Ligia 0202122-03
2003
Ligia 0202122-03
2003
Jean Mouton/Motets & Magnificat
An epitaph that has since disappeared cites the name: 'Maistre Jehan de
Hollingue, dit Mouton'. Although the exact date of his birth is
uncertain, Jean Mouton seems to have been born around 1460, near Samer,
a village near Boulogne-sur-Mer. He is mentioned as having worked for
the collegiate church of Notre Dame de Nesle, near Péronne, as
an 'écolâtre chantre', or singer and teacher of religious
subjects, in 1477. Six years later he became their maître de
chapelle and was ordained to the priesthood. The few archives we
possess provide evidence that he was employed at St Omer (1494-95) as a
copyist and singer at the cathedral. In 1500 he became 'maistre des
enffans' at Amiens, where he also organised a performance of a mystery
play. While still in charge of the children's musical education, he was
employed the following year at the collegiate church of St André
in Grenoble. It may have been while Queen Anne of Brittany and her
husband Louis XII of France were visiting this town in June 1502 that
Jean Mouton became a musician in the ducal chapel. He later became
their maître de chapelle in 1510, and retained this post
until his death. In 1509 the Duchess Anne de Bretagne intervened to
obtain an ecclesiastical benefice for the musician at Grenoble as a
canon 'in absentia', i.e. without any obligation to be in residence.
When Anne de Bretagne died in 1514, Jean Mouton became a member of the
king's music, serving under Louis XII, and later François I. He
also held other livings, and spent his retirement as a canon at St
Quentin where he died on 30 October 1522. His epitaph stated: 'during
his lifetime he sang for the King, a canon of Thérouane and of
this church'.
While Jean Mouton may have left few traces in history and society, as a
composer he occupies an important place in the history of music, his
works including twenty-five songs, nine Magnificats, fifteen masses and
nearly a hundred motets. He ranks as one of the most prolific composers
of motets during the early part of the sixteenth century.
Jean Mouton was active as a composer before music printing was
invented; his works survive therefore mainly in manuscript form. Almost
a quarter of his work has survived only because of the existence of
single copies, but there are anything up to fifteen sources for some of
his other compositions. In either case, it is not easy to be sure about
the authenticity of some of his other pieces. The motet O
pulcherrima mulierum, accompanied in this recording by a viol
consort, is attributed to Jean Mouton in one manuscript (Barcelona
Ms454) but to Festa in another (Bologna R142), and to Févin in
yet another (Vienna Mus. 15941). Several other sources classify it
under 'anonymous', and in one case the last section of the motet has
been moved to the beginning, the work being therefore listed under the
title Descende in hortum meum.
Many of the motet settings are of Marian texts. Traditional plainchant
texts and music (particularly antiphons, sequences and hymns) are
re-used by Jean Mouton in a delicate, contrapuntally-straightforward
style, showing some traces of Italian influence. The first part of O
Maria virgo pia, a solemn invocation repeated five times in various
four-part settings, is interspersed with two-part passages, some using
the upper, and others, the lower voices, to illustrate the gentle
character of the subject-matter. The Deo gratias' of the second
invocation is emphasised by the use of ternary rhythm.
In the motet Maria virgo semper laetare, (originally 'letare'),
the Salve Regina theme is heard successively in all four voices. The
music is mainly in binary rhythm, and often homophonic, including
various two-part passages which are more overtly communicative in
character. In order to characterise the last prayer, (ora pro nobis
ad Dominum), the composer uses four-part harmony in ternary rhythm.
The style employed in Nesciens Mater virgo is quite remarkable
and fairly unusual for this kind of repertory. Much later, towards the
end of the century, Alonso Lobo produced another example of Manan
repertory: an Ave Maria in quadruple canon, each canon being in two
parts and loosely based on the plainchant. In the eight-part setting by
Jean Mouton, the four imitative voices (comes, or consequent)
remain at the same distance from their respective leaders (dux,
or antecedent), but the similarity of the thematic material, and their
different pitch mean that the effect is not antiphonal. Rather like the
finest decorated blind arcades, the intermingling of the various voices
provides the necessary independence required to evoke the 'celestial
milk of the king of angels'.
If Jean Mouton wrote music for specific liturgical circumstances (Nobilis
progenie refers to St Francis and almost certainly therefore also
to François II, the father of Anne of Brittany), he also
composed motets for political and official occasions. Jean Mouton wrote
Exalta regina Gallicae (a spiritual pendant to Janequin's
'Chanson de la bataille de Marignan') and celebrated the coronation of
François II with his setting of Domine, salvum fac regem.
Two other pieces in this recording are related to the domestic life of
Anne of Brittany. The text of Christe redemptor refers
specifically to a royal wedding (Grant to the King prosperity, and to
the Queen fruitful lineage), probably that of their daughter Claude de
France. The style of the motet is lively, with some characteristic use
of fifths. The funeral motet Quis dabit oculis nostris ? is the
last of several musical tributes by composers of whom Anne of Brittany
was patron, and unequivocally refers to her death on 9 January 1514.
The settings of this text by Antoine de Févin and Jean Mouton
employ fairly solemn polyphony in the phrygian mode (E) was habitually
used for music of lamentation. Costanzo Festa, a court composer of the
same period, also responded by composing a motet just as musically
sensitive as those previously mentioned. Festa'a setting was reworked
by Ludwig Senfl and sung at the funeral of Maximilian (1519) whom Anne
of Brittany was destined to marry had not Charles VIII intervened. The
quality of Festa's craftsmanship and his interest in Marian repertory
is demonstrated by Maria virgo prescripta. This five-part motet
employs no less than three liturgical texts, two of which (Angeli
Archangeli and Salve sancta parens) are set using cantus firmus
technique simultaneously in both tenor parts.
Of Jean Mouton's nine Magnificats, the sixth-tone setting is the only
one where each verse (ten for the Magnificat itself, plus two for the
doxology, making a grand total of twelve) is treated polyphonically. It
was customary throughout the sixteenth century to sing these verses
according to the alternatim principle. Jean Mouton gave added solemnity
to this in his five and six-part setting of the last few verses, as
well as placing the cantus firmus in different voices, and using it for
the last verse in a two-part canon for the two lowest voices.
Only a third of Jean Mouton's music was published during his lifetime.
That his fame was on the increase is attested by the decision of the
first music publisher in history (the Venetian Petrucci) to devote a
complete volume to his masses. Some of his compositions continued to be
printed for as long as fifty years after his death. The printers Adrian
Le Roy and Robert Ballard also published posthumously in 1555 a
collection of twenty-one motets.
The Latin preface by Adrian Le Roy reminds his readers that Pope Leo X
appreciated Jean Mouton's music, and that François I was
particularly fond of his clear-toned voice and his music:
'Iohannis Mouton Sameracensis (cuius ars Leoni X Pont. Max. Summe
probata fuit, vox autem et opera clarissimo Regi Francisco, inter cuius
symphonetas habitus est, placuerunt)...[...] sic Mutonis, (quem, dum
viveret, in aula Francisci Regis suavissime modulantem audire
potuisti)...'.
Jacques Barbier,
University of Tours
Centre d'Etudes Supérieures de la Renaissance