Jacobus de Kerle

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Jacobus de Kerle (* 1531 or 1532 in Ypres ; † January 7, 1591 in Prague ) was a Franco-Flemish composer , organist , singer , conductor and cleric of the Renaissance .

Live and act

Jacobus de Kerle was the son of the Ypres draper Robert de Kerle, who had married Adrienne Mortiers in 1530/31, which is the assumed date of birth of the composer. At the St. Martin monastery in his hometown, de Kerle could have received his first musical lessons from the singing master Gilles Bracquet († after 1556). Later, the Cathedral of Cambrai became of importance to him and Philippe de Monte ; in the lists of this church from 1548 the names of both musicians appear as "petits vicaires". Even if the details of his departure to Italy remain unknown, it is certain that de Kerle worked as Magister capellae at the Orvieto Cathedral from 1548 to around 1550 and again from 1555 . Whether the composer was ordained a priest before his trip to Italy or only there is an open question; it is certain that from August 4, 1561 he was called presbyter and no longer maestro . In Orvieto it was his job to teach the choirboys, to take part in the chapel as a singer and to take care of the organ and the carillon. In August 1561 he received a two-month vacation for a trip to Venice to work with the publisher Gardano on the publication of his works "Magnificat octo tonorum" and "Liber psalmorum". In all of de Kerles' prints, the addition "Yprensis" is noted next to his name. After his return to Orvieto in the autumn of 1561 he made the acquaintance of the Bishop of Augsburg , Cardinal Otto Truchseß von Waldburg , who had been in Rome for a long time from 1559 , which had a decisive influence on the further life of de Kerles.

Cardinal Otto von Waldburg appointed the composer Kapellmeister of his private band, and de Kerle took up his new office at the beginning of 1562. Before Easter, the “Preces speciales” collection of motets appeared at Gardano in Venice, and Cardinal von Waldburg made sure that they were performed at the Council of Trent (1545–1563); According to de Kerle, they were sung almost three times a week in front of the council members in 1562, which perhaps had a certain influence on the views of the council members and their general decisions on the reform of church music, alongside the more recent works by Palestrina . The composer's “Sex missae”, published in the same year, are dedicated to Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria. From August 1563 to May 1564, de Kerle traveled in the entourage of Cardinal Otto via northern Italy to Barcelona to accompany the Austrian Archdukes Rudolf and Ernst to the Spanish royal court. The composer then traveled to the residence of the Augsburg prince-bishops in Dillingen in mid-May 1564 , where the chapel took part in the ceremonial handover of the University of Dillingen to the Jesuits on August 17, 1564.

In the following year, Cardinal Otto was forced to close the chapel in May 1565 due to financial difficulties, whereupon de Kerle returned to his hometown and worked there as Kapellmeister at the end of 1565. Here there were disagreements within the church, and as a result of an assault on another priest he was excommunicated on March 30, 1567 and thus lost his position as Kapellmeister. After performing the penalties imposed in Rome, he was accepted back into the church. Shortly thereafter, he was given the honor of performing works by him at the wedding celebrations of Duke Wilhelm V of Bavaria with Renata of Lorraine (February 21 to March 5, 1568 in Munich ), for example a six-part one on March 2 Work based on a text by Niccolò Stopio († 1570); this composition has not been preserved. The church wedding was carried out by de Kerle's former employer, Cardinal Otto von Waldburg, who might have recommended his former conductor. In a similar way, the composer probably got his next job in Augsburg, where the cathedral chapter there paid him ten thalers on August 18, 1568 , "because of his composed singing so he presented my gh", and negotiated with him about it taking over the position of cathedral organist. During this tenure, from 1571 onwards, von de Kerle published about 70 motets in seven collections, a mass, a requiem and two books with madrigals ; A codex with responsories and hymns for the feast days of the church year have come down to us as a manuscript .

In a letter from 1572, the composer Philippe de Monte recommended his colleagues for a benefice at the Petrikirche Augsburg and explicitly refers to works that de Kerle had presented to Emperor Maximilian II at the Reichstag in Speyer in 1570 without expressing any gratitude to get. It is not known whether this endorsement was successful. When he succeeded the office of the Augsburg cathedral music director, de Kerle was passed over and Bernhard Klingenstein received the position; therefore on July 14, 1574 the composer asked to be released from the office of organist. The chapter did not want to correspond to this; thereupon de Kerle contacted the owner of a benefice in Cambrai , Adrian Esch, and arranged an exchange of their benefices with him. Together with the dedication of vocal compositions, the composer asked the cathedral chapter for permission for this related change of office. There was no residence obligation associated with a canonical in Cambrai , so de Kerle was free for a new activity that was emerging in Kempten . He dedicated a composition to Prince Abbot Eberhard von Stain in Kempten, and the abbot of Weingarten Monastery also endorsed him with a letter of recommendation. It is not known whether the action was successful; But the fact that he was not included in the Cambraier chapter until March 28, 1579 speaks for a Kempten activity. He has given his collection “Quatuor missae suavissimis” three different dedications, which reveals his uncertainty about his future path. In 1582 he came briefly to the court of Cologne's Archbishop and Elector Gebhard Truchseß von Waldburg , to whom the masses of 1582 are dedicated (published by Christoffel Plantijn in Antwerp ). At the Reichstag in Augsburg in the same year, the composer apparently came to the decision to seek a position with Emperor Rudolf II ; As early as September 1, 1582, Emperor Rudolf appointed him as court chaplain, and the second edition of the masses of 1583 is dedicated to Emperor Rudolf. There is a handwritten copy of the same work in the Vatican library with a dedication to Pope Gregory XIII.

The composer moved with the Kaiser via Vienna to Prague, where he stayed until the end of his life; the court conductor there was Philippe de Monte. Because de Kerle's salary as court chaplain was only 150 guilders , in early 1584 he also applied for a canonical at the Heilig Kreuz collegiate monastery in Breslau ; the appointment there was only made in autumn 1587. In 1585 the composer dedicated a book with motets to the newly elected Pope Sixtus V. On July 7, 1587, he renounced the canonical in Cambrai in favor of a benefice in Mons , which he held until his death. In the same year de Kerle intended to bring out five trade fairs with the Antwerp publishers Plantijn or Pevernage , but this did not materialize. He lost the benefice in Breslau again at the beginning of 1588 because it was given elsewhere. It is striking that Jacobus de Kerle hardly created any works during his time as chaplain in Prague.

meaning

Jacobus de Kerle and his work in connection with the liturgical reform movement ( Cäcilianism ) of the late 19th and early 20th centuries attracted particular attention in music history because of its close proximity to the reform movement of the Council of Trent and its goals, where he occasionally even worked with Giovanni Pierluigi Palestrina and Philippe de Monte was called "savior of church music". In the meantime, however, it has been proven that musical aspects played only a subordinate role in the council deliberations of that time. In addition, it could be shown that the noticeable liturgical reform tendencies in de Kerle's work are probably more influenced by the reform ideas around his then employer Otto Truchseß von Waldburg. The texts for de Kerle's “Preces speciales” are taken from the Preces by Petrus de Soto from 1551, who was directly related to Cardinal von Waldburg.

Although Jacobus de Kerle worked as an organist, no corresponding instrumental works by him have come down to us. The focus of his compositional activity was on motet and mass composition, with many works related to a specific occasion. It is assumed that the “Cantio de sacro foedere contra turcas” was possibly caused by the league's victory in the naval battle of Lepanto (October 6, 1571); he also wrote one of the requiems on the cardinal's death on April 2, 1573 . There are other occasional works for Augsburg merchants; The introit “Deus Israel conjugat vos” was created for a double wedding in the Fugger family . Words and texts are interpreted occasionally in his motets and not as a basic element of the composition. His reluctance to use the methods of secular vocal music could perhaps also be a self-limitation because of the contemporary reform tendencies. He preferred the type of a cantus firmus motet and contented himself with the harmonic possibilities of the church modes concerned . In the liturgical psalms and hymns, on the other hand, there is a change between Gregorian chant and polyphonic sections closely related to the chorale model. Here, as in his Magnificats, the composer used a moderate variation of the psalm tone model.

A certain conservative tendency is also evident in his multiple subdivision of mass sentences, which ties in with Josquin Desprez and his successors, for example in four of the five masses, without the Requiem, in the Sex missae collection of 1562. The Agnus Dei section only appears just like with Jacobus Clemens non Papa , but the usual increase in the number of votes takes place towards the end. The sequence “ Dies irae ” contained in the Requiem had a special influence on the corresponding sequence in the Requiem by Vincenzo Ruffo (around 1510–1587). In his cycle of eight Magnificats for all eight modes, the composer set the odd stanzas of this hymn of praise to music and used canon techniques in the first four , in the other four Magnificats the even stanzas with ample space for varying imitations .

Works

  • measure up
    • “Sex missae” with four to five voices, Liber 1, Venice 1562
    • “Quatuor missae” with five to six voices, Antwerp 1582/83
  • Motets, hymns and psalms
    • “Motetti” with four to five voices, Rome 1557
    • "Hymni totius annii secundum ritum Sanctae Romae Ecclesiae" with four to five voices, Rome 1558 and 1560
    • “Liber psalmorum ad vesperas” for four voices, Venice 1561
    • “Magnificat octo tonum” for four voices, Venice 1561
    • “Preces speciales” for four voices, Venice 1562
    • “Selectae quaedam cantiones sacrae” with five to six voices, Nuremberg 1571
    • “Liber modulorum” with four to six voices, [Paris] 1572
    • “Liber modulorum sacrorum” with five to six voices, Munich 1572
    • “Liber modulorum sacrorum” with four to six voices, Munich 1573
    • “Liber motettorum” with four to six voices, Munich 1573
    • “Sacrae cantiones” with five to six voices, Munich 1575
    • 1 motet in Theatri musici selectissimas Orlandi de Lassus aliorumque […] Cantiones sacras, Liber 2, [Geneva] 1580
    • “Selectiorum aliquot modulorum” with four to eight voices, Prague 1585
    • 3 further works in Triodia sacra for three voices, Liber 1, Dillingen 1605
  • Secular works
    • “Il primo libro capitolo del triompho d'amore de Petrarca” with five voices, Venice 1570, missing
    • "Madrigali", Liber 1, Venice 1570, missing
    • “Egregia cantio” with six voices, Nuremberg 1574
    • 1 Madrigal in Di Cipriano et Annibale madrigali for four voices, Liber 5, Venice 1561
    • Further works in different manuscripts

Literature (selection)

  • Robert Eitner: Guys, Jakob van. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB), Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1882, page 629
  • Otto origin: Jacobus de Kerle (1531 / 32–1591). His life and works , Munich 1913
  • G. Haydon: The Hymns of Jacobus de Kerle. In: Festschrift Gustav Reese, edited by J. LaRue and others, New York 1966, pp. 336–358
  • A. Layer: Music history of the Prince Abbey of Kempten , Kempten 1975
  • Craigh Wright: Musiciens à la cathédrale de Cambrai 1475-1550. In: Revue de musicologie No. 2, 1976, pages 204-228
  • B. Brumana / G. Ciliberti: Orvieto: una cattedrale e la sua musica (1450-1610) , Florence 1990
  • R. Lindell: Musicians from the Low Countries, Ecclesiastical Benefices and the Imperial preces primariae. In: Musicology and Archival Research, edited by B. Hagg and others, Brussels 1994, pp. 338-355
  • CA Monson: The Council of Trent Revisited. In: Journal of the American Musicological Society No. 55, 2002, pp. 1-37
  • Christian Thomas Leitmeir: "Jacobus de Kerle. Composing in the field of tension between church and art" , Turnhout, Brepols 2009 (= Epitome Musical 11)

Web links

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  1. ↑ Michael Zywietz :  Kerle, Jacobus de. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 10 (Kemp - Lert). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2003, ISBN 3-7618-1120-9  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
  2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Volume 4: Half a note - Kostelanetz. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1981, ISBN 3-451-18054-5 .
personal data
SURNAME Guys, Jacobus de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Franco-Flemish composer, singer and bandmaster of the Renaissance
DATE OF BIRTH 1531 or 1532
PLACE OF BIRTH Ypres
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 1591
Place of death Prague