(b c 1490; d Paris, 13 Oct 1562). French composer. He was a cleric at the Sainte-Chapelle in 1508 and later a singer in the king's personal chapel. In 1524 he went to Cambron (diocese of Amiens), but in 1532 was back in Paris as sous-maître of the royal chapel. He remained in the service of the kings of France until at least 1554, and probably until his death. The popularity of much of his music attests to the high reputation he enjoyed in his lifetime: he was ranked alongside Josquin, Févin and Certon by one of his contemporaries and in a déploration on his death by Certon (1570) was called ‘grand maistre, expert et magnifique compositeur’.

His sacred works, which include 12 masses, many motets and Magnificats, exhibit some of the traits found in the music of Josquin and Févin's generation: voice-pairing, imitation and occasional canonic writing, though he avoided close-knit continuous counterpoint which obscured the text. His Passion is one of only two surviving French polyphonic Passions of the 16th century. His French chansons, of which c 175 survive, show a logical development from those of Févin and Mouton in abandoning melismatic settings in favour of a simpler, more syllabic, more homophonic and faster-moving style. From c 1528 he led the development of the lyrical, four-voice Parisian chanson. Some (e.g. Je n′ay point plus d′affection) are homorhythmic, others predominantly polyphonic; a few (e.g. Ton feu s′estaint) have two voices in canon. Perfect cadences tend to emphasize tonality in such works as Tant que vivray and Maulgré moy vis, which sound unequivocally tonal.

The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved.