Claude Le Jeune (1528 to 1530 – buried 26 September
1600) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late
Renaissance. He was the primary representative of the
musical movement known as musique mesurée, and a
significant composer of the "Parisian" chanson, the
predominant secular form in France in the latter half
of the 16th century. His fame was widespread in Europe,
and he ranks as one of the most influential composers
of the time.
He was born in Valenciennes, where he probably received...(+)
Claude Le Jeune (1528 to 1530 – buried 26 September
1600) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late
Renaissance. He was the primary representative of the
musical movement known as musique mesurée, and a
significant composer of the "Parisian" chanson, the
predominant secular form in France in the latter half
of the 16th century. His fame was widespread in Europe,
and he ranks as one of the most influential composers
of the time.
He was born in Valenciennes, where he probably received
his early musical training. Sometime fairly early in
life he became a Protestant. The first record of his
musical activity is from 1552, when four chansons
attributed to him were published at Leuven, in
anthologies of works by several composers. In 1564 he
moved to Paris, where he became acquainted with the
Huguenots. By this time he had already acquired some
international fame, as evidenced by the appearance of
his name in a list of "contemporary composers of
excellence" in a manuscript copy of the Penitential
Psalms of Orlande de Lassus, which were probably
composed in the 1560s in Munich. Lassus may have met Le
Jeune in the mid-1550s during a trip to France; however
this has not been definitely established.
Le Jeune was the most famous composer of secular music
in France in the late 16th century, and his preferred
form was the chanson. After 1570, most of the chansons
he wrote incorporated the ideas of musique mesurée,
the musical analogue to the poetic movement known as
vers mesurée, in which the music reflected the exact
stress accents of the French language. In musique
mesurée, stressed versus unstressed syllables in the
text would be set in a musical ratio of 2:1, i.e. a
stressed syllable could get a quarter note while an
unstressed syllable could get an eighth note. Since the
meter of the verse was usually flexible, the result was
a musical style which is best transcribed without
meter, and which sounds to the modern ear to have
rapidly changing meters, for example alternating 2/8,
3/8, etc.
Probably Le Jeune's most famous sacred work is his
Dodécacorde, a series of twelve psalm settings which
he published in La Rochelle in 1598. Each of the psalms
is set in a different one of the twelve modes as given
by Zarlino. Some of his psalm settings are for large
forces: for example he uses sixteen voices in his
setting of Psalm 52. Published posthumously was a
collection of all 150 psalms, Les 150 pseaumes, for
four and five voices; some of these were extremely
popular, and were reprinted in several European
countries throughout the 17th century.
His last completed work, published in 1606, was a
collection of thirty-six songs based on eight-line
poems, divided into twelve groups, each of which
contained three settings in each of the twelve modes.
The work, Octonaires de la vanité et inconstances du
monde (Eight-line Poems on the Vanity and Inconstancy
of the World), based on poems by the Calvinist preacher
Antoine de Chandieu, was for groups of three or four
voices. According to Le Jeune's sister Cecile, who
wrote the introduction to the publication, he had
intended to complete another set for more voices but
died before finishing it. It was one of the last
collections of chansons of the Renaissance, of any
type; following its publication, the air de cour was
the predominant genre of secular song composition in
France.
Of Le Jeune's sacred music, a total of 347 psalm
settings, thirty-eight sacred chansons, eleven motets,
and a mass setting have survived. His secular output
included 146 airs, most of which were in the style of
musique mesurée, as well as sixty-six chansons, and
forty-three Italian madrigals. In addition, three
instrumental fantasias were published posthumously in
1612, as well as some works for lute. He was fortunate
in that his copious manuscripts were published after
his death: his friend, the equally gifted and prolific
composer Jacques Mauduit, was fated to have most of his
music lost.
Contemporary critics accused Le Jeune of violating some
of the rules of good melodic writing and counterpoint,
for example using the melodic interval of the major
sixth (something Palestrina would never have done), and
frequently crossing voices; some of these compositional
devices were to become features of the Baroque style,
premonitions of which were beginning to appear even in
France towards the end of the 16th century.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Le_Jeune).
Although originally created for Organ, I created this
Interpretation of the "Reveci Venir du Printemps" from
9 Airs & Chansons (No. 2) for Winds (Flute, Oboe, Bb
Clarinet, French Horn & Bassoon) & Strings (2 Violins,
2 Violas & Cello).
