In the ocean of classical music there will always be famous composers, whose bio got lost due to the sands of time. There were wildly popular not only as composers but also as famous musicians as well. I found their names from the research that I conducted at my web analytics company with several other coworkers. The ones that I will tell you about played their important role in the transition from medieval to Renaissance music. My story about them will continue in the future blog entries.
One of them was a great Frenchman Richard Loqueville who played the harp as a virtuoso and taught it to the son of the Duke of Bar in 1410. We know only about the eight years of his creativity and then his traces in the history vanished. During this short period this famous composer also taught singing to the choirboys of the duke’s court and later taught music at Cambrai Cathedral. History brought to us less than a dozen pieces of his music.
Another famous composer who helped the transition to Renaissance music was Nicholas of Radom who was connected to the Polish court. He created somewhere in the early 15th century at the court of the Polish king Jagiello and left us pieces of memorable polyphonic music full of religious contemplation.
History brought to us the name of a famous for his times composer Pycard, whose full name is unknown. We don’t even know whether he came from England or France. What we know is that his music is complex and unusual in its virtuosity. Survived pieces tell us that he was one of the most technically advanced and creative composers of the 14th century. His name and music survived only because specialists found them in the invaluable Old Hall Manuscript- the largest, most complete, and most significant source of English sacred music of the late 14th and early 15th centuries.
There was an extremely talented female poet and composer who lived in England in the late 12th century. And evidently she came from France. We have virtually zero biographical details about her, and only speculations and medieval gossip. We don’t even know her true name for sure. The only reason why historians call her Marie de France is because of one simple line in one of her published works. It, basically, says: “My name is Marie, I am from France.”
Marie de France used for writing continental French, that was, in turn copied by Anglo-Norman scribes. She also translated some Roman literature. A collection of short narrative poems not unlike shortened versions of romances survives till this day. Plus, some fables and description of saints’ lives. Scholars tried to date her works but did not reach unanimous decision. Some say, her works were written between 1160 and about 1215, others date them between about 1170 and 1205. Historians are also confused when they try to guess identity of Marie de France. There is a line of candidates ranging from half-sister of Henry II, king of England, to several abbesses and the wife of somebody named Hugh Talbot.
There are not many works of medieval female troubadours or trobaritz, as they called them in Occitan, that survived to our days. Specialists attribute to them from twenty three to forty six works only. We have names of a dozen or more trobaritz but very few biographical details. Some of them were even considered fictitious in the past, like Alamanda de Castelnau. Only later after numerous researches, it was found that her name was mentioned by at least three famous troubadours, who pointed at her prominence in Occitan poetic circles. And only one of her songs reached us.
Two trouvères from Arras, in Picardy, France remain mysterious as well. They were called Dame Margot and Dame Maroie and they created music and wrote poetry somewhere in the 13th centuyry. But all that we have today is their only existing work, which represents a single debate song. And guess, what? This song survives in two manuscripts, and each version give separate and unrelated melodies.
The same goes for Beatriz de Dia. She was born somewhere in the 12th century, and, probably, was the daughter of Count Isoard II of Día. One song in Occitan with the music intact came to us through the ages, other songs exist too but without the melody. According to hershort romanticized biography, Beatriz was married to Guillem, Count of Viennois but she was deeply in love with famous troubadour Raimbaut of Orange.
We know somewhat more about famous trobaritz Na Castelloza, who created music and poetry in the early thirteen century. She was a noblewoman from Auvergne and a wife of Turc de Mairona, Her husband’s ancestors had participated in a Crusade, which was the origin of his name. She wrote several songs about Arman de Brion. She was in love with him, but he was of greater social rank than Castelloza. Romanticized biography describes her as vivacious, highly intelligent and beautiful lady. Her four songs still exist, but, unfortunately, all without music. This, however, makes her the share the tie for the title of the most prolific of female troubadours in terms of surviving works. Only Beatriz de Dia certainly has also four songs to her name. The subject of all Caselloza poems is courtly love.
I wish we could find out more about composers working in the Early Medieval period. These were really tough times for creative people. Unfortunately, one of those talents whose life remains a mystery is Odo of Arezzo or Abbot Oddo. He lived somewhere in the late tenth century. Going through the notes that I put down in my local web analytics company, I can just state the following. Odo was a Medieval composer and theorist who worked in Arezzo. Not much, right? There is really nothing to add, except that he was an Abbot in Arezzo, working under Bishop Donatus of Arezzo. Odo composed a book of Gregorian chants which usually included antiphons and responsories with a discussion of modes, which survived in 20 manuscripts. Four of which contain attributions to Odo.
Odo of Cluny is a saint of Catholic Church. His feast day is the 18th of November. He was the second abbot of Cluny, who enacted various reforms in the monastery system of France and Italy. Born around 978 as a son of a feudal lord of Deols, near Le Mans, Odo received his early education at the court of William the Pious, duke of Aquitaine, then studied at Paris. About 909, he became a monk, priest, and then superior of the abbey school in Baume, whose abbot, Berno, was the founder and first abbot of Cluny Abbey in 910. Odo followed him to Cluny, bringing his library. After Berno’s death he became an abbot in 927. Saint Odo left us his writings are: a biography of St Gerald of Aurillac, three books of very severe and forceful moral essays, a few sermons, an epic poem on the Redemption in several books, and twelve choral antiphons in honor of Saint Martin of Tours.
Authorized by a privilege of Pope John XI in 931, Odo reformed the monasteries in Aquitaine, northern France, and Italy. The papal privilege empowered him to unite several abbeys under his supervision and to receive at Cluny monks from Benedictine abbeys not yet reformed. The greater number of the reformed monasteries, however, remained independent, and several became centers of reform. Odo became the great reformer. His abbey became the model of monasticism for over a century and transformed the role of piety in European daily life. Between 936 and 942 he visited Italy several times, founding in Rome the monastery of Our Lady on the Aventine and reforming several convents. He was sometimes entrusted with important political missions, especially when Pope needed to arrange peace between feuding lords. He died November 18, 942.
While I was doing a research at the request of web analytics company, I discovered the story of abbess Kassia from Bizantium. She was a was a Greek-Byzantine poet, composer, and hymnographer, who was born between 805 and 810 in Constantinople into an aristocratic family.
Kassia was a participant in the “bride show”, organized for Theophilus by his mother Euphrosyne. Smitten by Kassia’s beauty the young emperor Theophilus approached her but he did not like her answers. So he chose another bride, Theodora.
Kassia founded a convent in 843 in the west of Constantinople near the walls of Constantine and became its first abbess. Although many scholars attribute this to bitterness at having failed to marry Theophilos, a letter from Theodore the Studite indicates that she had other motivations for wanting a monastic life. It had a close relationship with the nearby monastery of Stoudios, which has to play a central role in re-editing the Byzantine liturgical books in the 9th century and the 10th century, so were important in ensuring the survival of her work.
Notker of Saint Gall and Saint Tuotilo were friends and studied together at Saint Gall’s monastic school, taught by Iso, and Moengall. Notker was born around 840, to a distinguished family in the modern canton of Saint Gall in Switzerland. He became a monk there and was chiefly active as a teacher, and displayed refinement of taste as poet and author. He died in 912 and was beatified by Catholic church in 1512. Notker completed Erchanbert’s chronicle, arranged a martyrology, composed a metrical biography of Saint Gall, and authored other works. The number of works ascribed to him is constantly increasing. His early collection of Sequences, which he called “hymns”, are, in fact, mnemonic poems for remembering the series of pitches sung during a melisma in plainchant, especially in the Alleluia. It is unknown how many or which of the works contained in the collection are his.
Saint Tuotilo was a medieval monk and composer, born in Ireland around 850. His feast day is celebrated on March 28. According to contemporaries, he was a large and powerfully built man. As Notker, he was educated at St. Gall and remained to become a monk there. Despite certain anachronism, historians state that Tuotilo could be called a renaissance man: he was a speaker, poet, hymnist, architect, painter, sculptor, metal worker, and mechanic. Tuotilo was buried at a chapel dedicated to Saint Catherine in St. Gall, which was later renamed for him.
Sahakduxt andXosroviduxt were both female Armenian composers, poets and ascetics of the Middle Ages.
We know practically nothing about Xosroviduxt, even her date of birth, because some sources record her as being active in the 4th century, while others place her in the 8th century. She is recorded as having been a member of the royal family. Xosroviduxt is reputed to be the composer of a canonical hymn. According to some sources, it honors the memory of her brother, who was killed in 737 for reconverting to Christianity. Although the subject of the piece is secular, it was sanctioned for use in services by the Armenian Church.
As for Sahakduxt, she lived in the 8th century in a cave in the Garni Valley, near present day Yerevan; there she produced ecclesiastical poems as well as liturgical chants. Of these, the only one survived, a nine-stanza acrostic verse. It is believed that many of her hymns were dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Some of them are supposed to have helped to further shape the genre in subsequent centuries. Sahakduxt is also known to have taught music lovers and clerical students a number of sacred melodies. According to records, she did this while seated behind a curtain, as the mores of the period required.
We know about Godric of Finchale from the records left to us by his admirer and contemporary monk Reginald of Durham. Godric is one of the most popular saints in England, although he was never formally canonized by Catholic church. Saint Godric lived unusually long life. According to Reginald he died when he was 105 years old and died at 1170 in Finchale. He was a peddler and a sailor and an enterpreneur who eventually became a captain of the ship that, possibly, brought several leaders of the First Crusade to Jaffa in 1102. Later in life he devoted himself to Christianity, going in many piligrimages around Mediterranean and then, finally, settling in England. Monk Reginald recorded four songs of Godric’s: they are the oldest songs in English for which the original musical settings survive.
Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance Pierre de Manchicourt remains quite a mystery up to these days. There are not many biographical details about this great composer, to say the least. I went through all sources of my web analytics company and came out with practically nothing. What is so mysterious about him, you might say?
Manchicourt is an excellent example of a Franco-Flemish composer who learned his craft and art in northern Europe, and then assisted in the diffusion of the style by traveling to another region and composing and performing there. The movement of these many skilled composers out of Flanders and northern France created what was one of the first truly international styles since the original diffusion of Gregorian chant during the reign of Charlemagne.
He was born in Béthune in France, somewhere around 1510. He had multiple jobs in various cities like Arras, Tours, and Tournai. There are some hints that he started as a choirboy in Arras in 1525. Obviously, somebody at the Spanish court noticed him, maybe even King Philip II himself. He was invited to occupy a position of a master of the Flemish Chapel in Madrid. He did not miss that opportunity, left for Spain and lived there till his death in October 5, 1564.
On the surface he was not different from all other Renaissance composers of the sixteen century. As they did, he wrote motets, chansons and masses. Yet, we can divide his creations in three stages and in each of them he wrote music quite different from others. This is hghly unusual for composers of that time.
The changes are most noticeable in his motets. They are particularly significant as they show the three separate stages of early sixteenth century motet development, highly unusual to find in the work of a single composer. In his earliest motets one can hear the influence of Ockeghem; in his middle period works, the paired imitation style of Josquin; and in his late works the stylistic refinement, well-crafted melodic lines and pervasive imitation recall Gombert.
