work in a modified and sometimes more pointed form. Especially in his mass “Ave Maria” there is a particular richness and outstanding consistency of processing the type of parody mass . Often he also chose the method of creating a contrast between imitative sections and homophonic parts, as was often the case from the 1490s, or between two-part sections (bicinias) and the entire choir.

A uniform stylistic image is also visible in Févin's motets, which is close to the style of his mass compositions. The musical phrases are clearly separated from each other by cadences or pauses and pay close attention to the formal structure of the text. However, the greatest breadth of the variation is shown in the motet "Sancta Trinitas", in which the individual phrases are not simply strung together, but are also musically combined into larger sections of meaning. The style that emerges here at Févin was fully developed a generation later by Claudin de Sermisy, who worked in Paris . Although only sixteen chansons can be ascribed to Févin with certainty, this group of works is of outstanding importance in terms of music history. The popular character of the “chansons rustiques” on which they are based, this typical mixture of love poetry and sometimes drastic mockery, as well as the stylistic proximity to the works of later composers have ensured an unusually long longevity of the tradition of Antoine de Févin's secular compositions.

Works

  • Mass (all to four voices)
    • Mass "Ave Maria"
    • Missa de feria
    • Missa "Mente tota tibi supplicamus" (based on the Quinta Pars of the motet "Vultum tuum" by Josquin Desprez)
    • Missa parva ("ad placitum", with responsory "Adoramus te" between Osanna and Benedictus )
    • Missa "Sanctorum meritis"
    • Missa "Salva sancte parens" (de beata virgine)
  • Masses with uncertain authorship by Févin
    • Missa "Dictes moy" (based on the chanson by Loyset Compère ; only Kyrie and Gloria survived, partly attributed to Antonius Divitis)
    • Missa "O quam glorifica luce" (as missa "Iste confessor" attributed to Pierre de la Rue ; authorship unclear)
    • Missa "Sancta Trinitas" (based on Févin's motet; partly attributed to Févin, partly to Mouton)
    • Missa pro fidelibus defunctis (partly attributed to Févin, partly to Divitis)
  • Other liturgical music
    • Lamentationes Hieremiae prophetae to three to four voices
    • Magnificat primi toni
    • Magnificat tertii toni
    • Magnificat quarti toni
  • Motets
    • “Ascendens Christ in altum” to six votes
    • “Benedictus dominus deus meus” to four voices
    • "Dilectus deo" (erroneous attribution to Josquin)
    • “Gaude Francorum regia corona” with four votes
    • “Homo quidam fecit cenam” to four voices
    • “Inclita pura sanctissima virgo” with three votes
    • "Laetabundus exultet" with four voices (only tenor preserved)
    • “Laetare mater ecclesia” with four voices
    • “Lauda Sion salvatorem” to four votes
    • “Nesciens mater virgo virum” with four voices
    • “Nobilis progenie nobilior fide” to four votes
    • “O praeclara stella maris” to three voices
    • “Quae est ista quae ascendit” to four votes
    • “Tempus meum est ut revertar” to four voices
  • Motets with uncertain authorship by Févin
    • "Adiutorium nostrum" to four votes (anonymous, probably by Jean Mouton)
    • "Egregie Christe" with four voices (partly attributed to Févin, partly to Mouton)
    • "O pulcherrima mulierum" for four voices (partly attributed to Févin, partly to Mouton)
    • "Salve regina" to four voices (attributed to Févin, but to be excluded for stylistic reasons; authorship unclear)
    • "Sancta trinitas unud deus" with four voices (partly attributed to Févin, Nicolaes Craen , Costanzo Festa and Cristóbal de Morales )
    • "Verbum bonum et suave" with four voices (partly attributed to Févin, partly to Pierrequin de Thérache )
    • Dubia "In aeternum domine", "Haec probantur voram" for two voices (wrongly attributed to Févin: by Antoine Brumel )
  • Chansons
    • “Adieu soulas” to three voices
    • “Chacun maudit” to three votes
    • “D'amours je suis desheritée” with three votes
    • “En amours n'a sinon que bin” to three votes
    • “Faulte d'argent” to three votes
    • “Fors seulement” to three votes
    • “Fuyez regretz” to three votes
    • “Il fait bon aymer” to three votes
    • “J'ay veu la beauté” to three votes
    • “Je le lairray” to three votes
    • “Mauditz soyent” to three votes
    • “N'aymes jamais” to four votes
    • “On a mal dit” to three votes
    • “Pardonnez moy” to three votes
    • "Petite camusette" with three voices (partly wrongly attributed to Josquin)
    • “Tres doulce dame” to three votes
  • Chansons with uncertain authorship by Févin
    • "Helas je suis mary" with three voices (probably by Févin)
    • "Il m'est advis" to three votes (probably by Hilaire Bernoneau )
    • "J'ayme bien mon amy" to three votes (probably by N. Le Petit)
    • "Qui ne l'aimeroit" to four votes (anonymous, attributed to Févin)
  • Untexted
    • 1 untexted piece (later addendum in the manuscript)

Literature (selection)

  • R. de Maulde: Jean Perréal e Pierre de Fénin, a propos d'une lettre de Louis XII. (1507). In: Nouvelles archives de l'art français, 3rd series, volume 2, 1886, pages 1–9 (= Revue de l'art français ancien et modern no. 3)
  • GB de Puisieux: Pierre de Févin. Chroniqueur artésien du XV e siècle. In: Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Picardie No. 24, 1909/10, pages 322–333
  • J. Delporte: Antoine de Févin (147. − 1512). In: Revue liturgique et musicale No. 18, 1934-1935, pages 27-31, 42-43, 54-57, 75-76
  • B. Kahmann: Antoine de Févin. A Bio-bibliographical Contribution. In: Musica Disciplina No. 4, 1950, pages 153-162 and No. 5, 1951, pages 143-155
  • JF Spratt: The Masses of Antoine de Févin , dissertation at Florida State University, Tallahassee 1964
  • EH Clinkscale: The Complete Works of Antoine de Févin , 2 volumes, dissertation at New York University, New York 1965
  • JT Brobeck: The Motet at the Court of Francis I , dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1991 (= University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor / Michigan, DA 9200318)

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ The Music in Past and Present (MGG), Person Part Volume 6, Bärenreiter Verlag Kassel and Basel 2001, ISBN 3-7618-1116-0
  2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Volume 3: Elsbeth - Haitink. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1980, ISBN 3-451-18053-7 .
personal data
SURNAME Févin, Antoine de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fevyn, Antoine de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Franco-Flemish composer and singer of the Renaissance
DATE OF BIRTH around 1470
PLACE OF BIRTH unsure: Arras
DATE OF DEATH 1511 or 1512
Place of death Blois