Eloy d'Amerval

Eloy d'Amerval (* around 1430 in Amerval (?), Today in the Pas-de-Calais department ; † after 1508) was a Franco-Flemish composer , poet , singer and cleric of the early Renaissance .

Live and act

In the prologue to his most famous poem, Eloy d'Amerval claims to come from the locality of Béthune in the department of Pas-de-Calais, while his name refers to the locality of Amerval in the same area. Neither his place of birth nor his place of death is directly documented, and the times of birth and death could only be determined approximately and indirectly so far. There is valid evidence of his work from the years 1455 to 1508. The first evidence shows that he was active from May 1, 1455 to August 31, 1457 as a tenor in the chapel of Duke Ludwig of Savoy († 1465). At that time Guillaume Dufay was the choir master there. Eloy then served for most of his life in institutions associated with the French royal court in the Loire Valley. From 1464 to 1465 he also worked as a tenor in the chapel of Duke Charles d'Orléans († 1465) in Blois . A document of June 25, 1471, written by himself, testifies to a connection between him and the city of Orléans , stating that by this date he was already master of the choirboys ("maistre des enfants") at the church of Saint-Aignan in that city. The assumption that he served at the Sforza Chapel in Milan in the 1470s has been refuted by recent research. In another document from September 14, 1480, his name "Eligio de Amara Valle" is mentioned with the function "maître de la psalette"; here he is on leave from the collegiate church of Saint-Hilarie-le-Grand in Poitiers to bring a book to the Basilica of St. Martin in Tours that he himself wrote for that church (the content of this book is not known). At that time the composer Johannes Ockeghem held the office of treasurer ("tresoir") in St. Martin in Tours .

From 1483 his presence in Orléans is documented again, here as “magister puerorum” at the Sainte-Croix cathedral. The payment register of this cathedral for 1483 shows that Eloy had written a multi-text motet ("en latin & en françois") on the anniversary of the liberation of the city from the English occupation by Joan of Arc (May 8, 1429). This motet should be sung during the procession for this celebration (“à la station qui se fait devant la porte Dunoise”). An inventory of Orléans Cathedral in 1486 records the possession of two red-bound books written by Eloy.

1504 he was a priest now a canon at the collegiate of Châteaudun in the northwest of Orleans (southwest of Chartres ). This document also shows that he was a poet and composer for some time in the service of King Louis XII. of France (son of Charles d'Orléans, tenure from 1498–1515). A file of January 18, 1505 testifies to Eloy d'Amerval as executor; this document was signed by Guillaume d'Amerval, priest and vicar in Châteaudun and illegitimate son of Eloy. Eloy wrote his most famous poem, "Le livre de la deablerie", in 1508; King Ludwig XII. granted him express permission to publish the poem, which was then edited by Michel le Noir in Paris that same year . The king paid him a special fee for the many years of service, but it is not known how long the composer lived after that.

meaning

The only remaining composition by Eloys is the mass “Dixerunt discipuli”. In it he uses the first seven tones of the antiphon , which is dedicated to St. Martin of Tours , and treats them in the course of the entire composition according to the principle of " mensural change ". He uses all 16 possibilities inherent in the mensural system by following the different species which Johannes Tinctoris described in his “Tractatus de regulari valori notarum”. That is why he is also referred to by Tinctoris in his writing “Proportionale musices” (1473) and by Franchinus Gaffurius in his writing “Practica musice” (1496) as “in modis doctissimus” (highly scholar in church modes). This mass was still the subject of theoretical discussions in the following century: the organist Giovanni de Legge asked the theorist G. Del Lago in a letter of December 20, 1523 for an explanation of the cantus firmus treatment in this mass, and Del Lago asked on December 27 , 1523 August 1539 P. Aaron by letter for detailed explanations of the different order of the 16 species mentioned by Tinctoris, John Hothby and Eloy d'Amerval.

In his long poem "Le livre de la deablerie" Eloy describes a dialogue between Satan and Lucifer in which they forge shameful plans; this dialogue is regularly interrupted by the author with reflections on earthly and heavenly virtues as well as useful information on contemporary music practice. In addition to a list of musical instruments, Eloy also gives a list of whom he considers the great composers of his time. In this poem they are inhabitants of a paradise, although some were still alive when the poem was written in 1508. The relevant extract reads:

La sont les grans musiciens ...

Comme Dompstable et du Fay ...

Et plusieurs aultres gens de bien:

Robinet de la Magdalaine,

Binchoiz , Fedé , Jorges et Hayne ,

Le Rouge , Alixandre , Okeghem ,

Bunoiz , Basiron , Barbingham ,

Louyset , Mureau , Prioris ,

Jossequin , Brumel , Tintoris .

Eloy does not make a list of the composers who ended up in hell, but it is striking that various well-known composers, such as the notoriously headstrong Jacob Obrecht , are not mentioned.

Traditional works

• Music: Mass “Dixerunt discipuli” with five voices
• Writings: "Le livre de la deablerie", published in Paris in 1508 by Michel le Noir

Literature (selection)

• M. Brenet: Un poète-musicien français du XVème siècle: Eloy d'Amerval , in: Revue d'histoire et de critique musicales. No. 1, 1901, pages 46-53
• AC Ott: Eloy d'Amerval and his Livre de la diablerie , Erlangen 1908
• Ch.Fr. Ward: Le Livre de la deablerie of Eloy d'Amerval , Iowa City 1923 (= University of Iowa Humanistic Studies No. 2.2)
• Gustave Reese : Music in the Renaissance , WW Norton & Co., New York 1954, ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• MT Bouquet: La capella musicale dei duchi di Savoia dal 1450 al 1500 , in: Rivista italiana di musicologia. No. 3, 1968, pages 233-285, especially 240
• H. Jacomet: Pierre Plume, Gilles Mureau, Jehan Piedefer, chanoines de Chartres, Pelerins de Terre Sainte et de Galice, 1483−1484, 1517−1518 , in: Bulletin de la Société archéologique d'Eure-et-Loire No. 50 , 1996, page 30 and following
• Marlène Britta, François Turellier, Philippe Vendrix: La vie musicale à Orléans de la fin de la guerre de Cent Ans à la Saint-Barthélemy , in: Orléans, une ville de la Renaissance, Ville d'Orléans, CESR de Tours, Université F Rabelais de Tours 2009, pages 120-131

Web links

• Eloy d'Amerval in the Dutch online encyclopedia ENCYCLO.NL
• Paula Higgins, Jeffrey Dean: Eloy d'Amerval. In: L. Macy (Ed.): Grove Music Online. accessed on June 27, 2006, (subscription access)

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. ↑ Richard Loyan: Eloy d'AMERVAL. In: Stanley Sadie (Ed.): The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians . Macmillan Publishers Ltd., London 1980, ISBN 0-393-09530-4