Philippe Basiron

Philippe Basiron (* around 1450 in Bourges ; † shortly before May 31, 1491 there ; also Baziron, Barizon, Philippon, Philippon de Bourges) was a Franco-Flemish composer , organist , singer and cleric of the early Renaissance .

Live and act

The identity of the composer, who appears in the manuscripts by different names, has been debated among music researchers for many years; that they represent one and the same person was only proven by Paula Higgins in 1990, who was able to reconstruct the greater part of Basiron's life on the basis of the documents of the Sainte-Chapelle in Bourges. It was also established that in addition to Philippe, Pierre and Johannes Basiron also worked there during this time, probably brothers of the composer.

Philippe Basiron and his brother Pierre had been among the six choirboys of the Sainte-Chapelle in Bourges, which was part of the ducal palace, since October 1458. Until March 31, 1459 Messire Jehan Gaudier alias Doucet was responsible for the living and teaching of the brothers. Between July 1458 and June 1459 there was a common disease in Bourges; the choirboy Philippe was cured of a serious infection during this time. The composer Guillaume Faugues was the magister puerorum in Bourges for three months from June 24, 1462 and probably had a great influence on the musical development of Philippe Basiron; At that time, a manicordium , a kind of clavichord with which one learned to play the organ , was expressly procured for Basiron . This speaks for Philip's special talent, which was obviously recognized and promoted. Work also continued on the church organ, which had been suspended because of the death of the last organ builder.

A special event in 1462 was the visit of Johannes Ockeghem in November. His employer, the French King Charles VII (reign 1422–1461) resided between 1451 and 1461 often in Bourges or in Méhun-sur-Yévre Castle, ten miles away . Ockeghem's influence on Basiron is shown by his sentences on Ockeghem's Chanson D'ung aultre amer . In May 1464, the direction and instruction of the choirboys was transferred to Basiron, initially only unofficially, from April 1, 1466 against payment. Around 1467 he left the maîtrise for a short time to look for support and found them in the archbishops of Bourges and Angers . From 1467 at the latest, Basiron was vicar at the cathedral and regularly received natural goods and financial resources from the chapter , also for clothing.

On February 4, 1469, with the support of the aforementioned archbishops and the treasurer of the French king, he was elected head (Magister) of the choirboys, whereby the previous holder of this office, Johannes Laloyer, got a different position. Basiron remained in this office until 1474; here it was his task to educate the boys and to teach them the virtues, to provide for their livelihood and to give them musical instruction, including playing instruments. The young people did not always adhere to the statutes and the chapter frequently issued admonitions. In a dispute over a prebend in 1471, Basiron prevailed over the chapter with the help of the French king. He was now also a law student, but was still able to fulfill his duties at the Saint-Chapelle.

On February 11, 1474 François Maugis took over the office of singing master of the choirboys. It is not known where Basiron turned from this time on, because the files of the Sainte-Chapelle from 1474 have not survived. Possibly he went to Orléans , where an organist named Philippe Bourges worked until 1481 . In the late 1480s he had returned and took over a vicariate with beneficiary at the church Saint-Pierre-le-Guillard in Bourges, a branch church of the Sainte-Chapelle, where a house with a garden belonged. On May 31, 1491, King Charles VIII recommended that the vacated vicariate be given to Johannes Basiron, chaplain of the Sainte-Chapelle and brother of Philip; this suggests that Philippe Basiron had died shortly before.

Pierre Basiron, of about the same age as Philippe and a choirboy with him, became prior of the Notre-Dame-de-la-Comtale monastery in Bourges in 1469. He took over a canon in 1517 and died in 1529. Johannes Basiron, born around 1460, was first mentioned in 1475 and proposed in 1491 for the vicariate of his deceased brother. In the first half of 1495 he temporarily lost his income due to an excommunication and got it again on condition that he support his mother financially. He died in early September 1495.

meaning

Philippe Basiron already had an outstanding reputation as a composer during his lifetime. Duke Ercole I d'Este of Ferrara asked in a letter dated March 24, 1484 to send him a copy of the new Missa L'homme armé . The music theorist Franchinus Gaffurius (1451–1522) expressed himself in his Pratica musicae (Milan 1496) with admiration of Basiron's music; the poet Guillaume Crétin named him in his Déploration sur le trépas de Jean Ockeghem (1497) a deceased colleague of Johannes Ockeghem, and the musician and poet Eloy d'Amerval praised him as one of the in his epic poem Livre de la deablerie (1508) great French composers of the past century.

The masses and motets by Philippe Basiron exemplify the sacred polyphony of France in the last quarter of the 15th century. His contribution to the tradition of the L'homme armé masses is particularly close to the corresponding masses by Guillaume Dufay and Guillaume Faugues in terms of style and method. His three motets with a Marian content are resourceful and skilful works and make use of many compositional design possibilities of his era. After all, the traditional songs by Philippe Basiron are characteristic examples of the “ Burgundian ” chanson style.

Works

• measure up
  • “Missa da Franza” with four voices
  • “Missa l'homme armé” with four votes (mentioned as new in Ferrara on March 24, 1484);
  • “Missa Regina caeli” with four voices
  • "Missa D'ung aultre amer" (attributed to Philippe Basiron, by "Dean" Basiron; attributed by Reynolds to Loyset Compère , relations with Guillaume Faugues ' "Missa Serviteur").
• Motets
  • “Inviolata integra et casta” with four voices
  • “Regina caeli” with four voices
  • "Salve regina" for four voices (also attributed to Johannes Ockeghem)
• Chansons
  • “De m'esjouir plus n'ay puissance”, rondeau with three voices
  • “D'ung aultre amer” I for four voices (Cantus firmus “L'homme armé”);
  • “D'ung aultre amer” II to four voices
  • “Je le sçay bien”, Rondeau to three votes
  • “Nul ne l'a tele”, Bergerette to three voices, quotes Discantus from 'Je ne viz onques la pareille' by Guillaume Dufay or Gilles Binchois or Antoine Busnoys
  • “Tant fort me tarde”, Rondeau to three votes
• Doubtful works (Philippe Basiron's authorship unlikely)
  • Missa "Help and give advice" to four voices (attributed to "Philippus" or "Philippus Franc")
  • Sanctus and Agnus Dei for three voices (no modern edition available)
  • "Regina caeli" with three voices (no modern edition available)
  • “Mari de par sa mere” to four votes
  • "Rosa playsant" with three or four voices (partly attributed to "Phelippon", but partly to Firminus Caron and Johannes Dusart )

literature

• E. vander Straten: La Musique aux Pay-Bas avant le XIXe siècle , Volume 6, Brussels 1882
• Robert J. Snow: The Manuscript Strahov DGIV.47 , dissertation at the University of Illinois Urbana 1968 (University Microfilms International No. 6901456)
• Paula Higgins: Music and Musicians at the Saint-Chapelle of the Bourges Palace, 1405-1415 , in: Congress Report International Musicological Society 1987, Volume 3, Turin 1990, pages 689-701
• Same: Tracing the Careers of Late Medieval Composers: the Case of Philippe Basiron of Bourges , in: Acta musicologica No. 62, 1990, pages 1-28
• A. Lindmayr: Source studies for the motets by Johannes Ockeghem , Laaber 1990, pages 209–214 (= New Heidelberg Studies on Musicology No. 16)
• R. Birkendorf: The Codex Pernner. Source studies on a musical manuscript from the early 16th century (Regensburg, Bischöfliche Zentralbibliothek, Coll. Cod. Ms.C 10), 3 volumes, Augsburg 1994 (= Collectanea Musicologica no. 6, pages 1–3)

Web links

• Sheet music and audio files by Philippe Basiron in the International Music Score Library Project
• Sheet music in the public domain by Philippe Basiron in the Choral Public Domain Library - ChoralWiki (English)
• Literature by and about works by and about in the catalog of the German National Library

swell

1. ↑ The Music in Past and Present (MGG), Person Part Volume 2, Bärenreiter Verlag Kassel and Basel 1999, ISBN 3-7618-1112-8
2. ^ Franz Andreas Weißenbäck: SACRA MUSICA , Lexicon of Catholic Church Music, 1937