Tielman Susato

Woodcut by Tielman Susato offering one of his works for sale

Tielman Susato , also Tylmann Susato and Tilmann Susato (* around 1510-1515 probably in Soest ; † after 1570 possibly in Sweden ), was a music publisher , Franco-Flemish composer and instrumentalist of the Renaissance .

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Susato's year of birth comes approximately from a notarial document from the year 1565, which contains the information "out omtrent L jaeren" (about fifty years old). It is uncertain whether he was a son of Tielman the blynden , who is mentioned in a Cologne document from 1508. On the other hand, it is very likely that his family name Susato refers to the town of Soest, so he is of German descent. Almost nothing is known about Susato's early years and education. His name appears for the first time in 1529 as a scribe and copyist in the service of the Brotherhood of Our Lady at the Church of Our Lady Antwerp . From 1531 he was a member of the Antwerp Town Musicians for 18 years; he played the instruments flute , recorder , Krummhorn , field trumpet and trombone , and perhaps also the evening prayer of the brotherhood accompanied. In the early 1530s, he married Elisabeth Peltz, who was a sister of the head of the Marian Brotherhood; his children were Jacob († 1564), who also became a printer, as well as Clara and Katharyna.

In 1541 there was a business collaboration with the printers Hendrik ter Bruggen and Willem van Vissenaken , but this did not last long. After all, the collection “Quatuor vocum musicae modulationes”, the first Antwerp edition to be printed in just one operation with movable note types, was created during this period. Susato probably also opened a trade in musical instruments. The collaboration with Bruggen ended in 1542 when the latter's share was paid out, and Vissenaken lost its share in a legal process to Susato in 1544. The city of Antwerp had already supported him with subsidies for his new line of business, after there had only been music publishers in Germany, Italy and France. In 1543 he got a three-year printing privilege and opened a printing house, which he moved in 1551 to the house "Den Cromhorn" in the north of Antwerp. After the first printing privilege expired, he switched to the publication of sacred music in particular and brought out the first collections of masses and motets .

When Emperor Charles V and his son Philip moved into the city of Antwerp in 1549, Susato was accused of misconduct as a member of the city band, and he was dismissed as a city musician; At the same time, he was initially denied a new printing privilege, which was specifically intended for his eleventh chanson book . It was only given to him after the intervention of the Brussels conductor Benedictus Appenzeller . On the front pages of his last four publications from 1561 there were references to the city of Alkmaar , where Susatos music books could be bought. In the same year he moved his residence there, while the Antwerp business was continued by his son Jacob, who had started the business three years earlier. His move was perhaps motivated by his Calvinist attitude, for which he could count on greater tolerance in the northern Netherlands. Susato got 1561 positions in the administration of the city and in 1563 became a board member of the water and soil association of the region there.

A few months after Susato's will was drawn up on August 6, 1564, his wife Elisabeth Peltz died. The following year Susato took part in the diplomatic activities of his son-in-law Arnold Rosenberger and came to Stockholm as a messenger to the Swedish royal court . There are documents here according to which he had to answer twice before the Swedish Supreme Court; but in the end he was acquitted. Susato worked as a German scribe in Stockholm until 1570, after which his trace is lost.

meaning

Tielman Susato: Bergerette Sans Roch (ca.1550).

Through the activity of Susato, the Netherlands has established itself as the country of musical printing; after him, Pierre Phalèse , Jan Bellerus , Christoph Plantin and Jan de Laet also founded music publishers in Antwerp. The main meaning of Susato is based on his work as a music publisher; he could produce eight books a year. He used a sheet music type that was only used by him until 1551, or a somewhat smaller one that was also used by other European music printers. In the years between 1543 and 1561 he published three volumes of mass compositions, 19 books of motets and 22 books of chansons , as well as a series of eleven volumes of Musyck Boexken . The majority of his publications were anthologies with works by several composers. Individual prints were dedicated to Thomas Crécquillon ( Le Tiers Livre de Chansons , 1544), Josquin Desprez ( Le Septiesme Livre , 1545) and Pierre de Manchicourt ( Le Neufiesme Livre des chansons , 1545). The collection ( Le Quatoiriesme Livre des chansons , 1555), which contains 29 compositions by Orlando di Lasso , is an important early source by this composer. The Musyck Boexken series includes polyphonic Dutch songs, old Flemish dances, psalm settings and souterliedekens by Jacobus Clemens non Papa and his pupil Gherardus Mes . The first two books in this series represent the most comprehensive collection of Dutch polyphonic songs from this period; With them, Susato can be seen as a pioneer and driving force for the expansion and dissemination of this music, mostly as table music for middle-class and aristocratic household use. Other composers who were featured in Susato's publications are Benedictus Appenzeller, Josquin Baston , Antoine Barbé , Gheerkin de Hondt , Lupus Hellinck , Nicolas Liégeois , Carolus Souliaert , Johannes Ghiselin and Jheronimus Vinders . With his Derde musyck boexken , the first printed collection of Dutch dances with four-part homophonic pieces by himself based on well-known songs, Susato decisively promoted this genre.

From Tielman Susato's compositions, first of all, his 91 chansons should be mentioned in terms of genre; they are mostly based on the well-known models of French and Dutch origin; with his two- and three-part pieces he is considered one of the most productive masters in the Netherlands in the second half of the 16th century. Their structure suggests that they had an educational background and were perhaps intended for amateur musicians. He also wrote a parody mass , “In illo tempore” (1545), based on his own motet. Six of his seven motets were published not only by himself, but also by other music publishers.

Works

• Sacred musical works
  • “Musica donum Dei optime” with six parts, 1540
  • “Fili quid fecisti” to four votes, 1542
  • “Domine da nobis” to four voices, 1545
  • “In illo tempore” for five voices, 1545
  • Missa “In illo tempore” for five voices, 1546
  • “Salve quae roseo decora serto” for five voices (hymn to Antwerp), 1546
  • “Nihil homini firmum” for two votes, 1549
  • “Peccata mea Domine” for five voices, 1554
  • 10 Souterliedekens for three voices, 1556
• Secular musical works
  • 31 chansons in the Premier livre des chansons for two to three voices, 1544
  • 30 chansons in the tiers livre des chansons for two to three voices, 1552
  • 30 chansons with four to six voices in 8 editions, 1543–1552
  • 6 Dutch songs, 1551
• Flemish instrumental music
  • Het derde musyck boexken […] alderhande danserye , 1551
• Publications (original prints)
  • “Vingt et Six Chansons musicales” for five voices, 1543
  • “Le premier [-XIV] Livre des chansons” with four to eight voices, 1543–1555
  • “Liber I [-III] missarum” with four to five voices, 1545/46
  • “Liber I [-IV] sacrarum cantionum” with four to five voices, 1546/47
  • "Het I [-II] musyck boexken", Dutch songs for four voices, 1551
  • Tielman Susato, “Het III musyck boexken”, dances for four voices, 1551
  • “La Fleur des chansons […] livre I [-IV]” with two to four voices, 1552 (in volume 3 only two to three-part compositions by Susato)
  • "Liber I [-XIV] ecclesiasticarum cantionum" with four to five voices, 1553–1558 (Liber XIII missing)
  • Clemens non Papa, "Souterliedekens I – IV" with three voices, 1556/57 (= Het IV – VII musyck boexken)
  • Orlande de Lassus, “Liber XV ecclesiasticarum cantionum” with five to six votes, 1560
  • Gherardus Mes, "Souterliedekens V – VIII" with four voices, 1561 (= Het VIII – XI musyck boeck)
• Doubtful and incorrect attributions
  • Clemens non Papa, "Motecta" with five voices (ascribed to Susato by Alphonse Goovaerts in 1880)
  • Madrigals and Canzoni francesi for five voices (attributed to Susato by François-Joseph Fétis in 1844, probably printed by Waelrant and Laet in 1558)
  • Evangelia dominicorum in six parts, Nuremberg 1554–1556 (attributed to Susato by Alphonse Goovaerts in 1880, actually printed by Berg & Neuber)

Literature (selection)

• Gustave Reese: Music in the Renaissance , Norton, New York 1954, ISBN 0-393-09530-4 .
• JC Kliewer: Tylman Susato and His Ecclesiasticae Cantiones , Rochester 1958.
• Ute Meissner: The Antwerp sheet music printer Tylman Susato: A bibliographical study of the Dutch chanson publication in the first half of the 16th century (2 volumes, Berlin Studies in Musicology, Volume 11; also a dissertation at the Free University of Berlin). Merseburger, Berlin 1967.
• K. Forney: Tielman Susato, Sixteenth-century Music Printer: an Archival ans Typographical Investigation , dissertation at the University of Kentucky 1978.
• Ute Schwab: Tylman Susato: sheet music printer and music publisher. In: Heinz-Dieter Heimann (Hrsg.): Von Soest - from Westphalia: Ways and effects of migrated Westphalia in the late Middle Ages and in the early modern period. Schöningh, Paderborn 1986, ISBN 3-506-73908-5 , pp. 61-77.
• T. McTaggart: Susato's Musyck Boexken I and II: Music for a Flemish Middle Class. In: E. Schreurs, H. Vanhulst: Music Printing in Antwerp in the 16th Century. Leuven 1995, pp. 307-332.
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , edited by Stanley Sadie, 2nd Edition, Volume 24, McMillan, London 2001, ISBN 0-333-60800-3 .
• Keith Polk (Ed.): Tielman Susato and the Music of His Time. Print Culture, Compositional Technique and Instrumental Music in the Renaissance. Pendragon Press, Hillsdale / New York 2005, ISBN 1-57647-106-3 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).

Web links

Commons : Tielman Susato  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Works by and about Tielman Susato in the catalog of the German National Library
• Sheet music and audio files by Tielman Susato in the International Music Score Library Project
• Sheet music in the public domain by Tielman Susato in the Choral Public Domain Library - ChoralWiki (English)
• Tielman Susato in the Dutch online encyclopedia ENCYCLO.NL

swell

1. ↑ Sofie Taes:  Susato, Tielman. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 16 (Strata - Villoteau). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2006, ISBN 3-7618-1136-5 , Sp. 301–304 ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
2. ↑ Marc Honegger, Günther Massenkeil (ed.): The great lexicon of music. Volume 8: Štich - Zylis-Gara. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau a. a. 1982, ISBN 3-451-18058-8 .
3. ↑ Susato: Het derde musykboexken. 1553.
4. ↑ The first two movements of the four-part piece are modifications of the Basse danse “Sans roch” published by Pierre Attaignant in 1529 . See Hans Dagobert Bruger (Ed.): Pierre Attaignant, two and three-part solo pieces for the lute. Möseler Verlag, Wolfenbüttel / Zurich 1926, p. 18 f. and 34.
5. ↑ Alfred Zschiesche: Altflämische Dances (1551) for two guitars. B. Schott's Sons, Mainz (=  Edition. 5236).