George de La Hèle

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George de La Hèle (* 1547 in Antwerp , † August 27, 1586 in Madrid ) was a Franco-Flemish composer and conductor of the Renaissance .

Live and act

It is believed that George de La Hèle received his musical training at the Church of Our Lady in his hometown with Antoine Barbé , perhaps also in Soignies . He was part of a group of choirboys who went to Spain in 1560 to take part in the musical life of the court and in the organization of services at the court chapel of King Philip II in Madrid under the direction of Pierre de Manchicourt . He says he has been in this ministry for ten years and has been enrolled in studies at the University of Alcalá for the past few years . He then returned to Flanders in 1570 to study theology at the University of Leuven . He took minor at this time orders , but later never priests become. He then received the position of choirmaster at the Church of St. Rombaut in Mechelen (Malines) in 1572 and two years later at the Cathedral of Tournai , both places of pronounced musical life. These were also very creative years; In a Cecilia competition in the city of Évreux in 1576, La Hèle received prizes for his motet “Nun Deo subiecta erit anima mea” and for his chanson “Mais voyez mon cher esmoy”. During this time he also composed eight masses , which the Antwerp publisher Christoffel Plantijn published in 1578 as Octo missae , the most important and mainly traditional work of the composer, which was dedicated to King Philip II.

Philip II of Spain appointed La Hèle on September 15, 1580 Kapellmeister of the Capilla real as the successor to Gérard de Turnhout, who died in 1580 . But despite all the efforts of the king to get the composer to take office as soon as possible, the position remained vacant for a year and a half because La Hèle had previously worked temporarily at the Capilla flamenca in Madrid. He received various ecclesiastical benefices without a residence obligation from the Spanish king . At the royal chapel he was very concerned with the repertoire he encountered and expanded it with compositions by Jacobus Clemens non Papa , Palestrina , Francisco Guerrero and Pierre de Manchicourt, as well as with his own works. He had a successful career in Madrid with much acclaim for his performances. La Hèle traveled to Saragossa in 1585 for the wedding of King Philip's daughter Katharina with Karl Emmanuel, Duke of Savoy , and performed a very successful motet for the occasion; this work is not known in detail. On the same trip, he conducted a festive performance in Monzón with the choir of his own chapel and the choirs of Castile , Aragon and Portugal. However, relatively little is known about La Hèle's activities in Madrid, because on Christmas Eve 1734 the library of the royal chapel was destroyed by fire, in which many of the composer's works were lost. During his last illness, La Hèle married Madelea Guabaelaraoen shortly before his death, thus giving up his church benefices. On June 16, 1586 he made a will in which he bequeathed everything to his wife. George de La Hèle died in late August 1586 in the Madrid parish of St. Nicholas at the age of 38 or 39.

meaning

The most important work of George de La Hèle are his eight masses, which were printed under the collective name Octo missae in Antwerp in 1578. The print is characterized by special printing types and an unusually fine paper and represents an outstanding testimony to the art of printing in the second half of the 16th century. The eight masses are preceded by the piece "Asperges me", which is to be sung alternately . The masses are all parody masses , with four motets originating from Orlando di Lasso , two from Josquin and one each from Cipriano de Rore and Thomas Crécquillon . Each Kyrie begins with the polyphonic total complex of the template, and the length of each note faithfully extracted portion ranges 4-13 Brevis - scales . The often two-part Gloria sets use the template as a framework set in which new topics are woven. Various parody methods are used in the remaining parts of the masses . Like his well-known Spanish contemporary Tomás Luis de Victoria (around 1548–1611), La Hèle did not use secular works ( chansons or madrigals ) as models after the Counter-Reformation saw a contradiction between a secular model and a spiritual parody composition.

Works

Edition: George de la Hèle, Collected Works , 2 volumes, edited by Lavern J. Wagner, without location information 1972 (= Corpus mensurabilis musicae No. 56)

  • Collection of Octo missae for five to seven voices, Antwerp 1578, therein:
    • Missa “Oculi omnium in te sperant” with five voices, based on a model by Orlando di Lasso
    • Missa “In convertendo Dominus” with five voices, based on a model by Cipriano de Rore
    • Missa “Nigra sum sed formosa” with five voices, based on a model by Thomas Crécquillon
    • Missa “Gustate et videte” with five voices, based on a model by Orlando di Lasso
    • Missa “Quare tristis est” with six parts, based on a model by Orlando di Lasso
    • Missa “Fremuit spiritus Jesus” with six voices, based on a model by Orlando di Lasso
    • Missa “Praeter rerum seriem” with six voices, based on a model by Josquin Desprez
    • Missa "Benedicta es" with seven voices, based on a model by Josquin Desprez
  • Compositions from the inventory of the Capilla real from 1585, have been lost:
    • Credo to eight votes
    • 2 Kyrie “de tempore paschali” with five or six voices
    • 2 Passion settings with four voices
    • “ Lamentatio Jeremiae ” to five votes
    • “Lamentatio Jeremiae” with eight votes
    • Motet “In illo tempore” with eight voices
    • Motet “Domine tu mihi lavas pedes” with eight voices
    • Motet “Egredientum” with four voices

Literature (selection)

  • G. van Dorslaer: George de la Hèle, maître de chapelle-compositeur, 1547–1586. In: Bulletin de l'Académie royale d'archéologie de Belgique 1923/24, pages 108-133
  • M. Antonowytsch: The motet "Benedicta es" by Josquin des Prez and the masses super Benedicta by Willaert, Palestrina, de la Hèle and de Monte , Utrecht 1951
  • Lavern J. Wagner: The Octo Missae of George de La Hèle , 2 volumes, dissertation Madison / Wisconsin 1957
  • Lavern J. Wagner: Music of Composers from the Low Countries at the Spanish Court of Philipp II .. In: Musique des Pays-Bas anciens - Musique espagnole ancienne, edited by P. Becquart / H. Vanhulst, Löwen 1988, page 193– 214 (= Colloquia Europalia No. 3)
  • MJ Noone: Music and Musicians in the Escorial Liturgy under the Habsburgs, 1563-1700 , Rochester 1998

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ The Music in Past and Present (MGG), Person Part Volume 8, Bärenreiter and Metzler, Kassel and Basel 2002, ISBN 3-7618-1118-7
  2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Volume 5: Köth - Mystical Chord. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1981, ISBN 3-451-18055-3 .
  3. ^ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , edited by Stanley Sadie, 2nd Edition, Volume 14, McMillan Publishers, London 2001, ISBN 0-333-60800-3
personal data
SURNAME La Hèle, George de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES La Helle, George de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Franco-Flemish composer and bandmaster of the Renaissance
DATE OF BIRTH 1547
PLACE OF BIRTH Antwerp
DATE OF DEATH August 27, 1586
Place of death Madrid