Created in Paris in 1978, the Ensemble Clément Janequin performs sacred and secular vocal music of the Renaissance, from Josquin to Monteverdi. Their inimitable performances of the 16th Century French chanson have revealed what is now appreciated to be one of the Golden Ages in the history of French music, their recordings for harmonia mundi, Les cris de Paris, Le chant des oyseaulx, Fricassée parisienne and La chasse being considered as benchmark interpretations. With tremendous appeal to a broad audience, these works by Janequin, Sermizy, Lassus, Lejeune and numerous others abound in the stylistic contrasts so dear to the Renaissance: the touching lyricism of the chanson amoureuse, the earthy humour of the chanson rustique that draws upon popular farce, the sounds of war, nature and street cries - a unique marriage of popular and high Renaissance culture.
The Ensemble Clément Janequin has performed extensively throughout the world, often with the support of Culturesfrance, formerly the AFAA. They have performed in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Wigmore Hall in London, the Cité de la musique in Paris, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the York and Boston Early Music Festivals, the Styrarte Festival in Graz, and in 2007 were 'ensemble in residence' in the 'Laus Polyphoniae’ in Antwerp, one of the world's leading early music festivals. The ensemble has also recently toured Spain, Belgium, Canada and the United States, and performed in the 2009 Cervantino Festival in Mexico. It is a regular visitor to Japan as well as the Innsbruck Early Music Festival. In December 2008, the Ensemble Clément Janequin celebrated its 30th aniversary at the Théâtre des Abbesses in Paris.
The Ensemble also performs contemporary music and now proposes programmes ranging from Renaissance music to contemporary music, such "L'Ecrit du Cri" at the Phénix theatre in Valenciennes on the theme of street cries, or the Philippe Manoury's 'Missa Obscura' commissioned by the Automne en Normandie Festival. Dominique Visse is preparing a new programme on the theme of animals to be performed in the Radio France series in December 2010.
In 2010 the ensemble takes part in a conference on their eponymous composer, Clément Janequin, with concerts at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and in Janequin's native town, Châtellerault. Their other 2010 performances include the Wigmore Hall in London, the Tarentaise Festival, ‘Laus Polyphoniae’ in Antwerp, the Académie Francis Poulenc in Tours and in the Festival d’île de France.
The Ensemble’s recordings of sacred music include Mass & Motets by Claude Le Jeune, Psaumes de la Réforme celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Edit de Nantes in 1598, and the astonishing 12 part mass Et ecce terrae motus by Antoine Brumel, which was disc of the month in Gramophone. Their more recent secular music recordings, Canciones y Ensaladas, Une Fête chez Rabelais, Les plaisirs du palais and Autant en emporte le vent (Claude Lejeune) have all won numerous prizes around the world, the Canciones y Ensaladas winning the Gramophone Award in 1998. ‘L’Écrit du Cri’, a programme of pieces inspired by street cries from the Renaissance to the present day, and initiated by the Phénix theatre in Valenciennes, was released in June 2009.
The Ensemble Clément Janequin has recently taken part in a recording entitled ‘Fay ce que vouldras’ with the Sacqueboutiers de Toulouse, to be released at the end of 2010 on the Flora label.
July 2010
Top | Sacred Music Programmes
Secular Music Programmes
'L’Hexacorde amoureux' chansons by Guillaume Costeley
'Nature ornant la dame' - Blasons & contre-blasons
Renaissance chansons & contemporary works
'Les plaisirs du palais'
'Les cris de Paris'
'Le chant des oyseaulx'
'François 1st & Charles 5th' - Enemies of State
'Tout ce qui est de plus beau' - chansons de Claude Lejeune
'L'écrit du cri' - cries from the Renaissance to the present day
'Approche de l'ombre' - Philippe Manoury 'Missa Obscura', Déplorations de la Renaissance
'L’Hexacorde amoureux'
'Soyent tes chants,Costeley, l’avant jeu gratieus'
chansons by Guillaume Costeley
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
6 singers, organ/spinet & lute
« L’Amour juvénile » :
Puis que la loy trespure et saincte
Allon au vert boccage
Quand le berger veid la bergère
Arreste un peu mon cœur (dialogue de l’homme à son cœur)
Fantaisie Épinette
J’ayme trop mieux souffrir [Lute & organ]
« L’Amour courtoys » :
Mignone allon voir si la Roze
Puis que ce beau mois
Je t’aime, ma belle, ta dance me plait (responce)
En ce beau moys, en ce temps nouvellet
Le plus grand bien qu’on sache point [Lute & spinette]
« L’Amour plaintif » :
Bouche qui n’as point de semblable
Je plains le temps de ma jeunesse folle
Fy du plaisir qui mille ennuis attire
Prise de Calais : Hardis Françoys
Sy de beauté vous estiez moins parfaite [Organ]
« L’Amour malheureux » :
Seigneur Dieu ta pitié s’estende dessus moy
Je voy des glissantes eaux
L’an et le moys, le jour, l’heure et moment
Amour tu fais de noz cœurs [Lute]
« L’amour frivole » :
Grosse garce noire et tendre
La terre les eaux va buvant
Elle craint l’esperon
Mercy n’aura qui ne prend à mercy [Lute & Organ]
« L’amour vollé » :
Que vaut Catin ceste fuitte frivole ?
Las je n’yray plus, je n’yray pas jouer
Pourquoy amour n’a il plus de flambeau
Top | Secular Music Programmes
'Nature ornant la dame'
Blasons et contre-blasons - Renaissance chansons & contemporary works
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
5 singers & lute / organ
Blason du beau tétin, Clément Marot / Janequin
Blason du laid tétin, Clément Marot / Non papa
Marie vous avez la joue vermeille, Ronsard
O beaux cheveux d'argent, Du Bellay
Vous faites voir vos os quand vous riez, Paul Scaron
Le front, Maurice Scève
Le blason, Georges Brassens
commissions by
Régis Campo & Vincent Bouchot
with chansons bearing female names:
Ronsard poems to Marie, Cassandre and Hélène set by Bertrand, Janequin, Costeley and others, and chansons on Marion, Colette, Perette, as shepardess, 'mignone Meusnière' or 'catin', from the sweet voice of the loving wife to the chatterbox caquet'...
Top | Secular Music Programmes
'Les plaisirs du palais'
A Palindromic Banquet of Franco-Flemish Music
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
5 singers, lute & organ
Loyset Compère c1445-1518
Nous sommes de l'ordre de saint Babouin
Clemens non Papa c1510-1555/6
Priere devant le repas : O souverain Pasteur
Roland de Lassus ?1530-1594
Lucescit
Tylman Susato c1510/15-1570
Maulgre moy
Clément Janequin c1485-c1558
Martin menoit son pourceau
Nicolas Gombert c1495-c1560
La chasse du lievre
Guillaume Morlaye c1510- c1558
Branles d’Ecosse & Romaine [Luth solo]
Ninot le Petit c1500
N’as tu poinct mis ton haut bonnet
Clemens non Papa
Une fillette bien goriere
Rocourt fl.1540-50
Plaindre ny vault
Clément Janequin
Du beau Tétin
Josquin Despres c1450/5-1521
Déploration sur la mort de Jehan Ockeghem
Interval
Benedictus Appenzeller c1480/88 ap.1558
Musæ Jovis
Clemens non Papa
Du laid tétin
Christianus de Hollandre c1510/15-1568/9
Plaisir nay plus
Clément Janequin
Il estoit une fillette
Ninot le Petit
Mon amy m'avoit promis
Guillaume Morlaye
Prélude & Romaine [Luth solo]
Clément Janequin
La chasse du cerf
Claudin de Sermizy c1490-1562
Je ne mange point de porc
Eustache Barbion né c1556
Pour quelque paine que j’endure
Claudin de Sermizy
Hau, hau je boys
Tylman Susato
Priere apres le repas : Pere esternel
Top | Secular Music Programmes
"Les plaisirs du palais"
A Palindromic Banquet of Franco-Flemish Music
Drinking, feasting, drinking, hunting, more drinking, and seduction (or downright
debauchery) were the sensual pleasures of a Renaissance court. But there
were subtler, more intellectual pleasures too: music, dancing, comedy, poetry,
and a love of cleverness or caprice – what a 16th-century Englishman might
have called a fancy or conceit. In this programme we have a banquet
of these sensual and intellectual pleasures, captured in music and dressed in
the sort of conceit a Renaissance mind would have adored – a palindrome
around the interval such that the second half of the concert is a mirror image
of the first. (Compare the positions in the programme of 'Du beau Tétin'
and 'Du laid tétin' or 'La chasse du lievre' and 'La chasse du cerf' to
see the palindrome at work.) And to push the conceit a step further, the
reflections in this mirror are sometimes reverse images: the beautiful and the
ugly, for instance, or a musician at one moment the source, the next the object,
of a lament on the death of a composer.
Music and death mark the turning-points in this palindrome. Josquin's Nymphes
des bois is a celebrated lament ('déploration') on the death of the composer
Ockeghem, reproducing the introit of the Requiem mass in the tenor and finding
several other echos of the older composer's musical style. Then Appenzeller
similarly cites Josquin's own demise in his Latin motet Musae jovis. Clemens
non Papa and Janequin each supply ruminations on a more earthy theme – the
female breast (the tétin songs) – an object of delight for Janequin,
but the very opposite for Clemens. Four songs on the pains of life (Maulgre
moy, Plaindre ny vault, Plaisir nay plus and Pour quelque paine) are balanced
by four songs on the pleasures of love (Une fillette and Il estoit une fillette)
and its perils (N'as tu poinct mis and Mon amy m'avoit promis).
Pigs have been inexplicably underused as a source of great inspiration for song-writers
over the centuries, but two make comical appearances in these songs. In
each case there is a cautionary tale. In Sermizy's Je ne mange point, the
indelicate eating habits of a pig are cited as a good reason for not eating pork,
whilst in Janequin's narrative Martin menoit, Martin's amorous interlude on the
way to market is interrupted at the moment of truth when the pig, tied to his
lover's leg for safekeeping, understandably takes fright. Animals fare
little better in the two hunting songs, La chasse du cerf (the stag hunt) and
La chasse du lievre (the hare hunt), though it is the hunting dogs which take
centre stage and provide many of the vivid sound effects in the songs. In
fact, much of each chanson is a dialogue involving the hound and his master with
the hound having plenty to contribute. The hare hunt ends in a tavern for
a feast within a feast, and no doubt the perfect opportunity for a pair of drinking
songs such as Sermizy's Hau, hau je boys or, for that more discerning drunkard,
Lassus's half-Latin Lucescit.
Of the list of courtly pleasures only dancing is under-represented. But
Guillaume Morlaye's Branles d'Ecosse (Scottish branle) was a regional variant
of a popular circle or paired dance, and the Romaine (Romanesca) was a repeating
chord sequence that was frequently used as the basis for dance music.
This musical banquet is framed by two prayers (O souverain and Pere esternel))
for before and after the meal. They are the start and end-points of the
palindrome and, along with the déplorations surrounding the interval,
are opportunities for a little more serious-minded reflection on the joys and
tribulations of life. But it is Compère's appetizer Nous sommes
de l'ordre de Saint Babouin ('We are of the brotherhood of drunkards') with its
offerings of food, wine, sex and music, which best captures the spirit of the
occasion: 'good wine … red herring salad … a pretty girl
in our arms … and trumpets, bugles, and silver drums when we wake'.
Most of the composers featured here came from the region we now associate with
northern France and the Netherlands, a legacy of the great musical culture that
had surrounded the 15th-century court of Burgundy. Only Morlaye, Sermizy
and Janequin were of certain French origin. Of Ninot le Petit we know too
little to be sure. Most learned their craft and partly made a living as
church and Cathedral musicians, such as Barbion at Notre Dame in Courtrai, and
Rocourt at Liège Cathedral. They were sometimes closely connected: Gombert
was probably Josquin's pupil; Appenzeller, at the Flemish court, helped secure
printing rights for Susato (who, like Guillaume Morlaye, was an instrumentalist
as well as a music publisher and composer); Susato in turn had a business relationship
with Clemens non Papa. Above all, most of them were employed by a royal
or noble patron at some time or another in their careers, and would have witnessed
courtly pleasures at close quarters. Thus Josquin and Loyset Compère
both worked for Sforzas of Milan amongst others, Nicolas Gombert for the Holy
Roman Emperor Charles V (before being sent to the galleys for inappropriate conduct
with a choirboy), Clemens non Papa worked for one of Charles's greatest generals,
Philip Duc de Croy, Lassus for Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria, and Sermizy and (late
in his career) Janequin for the Valois Kings François I and Henri II,
the former amongst France's greatest Renaissance patrons of the arts.
The distinction between Netherlandish and French composers is often seen as being
partly one of musical style, with the Northerners masters of a severe and richly
elaborate imitative counterpoint (Josquin's 'Déploration' being an example),
and the generation of Sermizy and Janequin ushering in a new style of lighter
and simpler, more melody-based song, sometimes called Parisian chansons because
of where they were published. But the nature of most of these works, richly
descriptive and evocative as they are, plays down such differences. The
programmatic chanson calls for inventive textures, rhythmic dynamism, and skilful
interaction of voices that is no less impressive in the hands of Janequin, say,
who acquired a considerable reputation for this type of song during his career,
than any of the Netherlanders.
Jonathan Le Cocq, 7/vi/04
Top | Secular Music Programmes
'Les cris de Paris'
The Parisian chanson
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
5 singers, lute & organ
Anonyme
Triquedon daine
Le Heurteur
Hellas amour
Mirelaridon
Claudin de Sermizy c1490-1562
Tant que vivray
Dont vient cela
La, la maistre Pierre
Au joly boys
Aupres de vous
Pierre Attaingnant (ed 1529) [luth solo]
Prélude, Le jaulne et le blanc
Anonyme
Fricassée
Gentian
Je suis Robert
Pierre Sandrin c1490-c1561
Doulce mémoire
De Lafont
A ce matin
Pierre Certon died 1572
En langissant avoir secours j’attens
La la la je ne l’ose dire
De Bussy
Las il n’a nul mal qui n’a le mal d’amour
Passereau fl1509-47
Il est bel et bon
Interval
Clément Janequin c1485-1558
Les cris de Paris
Il estoit une fillette
La meusniere de Vernon
La guerre
Guillaume Morlaye c1510-c1558 [luth solo]
Gaillardes - La Lucretia, La Bianca
La Pompoiane
Clément Janequin
Le chant des oylseaulx
Qu'est-ce d'amour
O mal d’aymer
La chasse
Top | Secular Music Programmes
Les cris de Paris
The Parisian 'chanson'
For a sixteenth-century musician Paris meant many things. It was the location of the principal (though by no means the only) residences of the largely itinerant French court, which under François 1ère was the centre of musical patronage in France. It was also a training ground, where, say, a singer and composer like Claudin de Sermisy could learn his craft as a minor cleric in the Sainte Chapelle (the parish Church on the Ile de la Cité) or where, at the other end of his career, the ageing Clément Janequin could still register himself as music student in the great University. Not least, it was a melting pot of musical and literary ideas. From one chanson to the next one could hear texts ranging from the perennial theme of unrequited courtly love (Hellas amour) to raunchy bodice-ripping yarns (Un jour Robin), or slightly less explicit rustic songs (Mirelaridon) sometimes on the theme of the malmarié or cuckolded husband (La meusniere de Vernon), and evocative descriptions of all manner of social or anti-social activities such as hunts (La chasse) battles (La guerre) and street cries (Les cris de Paris). These could be set to musical styles including the refined counterpoint of the traditional chanson, simpler tuneful songs in the fashionable 'new style', or to the scintillating virtuosic textures of the narrative or descriptive chanson. Time blunts the edges of distinctions like these for later generations, but to a Renaissance musician the choice might have been as acute as that of a composer nowadays between atonal avant-garde or semi-popular musical styles.
It would be reasonable to call a song in any musical style cultivated in Paris a 'Parisian chanson', but in fact the label has become attached particularly to the style of simpler, melodic song which is perfectly encapsulated in Sermizy's celebrated Tant que vivray. These are songs which have a strong melody in the top voice, clear phrases and cadence points, relatively little counterpoint and in some cases repeated verses – all characteristics which bring simple elegance and textual clarity to the fore. This labelling has as much to do with the great Parisian music publisher Pierre Attaingnant as with any musician. In the late 1520s, from his printery close to the Pont St Michel, he began producing collection after collection of 'chansons nouvelles' – songs in the latest style by Parisian musicians like Claudin de Sermizy (the top court composer by the 1530s), Pierre Certon (choir master at the Sainte Chapelle), and Pierre Sandrin, like Sermizy a member of the Royal Chapel until lured away to Italy. Attaingnant was closely in touch with the French court and its musical fashions, obtaining a valuable copyright from the King in 1528 and a decade later becoming Royal Printer of Music, and so was ideally placed to act as a conduit between courtly taste and the wider Parisian market.
That some of these songs were very popular we can see from the extent of their reproduction and emulation. Attaingnant's first printed anthology of 1528 contained songs reprinted or rearranged frequently in the following years. Tant que vivray reappeared as an instrumental and as a lute-song almost immediately in 1529. (The same collection contains the instrumental reworking of the anonymous Le jaulne et blanc.) Aupres de vous, probably by Sermizy but also ascribed to Jacotin, is the basis for the anonymous Fricassée which Attaingnant published in 1531, a cleverly nonsensical chanson made up of lines from songs that had appeared in other Attaingnant prints of the previous four years (amongst them Tant que vivray and Dont vient cela). Identifying the textual and musical references in this publisher's catalogue of a song would have posed a delightful or, given the difficulty of disentangling the various texts, frustrating challenge for the connoisseur of the Parisian chanson. Sandrin's melancholy, pavane-like Doulce mémoire, first published by Attaingnant in 1538, was adapted literally dozens of times during the rest of the century, becoming amongst other things the basis for two mass settings by the great contrapuntalists Orlande de Lassus and Cipriano da Rore. This outstanding success might have something to do with the author of the text who could have been the court poet Clément Marot, but was most likely King François himself, writing a lament for his homeland during his imprisonment in Italy following the battle of Pavia in 1525.
Just as popular, and as widely adapted by instrumentalists at least, were the brilliant descriptive chansons of Clément Janequin. Works such as La guerre (The war), Le chant des oylseaulx (Bird song) and La chasse (The hunt) are full of onomatopeic effects like fanfares or barking dogs, usually exploiting short, repetitive melodic patterns interwoven with lively rhythmic inventiveness. These represent a very different style of Parisian chanson from Tant que vivray, though one no less closely associated with the Attaingnant presses. Le chant des oylseaulx includes the 'Paris starling' in its list of amorous birds, but for truly Parisian credentials one cannot do better than Les cris de Paris, which paints a lively picture of Parisian street cries. In the midst of these, the invitation to 'whet your whistle' in the 'rue de la Harpe' is particularly apt given that this was the address of Attaingnant's printery in the Latin quarter, and a tavern there would be a likely watering hole for Parisian composers visiting their publisher.
Janequin only settled in Paris in the 1540s, though it is clear that his connections with the French court began much earlier, and Attaingnant published his works right from the start. Other provincial musicians who found their way through the Attaingnant presses by writing in the new Parisian styles included Guillaume Le Heurteur, a priest and canon at St Martin in Tours, and Passereau, variously linked to Cambrai and Bourges Cathedrals, though he also seems to have served under François 1ère prior to the latter's accession to the throne. Like Janequin, Passereau specialised in the narrative or descriptive style, and his Il est bel et bon, with its marvellously cacophonous clucking hens, was popular enough to have been sung in the streets of Venice according to one source. Le Heurteur's Hellas amour is closer to the lyrical Parisian style, though with more contrapuntal detail than in the purest examples. We know very little about Gentian and De Bussy, but one suspects that a minor Parisian musician would have had more success in getting published by Attaingnant than a provincial one.
Guillaume Morlaye was certainly based in Paris, at least until about 1560. He worked as a lutenist, editor, composer, and slave-trader amongst other things. By the late 1550s when his music appeared, the Attaingnant firm was nearing the end of its life, and Morlaye had a publishing arrangement with the smaller firm of Michel Fezandat. But his lute and guitar music includes adaptations of Parisian chansons as well as pieces like the gaillarde – a lively dance in triple time. The gaillardes based on Italian tunes owe something to the Italian lutenist Pietro Paulo Borrono, and appeared in a manuscript that was only comparatively recently ascribed to Morlaye. It was one which he probably compiled when his days in Paris were becoming a distant memory.
Jonathan Le Cocq, November 2004
Top | Secular Music Programmes
'Le chant des oyseaulx'
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
5 singers, lute & guitar
Clément Janequin (c1485-1558)
Ce moy de may
A ce joly moys de may
Bel aubepin verdissant
M’amye a eut de Dieu le don
Va Rossignol
Si le coqu en ce moys
Herbes et fleurs
Le chant de l’ alouette
Adrian Le Roy c1520-1598 [guitar solo]
Prélude (ed1552)
Grégoire Brayssing fl1547-1560 [guitar solo]
L’alouette d’après Clément Janequin
(ed 1553)
Clément Janequin
Sur l’aubepin qui est en fleur
Au verd boys
Si Dieu vouloit que je fusse arondelle
Or vien ça, vien
Quelqu’un me disoit l’autre jour
Le chant des oylseaulx
Interval
Claude Lejeune 1528/30-1600
Voicy du gay printemps (2 parts)
Débat la noste trill' en may
Tu ne l'entends pas
Qu'est devenu ce bel oeil
Le chant de l'alouette (3 parts)
Adrian Le Roy [guitar solo]
Quand viendra la clarté (Arcadelt)
Grégoire Brayssing [guitar solo]
Fantaisie des grues
Claude Lejeune
L’aute joun
Le chant du Rossignol
Débat la noste trill' en may
Top | Secular Music Programmes
"Le chant des oylseaulx"
Springtime and birdsong have for centuries been connected with love and music in the imaginations of poets. One reason for this association is the metaphor of awakening: that of birds in the dawn chorus, of nature in the month of May, and of feeling, sensual, affectionate or sexual, in the heart of a lover. Another reason for connecting birds, spring, love and music is the common ground of exuberance – the exuberance of uninhibited full-throated song, say, captured in poetry by the image of birdsong, and in music by the human voice, exploiting the singer's capacity both to imitate the calls of birds, and to couple them with metaphorical associations in words. The Renaissance is unusually rich in songs exploring these associations, some relishing above all the descriptive or imitative possibilities of their texts, others their expressive or intellectual qualities. In France in the sixteenth century two of the most gifted chanson composers explored these possibilities to the full: Clément Janequin in the first half of the century, and in the second, Claude Lejeune.
Like many Renaissance musicians, Janequin was a cleric. He was attached to various churches in his home province of Bordeaux, and later Auch and Angers Cathedrals, before moving to Paris in the 1540s. Although notionally a chantre and, towards the end of his life, compositeur du roi (King's singer/composer), Janequin was unusual in establishing a substantial reputation as a composer of chansons (he wrote more than 250 of them) despite holding no regular musical position in a Cathedral or at a royal court. This reputation was built, in his early years at least, above all on his talent for writing long narrative or descriptive chansons such as 'The Hunt' or 'The Cries of Paris', and also on the dissemination of his songs by the great Parisian music printer Pierre Attaingnant starting from the late 1520s.
Le chant des oylseaulx (Bird song) is one of the most celebrated of these descriptive songs, with its references to starlings and nightingales, and its rich onomatopoeic imitations of bird calls. The opening lines of the text also neatly survey the various metaphorical characteristics of bird-call or Spring songs: 'Awake you sleeping hearts, The god of love summons you, On this first day of May, Birds will work wonders'. Typical of descriptive chansons, this song depends on short, simple phrases where the musical interest lies above all in the lively rhythms and brilliant interweaving texture of the voices rather than on lyrical melody or learned counterpoint. Similarly imitative is the Chant de l'alouette which, like several other of Janequin's descriptive songs, became a testing ground for instrumentalists in solo arrangements such as that of Grégoire Brayssing for guitar.
The rhythmic vitality that is so apt in the descriptive songs spills into Janequin's shorter, less descriptive and more conventional chansons too. Several (such as Ce moy de may, A ce joli mois de may, and M'amye a eut) focus on the exuberance – sexual and otherwise – of Spring. Others return to the theme of birds, but with more care for their metaphorical associations than as objects of imitation. Thus the Nightingale is love's messenger in Va Rossignol and a symbol of youthful amorous bliss in Bel aubépin, whilst the swallow and cuckoo offer different takes on the nature of infidelity in Si Dieu and Si le coqu. Sur l'aubépin and Si Dieu vouloit both draw on the classical myth of Progne and Philomel, sisters transformed into a swallow and a nightingale in Ovid's Metamorphoses and, later, Aesop's and La Fontaine's Fables. When birds fall silent, as they do in Quelqu'un me disoit, it marks the end of love or even, as in Lejeune's Qu'est devenu ce bel oeil, of life itself.
Claude Lejeune's career was more eventful, though no more secure, than Janequin's. As a Protestant in a period of religious turmoil, Lejeune's fortunes were mixed. He was at one time in the service of the royal family or under the protection of Huguenot nobles, at another having to flee Paris for his life, with manuscripts of his music saved from burning only by the intervention of a Catholic friend and fellow musician.
At one of the high points in his career in the 1570s, Lejeune was a key figure in the secretive Académie de Poésie et de Musique founded by the poet Jean-Antoine de Baïf, a more formal French equivalent of the Italian camerate (intellectual societies) that nurtured the first operas at the end of the century. One of the fruits of Lejeune's association with the Académie, and more specifically with de Baïf, was a posthumous collection of chansons expressly on the theme of Spring – Le Printens – which includes Voicy du gay printemps. Some of these songs are poetically refined and explore the Académie's principles of vers and musique mesurée à l'antique – verses and music measured in the ancient style – which sought to merge classical rhythmic verse patterns with modern French poetry, and observe them musically in a strictly controlled use of note values. The result was an esoteric but, in the hands of a master like Lejeune, arresting form of music with little counterpoint but an unusual degree of rhythmic freedom, often abandoning a regular beat or metre. Also present in Le Printens are two handsome tributes by Lejeune to Janequin, his reworkings of Le chant de l'alouette and Le chant du Rossignol, with additional verses.
A less well documented area of musical experimention by the Académie was the attempted revival of ancient Greek harmonic theory, which is probably the source of the harmonic interest of Lejeune's Qu'est devenu ce bel oeil, an elegy on the theme of love and death.
Less learned, but no less connected with the themes of Spring and birdsong, and perhaps more authentically rural, are texts in provincial dialect such as Débat de nostre tril'en may, also known as the Vilagoise de Gascogne.
The notion of reproducing the complex textures of descriptive birdsong chansons, dominated as they are by their texts, for the modest medium of the Renaissance four-course guitar, is bold to say the least. But in fact instrumentalists of all kinds found the challenge of transcription irresistible. Grégoire Brayssing, a German-born lutenist based in Paris, succumbed with L'alouette, whilst music printer Adrian Le Roy's solo guitar arrangement of Arcadelt's Quand viendra la clarté (although printed with words and music, the guitar part stands alone) is more modest in ambition. The Fantaisie and Prélude that precede these arrangements are pure instrumental works, but not quite free of bird imagery: the 'grue' of Brayssing's Fantaisie is a crane.
Jonathan Le Cocq, November 2004
Top | Secular Music Programmes
'François 1st & Charles 5th'
Enemies of State
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
5 singers & lute / organ
Mateo Flecha (1481-1553)
La Guerra (Las Ensaladas)
Enríquez de Valderrábano (fl 1540-1560) (luth)
Soneto a manera de dança
Musica para discantar sobre un punto
Juan Vasquez (c1510-c1560)
Cavallero, queraysme dexar
Mi mal de causa es
El que sin ti bivir
Làgrimas de mi consuelo
Alonso Mudarra (c1510-1580) (guitare)
3 fantaisies
Romanesca: guardame las vacas
Mateo Flecha
La Bomba (Las Ensaladas)
Interval
Loyset Compère (c1445-1518)
Nous sommes de l'ordre de St Babouyn
Anonyme
Fricassée
Ninot le Petit (?1460-1502)
Mon amy m’avoit promis
Josquin Desprez (c1440-1521)
Nymphes des Boys
El grillo
Mille regretz
Luys de Narvàez (c1500-1555) (Luth)
Cancion del emperador (Mille regrets, Josquin Despres)
Jean-Paul Paladin (c1500-1566) (Luth)
Fantaisies I, 1560
Claudin de Sermizy (c1490-1562)
Viens tost
Je ne menge point de porc
Au joly boys
Tu disoys que j’en mourrois
Adrian Leroy (édité 1552) (Guitare)
Tourdion
Almande le Pied de cheval
Bransle de Poictou
Clément Janequin (c1485-1558)
La Bataille de Marignan
Top | Secular Music Programmes
'Tout ce qui est de plus beau'
chansons of Claude Lejeune
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
7 singers, lute & organ
Je file quand on me donne
Une puce
Tout ce qui est de plus beau
Débat la noste trill' en may
Povre cœur
Autant en emporte le vent
Je ne me plain
D’un œil fardé
L’aute joun
Quand vous seriés
Je boy à toy mon compagnon
Qu'est devenu ce bel oeil
Je suis deshéritée
Tu ne l'entends pas
La guerre
Top | Secular Music Programmes
'L'écrit du cri'
Cries from the Renaissance to the present day
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
5 singers, piano
Claude Ledoux 1960
Cri de Blog
Alfred Roland 1797 - 1874
Le cri bagnérais
Grande cantate Mélologue, exécutée sur le champ de Bataille de Waterloo le 15 janvier 1840
Jean Servin 1530 - 1596
La fricassée des cris de Paris
Vincent Bouchot 1966
Les cris de Paris
1 - Rue Mouffetard, décembre 1987
2 - Ce qu’entend Albertine
Raymond Jouve
Le cri du cowboy Paroles de Suzanne Legay
Déransart Ed.
Les cris de la rue
Régis Campo 1968
Les cris de Marseille
Jean Georges Kastner 1810 - 1867
Les cris de Paris
Bruno Ducol 1949
Le cri Hommage à Ingrid Betancourt Texte de Dominique Dubreuil
Clément Janequin c1485 - 1558
Les cris de Paris
Vincent Scotto 1874 - 1952
Le cri du poilu
« Ainsi souvent
retournent les criards,
les uns contents,
les autres sans liards. »
Top | Secular Music Programmes
'Approche de l'ombre'
First performance on 1st November 2008 in the 'Automne en Normandie' Festival
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction - Dominique Visse
5 singers, organ
Philippe Manoury 1952
'Missa obscura'
Paschal de l’Estocart c1540 -1891
Octonaires sur la vanité et inconstance du monde :
La glace est luisante et belle
Mondain si tu le sçais, dis-moy
Morte est la mort
Qu’est-ce du cours et de l’arret du monde
Quand je lis, quand je contemple
Josquin des Prez c1450/5-1521
Déploration sur la mort d’Ockeghem
Benedictus Appenzeller c1480/88 ap.1558
Déploration sur la mort de Josquin Despres
Jean Mouton c1459 - 1522
Déploration sur la mort de Févin
Jacobus Vaet c1529 - 1567
Déploration sur la mort de Clemens non Papa
Pierre Certon ? - 1572
Déploration sur la mort de Sermizy (Meslanges 1570 Paris)
Top | Secular Music Programmes
Sacred
Music Programmes
Antoine Brumel - The Earthquake Mass
'O Dulcis Maria'
Psaumes & chansons de la Réforme
Mary Stuart - Music of the Three Kingdoms
Renaissance Christmas - 'O's of Advent
Sacred Music of the Spanish Renaissance
Claudin de Sermziy - La Passion et la Résurrection
Antoine Brumel -
The Earthquake Mass
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
Direction Dominique Visse
12 singers, 3 cornetti, 6 sackbuts, 3 organs
Written around 1500, the remarkable Mass for 12 voices "Et ecce terrae motus" ("And behold, the earth trembled") by Antoine Brumel (c1460- c1515) is the only Renaissance mass of such richness and amplitude.
The dominant impression throughout the work is of an interweaving of vocal lines, with very long values overlapping in canons, floating in space like a sheaf of rare plants in a stream. The intertwining voices tend to fuse periodically in decidedly sensual harmonies. The twelve parts work in fact as 4 groups of three, or two groups of six, playing on the effect of progressive accumulations or dispersions.
The evocation of the rich profusion, the verve and curvature of the Flamboyant period of gothic architecture is overwhelming, for the genius of Brumel, although he was younger than Josquin, was closer to a past that was still "Ars Nova". Brumel is proud, eccentric, and an adventurous explorer somewhat in the style of his contemporary, da Vinci. What fascinates above all in this piece is the recurrence of passages that strikingly remind us of so-called 'minimalist' or 'process' music of today.
Dominique Visse has established his own edition from a manuscript of Roland de Lassus, the principal source of the work, which de Lassus had directed in Munich in 1570 arranged for a hundred singers and musicians.
Top | Sacred Music Programmes
'O Dulcis Maria'
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
5 singers & organ
Jacobi Arcadelt - Kyrie de la Missa de Beata Virgine
Hotinet Barra - Salve Regina
Josquin Despres - Gloria de la Missa de Beata Virgine
Bourgignon - Regina cæli
Antoine Brumel - Credo de la Missa de Beata Virgine
Interval
Antoine Brumel - Ave Virgo Gloriosa
Jacobi Arcadelt - Sanctus de la Missa Ave Regina cœlorum
Antoine Brumel - Mater patris
Pierre de la Rue - Agnus Dei de la Missa Ave Maria
Claudin de Sermizy - Salve Regina
Top | Sacred Music Programmes
'Psaumes & Chansons
de la Réforme'
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
5 singers, lute & organ
La chanson spirituelle au temps de l’Edit de Nantes
Paschal de l’Estocart ?1539- après1584
Réveillez vous chacun fidèle (Ps.XXXIII)
Benedictus Appenzeller c1480/88-après1558
Du fond de ma pensée (PS. CXXX)
Ed. Adrien Le Roy c1520-1598
Estans assis aux rives aquatiques (Ps. CXXXVII)
Paschal de l’Estocart
Estans assis aux rives aquatiques (Ps. CXXXVII)
Pierre Certon ?1572
O bienheureux celuy (Ps. XXXII)
Nicolas Vallet c1583-c1642
Fantaisie sur le Pazzemezze (lute solo)
Claudin de Sermisy c1490-1562
Tant que vivray en aege florissant
Roland de Lassus ?1530-1594
La nuict froide et sombre
Quand mon mari s’en va dehors
Paschal de l’Estocart
Qu’est-ce du cours
Mondain si tu le scais, di moy
Quand le jour fils, du soleil
La glace est luisante et belle
Morte est la mort
Interval
Claudin Lejeune 1528/30-1600
Chansons profanes & spirituelles au temps de l’Edit de Nantes
Le chant de l'alouette
Quelle eau, quel air
Hélas mon Dieu (psaume)
Brunelette, joliette, m’amourette
Débat la nostre trill’ en may
Nicolas Vallet
Quand on arrestera la course coutumière (luth)
(Claude Lejeune - des Octonaires de la Vanité du Monde)
Pazzemezze
Octonaires sur la vanité et inconstance du Monde :
Douzième mode (3 parts) :
Ambition, volupté
Orfevre taille moy une boule
Ce Mond’est un pelerinage
Tu ne l’entends pas
Qu’est devenu ce bel oeil
Une puce
Top | Sacred Music Programmes
Mary Stuart - Music of the Three Kingdoms
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
10 singers, organ
Robert Carver - Missa 'Cantate Domino' : Gloria
Clément Janequin - Congregati sunt
Clément Janequin - Veu que du tout en Dieu (Ps. XI)
Clément Janequin - Mon Dieu me paist (Ps. XXIII)
Clément Janequin - Jusques à quand (Ps. XIII)
Clément Janequin - Dont vient cela (Ps. X)
Claudin de Sermizy - Resurrexi
Robert Carver - Missa 'Cantate Domino' : Credo
- interval -
Robert Carver - Missa 'Cantate Domino' : Sanctus
Thomas Tallis - 'When my sorrowful sighing slake'
David Peebles - 'Quam multi, Domine' Psalm III
Antoine Brumel - 'Ave Maria, Gratia plena'
Antoine Brumel - 'Mater Patris'
Claudin de Sermizy - 'Salve Regina'
William Byrd - 'The noble famous Queen'
William Byrd - 'In angel’s weed'
Robert Carver - Missa 'Cantate Domino' : Agnus Dei
This programme, first performed on the initiative of Ian McFarlane in 2000 in a series of three concerts at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, in London and at St Giles Edinburgh, illustrates the different periods of the life of Mary Stuart (1542-1587) in Scotland, France and England. James V of Scoltand's (1512-1542) marriage to Madeleine de Valois (daughter of François 1st) in 1537, and his second wedding to Marie de Guise in 1538 after Madeleine's tragic death, followed by that of Mary Stuart, born from this second marriage, with the Dauphin François II in 1558, mark the high point of the close relations between France and Scotland. The Stuarts' dynastic weddings all took place in Notre-Dame in Paris. Robert Carver and David Peebles are both Scottish composers in activity during Mary Stuart's Scottish period; Janequin and Sermizy were active in Paris at the time of her wedding there, and the works by Tallis and Byrd commemorate her death in London.
Top | Sacred Music Programmes
Renaissance Christmas - 'O's of Advent
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
8 singers, organ 'O's of Advent :
Anonyme - O Sapientia
P. Certon - O Adonay
Hotinet - O radix Jesse
A. Mornable - O clavis David
G. Le Roy - O Oriens
Manchicourt - O Thoma Didyme
Hotinet - O rex gentium
Manchicourt - O Emmanuel
Manchicourt - O virgo virginun
[These « Os » of advent will alternate with both organ and sung 'Noëls' from the great Bible of Noëls published in Lyon in 1554]
interval
Palestrina - Missa 'Hodie Christus natus est'
Top | Sacred Music Programmes
Sacred Music of the Spanish Renaissance
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
6 singers, organ
Cristobald de Morales (c1500-1553)
Sabbato sancto, lectio I (Venise 1564, Biblioteca Vaticana)
Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)
Tenebrae Responsories :
Iudas mercator (Ferie V in Cæna Domini ad Matutudinum in secundo nocturno, Responsorium V)
Animam meam (Ferie VI in Cæna Domini ad Matutudinum in secundo nocturno, Responsorium VI)
O vos omnes (Sabbato Sancto ad Matutudinum in secundo nocturno, Responsorium V)
Cristobald de Morales (c 1500-1553)
Feria Sexta, Lectio prima (Venise 1564, Biblioteca Vaticana)
Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611)
Tenebrae Responsories :
Una hora (Ferie V in Cæna Domini ad Matudinum in tertio nocturno, Responsorium VIII)
Ecce quomodo (Sabato Sancto ad Matudinum in secundo nocturno, Responsorium VI)
Tenebræ facae sunt (Ferie VI in Cæna Domini ad Matudinum in secundo nocturno, Responsorium V)
Cristobald de Morales (c 1500-1553)
Lectio III (Venise 1564, Biblioteca Vaticana)
--interval--
Cristobald de Morales (c 1500-1553)
Missa « Mille regretz » (Sur la chanson de Josquin Despres)
Top | Sacred Music Programmes
Claudin de Sermizy - La Passion et la Résurrection
ENSEMBLE CLÉMENT JANEQUIN
direction Dominique Visse
5 singers, organ
Claudin de Sermizy c1490-1562 - La Passion et la Résurrection
Le Temps de la Passion - Les trois leçons des ténèbres, La Passion selon Saint Mathieu
Passion selon Saint Matthieu, Première partie :
La trahison de Judas, La scène le dernier repas
Première leçon des ténèbres pour le Samedi :
Thau. Reddes eis vicem Domine
Passion selon Saint Matthieu, Deuxième partie :
Le Mont des oliviers, Le jugement de Caïphe
Deuxième leçon des ténèbres pour le Samedi :
Ghimel. Sed et lamiæ
Passion selon Saint Matthieu, Troisième partie :
Le reniement de Saint Pierre, Le jugement de Ponce Pilate
Troisième leçon des ténèbres pour le Samedi :
Zayn. Candidiores Nazarei
Passion selon Saint Matthieu, Quatrième partie :
Le couronnement d’épines, La montée au Calvaire
Entracte
Messe pour le jour de Pâques
Introïte - Resurrexi
Kyrie - Messe Novem lectionem
Gloria - Messe Quare fremuerunt gentes
Graduel - Hæc dies quam fecit Dominus
Prose - Alleluia
Credo - Missa Ad placitum
Offertoire - Terra tremuit
Sanctus - Messe Plurium Motetorum
Agnus Dei - Messe Ab initio
Communion - Pascha nostrum immolatus
Top | Sacred Music Programmes