John de Fossa

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Johannes de Fossa (* around 1540; † around Pentecost 1603 in Munich ) was a Franco-Flemish composer , singer and conductor of the Renaissance .

Live and act

The name of Johannes de Fossa suggests that his family of origin came from the village of Fosses in the province of Namur , a small town in the Diocese of Liège . The information about his life in the period before 1569 is only incomplete. To this day, the fact that the first name Johannes was often given in his Dutch family has made music historical research more difficult. There is a Johannes de Fossa who worked as a chaplain to St. Lambert in Liège in the late 15th century . Outside Flanders , a Pietro de Fossis was in charge of the church music at San Marco in Venice in the 15th centuryinside. Johannes de Fossa has expressed himself about his training in the copy of a Te Deum by Johannes Castileti (alias Jean Guyot, 1512–1588), whom he expressly referred to as his teacher in this choir book manuscript from the Tegernsee monastery ( "D [ominus] Et Magister meus"). Because Castileti worked almost exclusively in Liège, apart from a brief exception, as choirmaster at St. Paul from 1546 to 1554 and at the Liège Cathedral from 1558 to 1563, it is assumed that de Fossa had his training there in the 1540s to 1550s . Duke Emanuel Philibert of Savoy mentions in a letter to his treasurer dated February 12, 1557, among other singers in his court orchestra, a "Jean de Fosse" who could perhaps be identical with the composer.

The latter was appointed vice conductor of the Munich court orchestra in the last quarter of 1559, whose director was Orlando di Lasso . In the existing documents, however, Fossa is still only referred to as a tenorist . In 1571 he was given the supervision of the choirboys in the chapel and had to give them board and lodging in his house. The accounting books of the Munich court contain information about Fossa's travels to Rome in 1575 and to the Netherlands in 1585. After about 25 years of service as Di Lasso's deputy, he was appointed as his successor after his death in 1594, but officially only three years later. The austerity measures introduced in the meantime have also affected the court orchestra, and Fossa's promotion was at best practical; at least his salary increased only marginally. Between 1596 and 1598 in particular, the composer had to appear several times because the court was in default of payment. To compensate for this, Johannes de Fossa was raised to the imperial aristocracy by a decree from Emperor Rudolf II in 1594. Health problems caused the composer to resign from his position as Kapellmeister in 1602; He died at Pentecost of the following year. His successor from 1602 was Ferdinand de Lassus, the eldest son of Orlando.

meaning

After Johannes de Fossa's work was practically entirely limited to the Munich court orchestra, a broader acceptance of his compositional work in his cultural environment was hardly possible. The number of his works is not great, and there have been no publications of his own. During his lifetime only one composition appeared in print, the madrigal “Ardo si” in the collection of Giovanni Gigli da Imola (1585). The existing manuscripts of his compositions are completely in the holdings of the Munich court orchestra, with the exception of the aforementioned Tegernsee choir book with its own Magnificat composition and a Te Deum by his teacher Castileti. Only recently, following the discovery of the hitherto unknown hymn set "Cum iam renovatus", a connection to the Augsburg cathedral music director Bernhard Klingenstein became apparent, in whose two collective prints he was involved; In addition, he probably participated in Klingenstein's project to compose a polyphonic Vespers cycle that is expressly in accordance with the Roman rite that has been reformed since the Council of Trent . In the course of this reform movement, Fossa's liturgical works were also created for the Munich court chapel, which is expressed, for example, in the frequent use of cantus firmi . In general, Fossa's works, especially the parody masses , show a sovereign mastery in the use of the musical means of expression of the late Renaissance, which brings him close to Orlando di Lasso and Philippe de Monte . In the sacred works of Fossa, which were published a quarter of a century after the composer's death by Johann Donfried, perhaps somewhat adapted, features of the nascent figured bass style are recognizable. In individual works, the bass part no longer appears as an integrated “Basso seguente”, but rather very independently, for example in the piece “Missus est Gabriel”, an early sacred concert “in dialogo”.

Works

  • measure up
    • Missa “Era di mayo” with four voices
    • Missa super theutonicam cantionem "Ich segge - dieu" to four voices, presumably after Ludovicus Episcopius
    • Missa “Si du malheur” with four voices, based on Orlando di Lasso
    • Missa super cantionem “Super ripam Jordanis” with five voices, based on Jacobus Clemens non Papa
    • Missa super modular names “Quo puerum ediderat” with five voices
    • Missa super carmen italicum “Amor ecco colei” with five voices
  • Other sacred works, motets and sacred songs
    • Antiphon "Osanna filio David" for four voices, for Palm Sunday, 1584
    • Antiphon “Pueri Hebreorum portantes” for four voices, 1584
    • Antiphon “Pueri Hebreorum vestimenta” with four voices, 1584
    • “Maria tender” to five voices, in: Bernhard Klingenstein, Rosetum Marianum, Dillingen 1604
    • Set of hymns "De San Michaele" Cum iam renovatus "" with three voices (only 1 part book preserved), in: Bernhard Klingenstein, Triodia sacra, Dillingen 1605
    • "Missus est Gabriel" for four voices and basso continuo, in: Johann Donfried, Promptuari musici concentus ecclesiasticos, Strasbourg 1627
    • "Petrus Apostolus" for four voices and basso continuo, in: Johann Donfried, Promptuari (as above)
    • “Adjuro vos” for four voices and basso continuo, in: Johann Donfried, Viridarium musico-marianum, Trier 1627
    • “Stabat mater” for four voices, 1627
    • “Veni dilecti mi” to four voices, 1627
    • 2 litanies de Beatae Mariae Virginis for four voices
    • Magnificat secundi modi “Vivre ne puis sur terre” with six voices
  • madrigal
    • “Ardo si” with five voices, in Giovanni Gigli da Imola, Sdegnosi amori, Munich 1585

Literature (selection)

  • A. Sandberger: Contributions to the history of the Bavarian court orchestra under Orlando di Lasso , Volumes 1 and 3, Leipzig 1894 and 1895
  • C. di Pamparto: Emanuele Filiberte di Savoia, protettore dei musici. In: Rivista musicale italiana No. 34, 1927, pages 555-578
  • A. Auda: La Musique et les musiciens de l'ancien pays de Liège , Brussels 1930
  • EM Ennulat: Johann de Fossa and His Work , 2 volumes, dissertation at Case Western Reserve University 1971 (University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor / Michigan No. 72-6287)
  • H. Leuchtmann: Lists of names on Bavarian music history II: Music in Munich 1550–1600, 2. Faber - Lechner. In: Musik in Bayern No. 12, 1976, pages 54–68
  • Christian Thomas Leitmeir: The "Triodia sacra" (1605) as a key source for the Augsburg and Dillingen musical life of the late Renaissance. In: Music in Bavaria, dissertation

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ The Music in Past and Present (MGG), Person Part Volume 6, Bärenreiter and Metzler, 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 .
  3. ^ The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , edited by Stanley Sadie, 2nd Edition, Volume 9, McMillan, London 2001, ISBN 0-333-60800-3
personal data
SURNAME Fossa, Johannes de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fosses, Jean de; Fossa, Johannes a
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Franco-Flemish composer, singer and bandmaster of the Renaissance
DATE OF BIRTH around 1540
PLACE OF BIRTH uncertain: Fosses-la-Ville
DATE OF DEATH 1603
Place of death Munich