Je veux mourir pour le brun de ce teint,                             I want to die for the darkness of this complexion,

Pour cette voix, dont le beau chant m'étreint                    For this voice whose nice song embraces me

Si fort le coeur que seul il en dispose.                                The heart is so strong that it’s the only who decides.

(Pierre de Ronsard)                                                             (Pierre de Ronsard)

 

 

 

 

In 1567 Jean-Antoine De Baïf and the composer Thibault de Courville created in Paris the Academy of Poetry and Music, under the protection of King Charles IX. It was the first academy that ever existed in France.  Its scope was to recreate the poetry and the music of the Greek and Roman Antiquity, in order to revitalize French poetry according to ancient models and humanist ideals. Even if Du Baïf restricted its goal to poetic and musical experimentations, he had a much broader vision of the Academy’s undertakings.  He was also interested in reviving ancient dance. According to the Neo-Platonic views, if music represents the sound form of the harmony of the spheres, dance is its counterpart and embodies its geometrical form.

 

By structuring French poetry, Du Baïf also had the ambition to develop a social order based on morality.  He took his inspiration from Neo-Platonic ideals, in particular from the Platonic Academy of Marsilio Ficino in Florence, but also from French poets of the Pléiade circle, especially Jean de Ronsard. The meetings of the Academy took place in Du Baïf’s house in Paris.  The participants discussed matters of poetry and music in the first place, but also of natural philosophy, mathematics, magic, and medicine.

 

Claude Le Jeune   (1528/30-1600) was the most influential composer of the Academy. Born in Valenciennes, he moved to Paris around 1564. As a Protestant, he benefitted from the protection of a circle of aristocratic Huguenots such as William of Orange, the poet and man-at-arms Théodore Agrippa d’Aubigné and Henry of Navarre  (future King Henri IV). In 1582, he was appointed music teacher for the children at the court of François, brother of   Henri III and Duke of Anjou. In 1590, during the siege of Paris, Le Jeune escaped from the city and found a refuge in La Rochelle with the help of his Catholic friend, the composer Jean Mauduit,  who also saved his music manuscripts, in particular the psalm anthology called the Dodécacorde. Back to the   capital, Le Jeune entered the service of Henri IV from 1594 to his death in 1600, as maistre compositeur ordinaire de la musique de nostre chambre.

 

Except for a book of Psaumes published in Paris, a Livre de meslanges published by Plantin in Antwerp in 1582, the Dodécacorde (La Rochelle, 1598) and a few pieces published in various anthologies, the major part of his work survive only in manuscripts at the time of his death. Eight collections were published posthumously between 1601 and 1612 by Pierre Ballard. Dedications were written by his sister Cécile or his niece Judith Nardo and were mostly dedicated to his old friends, his pupils and his protestant patrons.

 

Le Jeune composed more than 300 psalm, 133 airs, a hundred of songs (sacred and secular), some forty Italian canzonettas, 11 motets, one or maybe two masses, one Magnificat and three instrumental fantasies.

 

His works are influenced both by the Flemish tradition, especially by Josquin des Prez, and by the Parisian school  (Créquillon, Bertrand, Costeley and Du Caurroy among others). But Italy plays a central role in his repertory. Among his masterpieces, it is worth quoting his Italian pieces for four and five voices, which are arrangements of villanelles composed by Nola, Moro, Celano, and Mazzone. Chromaticisms and madrigalisms are recurrent in his chansons and show an influence both by the French school and  the Venetian tradition of the madrigal in the middle of the 16^th century, represented by composers such as Willaert and Zarlino.

 

But the most important influence for Le Jeune is to be found outside from the musical world. The Humanist ideals of Du Baïf’s Academy will deeply modify and determine his language. Le Jeune espoused without restraint the ideas, the philosophy, and the esotericism of the academicians. He tried to create a unity between text and music, based on the poetical concept. Poetry (vers mesurés à l’antique) and music (musique  mesurée à l’antique) were submitted to metrical patterns according to their values, long or short. The music setting was based on the expression of the text, it should convey the poetical meaning by avoiding any contrapuntal complexity that could befuddle the words or the meter. This is far from being a new practice, since already the troubadours and the trouvères used similar metrical processes in the Middles Ages, as well as  the Humanist odes’ composers at the beginning  of the 14^th century.  Le Jeune’s pieces in vers mesurés à l’antique scrupulousl respect the quantitatives meters prescribed by the Academy. The composer established an equivalence between long syllables and long note values on one hand, and between short syllables and shor note values on the other. Preexisting meters determined by extra-musical reasons will upset the traditional rhythms of polyphony by producing lyrical and free patterns. The simple vertical textures resulting from strict alternance between two note values (short-long) will free the harmonic structure and leave space for experimentation. The first volume containing musique mesurée à l’antique is published in 1583 with Le Jeune’s Airs on measured poems by Du Baïf.

 

If the Airs – published by Ballard in 1603 and 1608 – are influenced by the Parisian school and illustrate the principles of musique mesurée à l’antique, Le Jeune’s chansons are both influenced by the polyphonic Flemish tradition and by experimentations; technique and contrapuntal prowess prevail over the expression of words. The lovesick lover invokes elements that will lead to his death, water from his tears, air from his sighs, and fire from his desires. The equivalence between the universe macrocosm constituted by the four elements and the microcosm of the human body is born from a Humanist inspiration.

 

All the pieces presented in the program refer generally to Neo-Platonic concepts, especially to melancholy, the 16^th century sickness. Caused by love or poetical fury, it can lead either to the greatest inspirations, or to pure madness and eventually death. The excess of black bile can be cured and controlled by music that acts on passions. Mocked in Si folie était douleur, it becomes a true melancholic thought in Mon cœur que d’ennuis. This piece is written in Phrygian mode, the mode embodying better than any other pain and despair. The lover’s lament is also evoked in Les diverses douleurs and Perdre le sens. In the first piece, it leads to death with painful chromaticisms; in the second one, it leads to madness in Phrygian mode, with an erratic melody made of discontinuous leaps, similar to the narrator’s state of mind. On a happier tone, Revecy venir du Printans evokes rebirth of season, but also refers to another spring, the one of Humanism. Sun, clarity, and work that grow green again are all metaphors pointing to the Renaissance and Neo-Platonic ideals.

 

The Academy also got into another field of experimentations by trying to rediscover the harmonies (genera) of Ancient Greek music.  Le Jeune worked on a reduced chromatic tetrachord, that supposedly was of ancient origin. This formula can be found in Quelle eau (1585) and allows the spectacular chromaticisms realized in Qu’est devenu ce bel œil? This piece is a striking memento mori, where the lover’s attributes - eye, face and hand - are now buried. The body’s putrefaction, the ephemeral and insignifiance of youth and beauty are evoked by poignant chromaticisms.

 

In the preface of Printemps, a collection of musique mesurée published in 1603, Du Baïf suggests to the composers to find first the affects and rhythmical subtleties of ancient musicians, and then to combine them with all the harmonic artefacts and the perfection developed during the centuries. Le Jeune will have a lasting influence on French music, much more   important than the poetical aspect developed by the Academy that will remain limited to the single generation of Du Baïf et Ronsard. The Musique mesurée will durably inspire the sacred French music and will provide a model for the air de cour and the ballet of the next generation.

 

 

Christine Jeanneret , Geneva University