Jacotin Le Bel

Jacotin Le Bel (also Jacques Level ; * around 1490, † after 1555) was a French composer and singer of the Renaissance .

Live and act

Jacotin Le Bel's identity as a composer is mainly determined by the works he wrote and printed in France. This identity has been widely discussed in terms of music history; For example, it was considered possible that he is identical to a Jacottin Level , who was a singer at the papal chapel in Rome from 1516 to 1519 , or that his name was the pseudonym of the musician Jacob Godebrye , who lived from 1479 until his death on May 24th March 1529 was a band singer at the cathedral in Antwerp . Jacotin wrote more than 50 polyphonic works in over 100 manuscripts and prints from the 16th century; The style and distribution of these works suggest that the majority of these compositions were composed by a musician at the French royal court. 32 of these works were printed between 1528 and 1553 by the royal sheet music printer Pierre Attaingnant . Most of Jacotin's three-part chansons in contemporary Italian prints follow the conventions of the "three-part arrangement" that were common for French court composers between 1500 and 1520. In addition, the text of the motet Interveniat pro rege nostro, attributed to Jacotin, contains a request for assistance for the terminally ill King Ludwig XII. († 1515). This and other evidence clearly indicates that the present compositions do not come from Jacotin , who was active in Milan and Ferrara between 1468 and 1500 , nor from the aforementioned Jacob Godebrye alias Jacotin from Antwerp, but from a musician Jacotin Le Bel or Jacques Level, who worked in Italy and at the royal court in Paris from around 1510 to 1555 .

Music historical researchers assume that he was in the service of the Cardinal of Aragon in 1514 and that he first tried to become a member of the French court orchestra in 1516. He then worked from 1516 to 1520 as a singer in the private chapel of Pope Leo X. and then until 1521 as Kapellmeister at the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. Around 1525 he was accepted into the French court orchestra; he was led under the name Maistre Jacques Le Bel, clerc du diocese d'Amyens and received from the king a canonical and a benefice at the collegiate church of Notre Dame in the province of Anjou . On a list of the chapel's salaried employees in 1532/33 he appears as haulte-contre and as chantre et chanoine ordinaire . He is not on the list of singers for the funeral services for King Francis I (1547), but his name appears in a file dated February 17, 1555, in which he is still referred to as the singer and canon of the court orchestra.

meaning

Jacotin's works begin with the varied polyphony in the imitative style of Josquin and extend to the transparent manner of composition and design based on the model of Claudin de Sermisy . A whole series of his 30 chansons with two to four voices are based on melodies that were already there, and about half of them he had previously processed in his own works. Most of his pieces are for four parts. The texts used range from revealing secular poems to upscale courtly poems. The sacred works are a few motets, mostly settings of psalms . One mass has come down from him only as a fragment ( alto and tenor part ), as well as four Magnificats . The motets include dark and densely composed works, such as “Michael archangele” or “Interveniat pro rege nostro” (published 1519), but also lighter compositions in the Parisian style, such as “Inclina domine” or “Rogamus te”.

Works

(Jacotin's works are exclusively vocal music)

• Spiritual works with secured authorship
  • Missa, fragment, only alto and tenor survived
  • Magnificat tertii toni
  • Magnificat quarti toni
  • Magnificat septimi toni
  • Magnificat octavi toni
  • Motet “Beati omes qui timent Dominum” with 3 voices
  • Motet “Credidi propter quod locutus sum” with 4 parts
  • Motet "Deduc me Domine" (= 2nd part of "Inclina Domine aurem tuam") with 4 voices (partly Cristóbal de Morales , partly also ascribed to Jean Courtois )
  • Motet "Inclina Domine aurem tuam" for 4 voices (partly attributed to Cristóbal de Morales)
  • Motet “Interveniat pro rege nostro” with 4 parts (published 1519 and 1520), also as “Interveniat pro Gabrieli” (published 1526)
  • Motet “Michael Archangele” with 4 parts
  • Motet "Numque vixisti o pauper" with 2 voices, also as "A qui direlle"
  • Motet “Proba me, Domine” with 4 parts
  • Motet “Rogamus te, virgo Maria” with 4 parts
• Spiritual works with dubious authorship
  • Motet "Sancta Trinitas" with 8 voices (partly attributed to Jacotin, partly attributed to Jacquet de Berchem , partly declared as anonymous, probably by Jachet de Mantua )
• Chansons with guaranteed authorship
  • "Amor me poingt" to 3 voices (partly attributed to Gosse )
  • “Amour muny de plusieurs divers traictz” with 4 votes
  • "A qui direlle" to 2 voices, also as "Numque vixisti o pauper" (1549)
  • “A Paris a troys fillettes teremu tu” to 4 votes
  • "A tout jamais d'ung volloir immuable" with 3 voices (soprano part partly attributed to Jean Richafort )
  • "Combien est grand" to 4 votes
  • “Contentement combien que soit grand chose” to 4 votes
  • "Dame d'honneur" with 3 votes
  • “De tant aymer mon cueur” to 4 votes
  • "De trop penser" to 4 votes (partly declared as anonymous)
  • "Du feu d'amours" to 4 votes (partly declared as anonymous)
  • "D'ung coup mortel" to 4 voices (partly attributed to Pierre Certon )
  • “D'ung desplaisir amour” to 4 votes
  • “Et au surplus s'elle sçavoit combien” with 4 votes
  • “Hellas pour quoy vivent ces envieulx” with 3 votes
  • “Jamais je n'en seray seulée” with 4 voices, only the top voice handed down
  • “J'ay mes amours longuement attendu” to 4 votes
  • "J'ay tant souffert" to 4 votes (partly declared as anonymous)
  • “J'ay ung billard” to 3 votes
  • “Je changeray quelque chose” to 4 votes
  • “Je suis desheritée” to 2 votes
  • “Je voudroye bien” to 4 votes
  • “Le bergier et la bergiere”, only handed down from the top voice
  • “Le voulez-vous” to 4 votes
  • “Mari, je songay l'aultre jour” with 4 voices
  • “Mon triste cueur” to 4 votes
  • "Moy qui ne feiz jamaiz" to 4 votes
  • "N'auray-je jamais réconfort de vous" to 4 votes (partly declared as anonymous)
  • “Qui veult aimer il fault” to 3 votes
  • “Regret, soucy et peine” to 4 votes
  • “Robin fit tant par son piet” to 3 votes
  • “Si bon amour mérite récompense” to 4 votes
  • “Si por aymer” to 4 votes
  • “Souverain Dieu”, sacred chanson with 4 voices
  • "Tant qu'en amours" to 4 votes (partly declared as anonymous)
  • “Trop dure m'est la longue demourée” with 4 votes
  • “Ung grant plaisir” to 2 votes
  • “Vostre beaulté jeune” to 3 votes
  • “Voyant souffrir” to 4 votes
  • “Vray Dieu d'amours” to 4 votes
• Chansons with dubious authorship
  • "Auprès de vous secretement demeure" to 4 votes (partly attributed to Claudin de Sermisy, partly declared as anonymous)
  • "Je suis desheritée" to 3 votes ( attributed to Francoys Du Boys , partly declared as anonymous, probably not by Du Boys)
  • “Viens tost despiteux desconfort” with 4 voices (partly Jacotin, partly Claudin de Sermisy, partly attributed to Benedictus Appenzeller , partly declared anonymous; probably by Benedictus Appenzeller, from Des Chansons a quattre parties , Antwerp 1542).

Literature (selection)

• Franz Xaver Haberl: The Roman “schola cantorum” and the papal choir singers up to the middle of the 16th century , in: Vierteljahrsschrift für Musikwissenschaft No. 3, 1887, pages 189-296; also in: Building blocks for the history of music, Volume 3, Leipzig 1888
• L. Theunissens: La Musique à Anvers aux XIVe, XVe et XVIe siècles: Copie du manuscript de M. Le Chevalier Léon de Burbure , in: Annales de l'Académie royale d'archéologie de Belgique No. 58, 1906, page 159– 256
• L. Bernstein: Cantus Firmus in the French Chanson for Two and Three Voices, 1500 - 1550 , dissertation at New York University 1969
• A. Dunning: The State Motette 1480-1555 , Utrecht 1970; also the review: Joshua Rifkin, in Notes No. 28, 1972, pages 425–459
• D. Heartz: Au pres de vous: Claudin's Chanson and the Commerce of Publishers' Arrangements , in: Journal of the American Musicological Society No. 24, 1971, pp. 193-225
• LF Bernstein: La Courone et fleur des chansons a troys: a Mirror of the French Chanson in Italy in the Years between Ottaviano Petrucci and Antonio Gardano , in: Journal of the American Musicological Society No. 26, 1973, pp. 1-68
• C. Adams: The Three-Part Chanson during the Sixteenth Century: Changes in Its Style and Importance , dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1974
• LF Bernstein: The "Parisian Chanson": Problems of Style and Terminology , in: Journal of the American Musicological Society No. 31, 1978, pages 193-240
• L. Bernstein (Ed.): La Couronne et fleur des chansons a troys , New York 1984 (= Masters and Monuments of the Renaissance No. 3)
• John Brobeck: The Motet at the Court of Francis I , dissertation at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 1991
• C. Cazaux: La Musique à la Cour de François I ^er , Paris 2002 (= Mémoires et documents de l'École des Chartres No. 65).

Web links

• Literature by and about Jacotin Le Bel in the catalog of the German National Library

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1. ↑ John T. Brobeck: Jacotin , in: Ludwig Finscher (Ed.), The Music in Past and Present , second edition, personal section, Volume 9 (Him - Kel), Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2003, ISBN 3-7618- 1119-5 , columns 830-833
2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil : The great lexicon of music , Volume 4, Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1981, ISBN 3-451-18054-5
3. ^ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , edited by Stanley Sadie, 2nd Edition, Volume 12, McMillan Publishers, London 2001, ISBN 0-333-60800-3