Everything about Jean Mouton totally explained
» For the Acadian founder of Lafayette, Louisiana see Jean Mouton (Acadian).
Jean Mouton (c.
1459 –
October 30,
1522) was a
French composer of the
Renaissance. He was famous both for his
motets, which are among the most refined of the time, and for being the teacher of
Adrian Willaert, one of the founders of the
Venetian School.
Life
He was born either in
1459 or earlier, but records of his early life, as is so often the case with Renaissance composers, are scanty. Most likely he was from the village of Holluigue (now
Haut-Wignes), near
Boulogne-sur-Mer. He probably began his first job, singer and teacher at the collegiate church in
Nesle (southeast of
Amiens) in
1477, and in
1483 was made
maître de chapelle there. Sometime around this time he became a priest, and in
1500 he was in charge of choirboys at the cathedral in Amiens. In
1501 he was in
Grenoble, teaching choirboys, but he left the next year, most likely entering the service of Queen Anne of
Brittany, and in
1509 he was granted a position again in Grenoble which he could hold
in absentia. Mouton was now the principal composer for the French court. For the remainder of his life he was employed by the French court in one capacity or another, often writing music for state occasions--weddings, coronations, papal elections, births and deaths.
Mouton composed a motet,
Christus vincit, for the election of
Leo X as pope in
1513. Leo evidently liked Mouton's music, for he rewarded him with an honorary title on the occasion of a motet he composed for the pope in
1515; the pope made this award during a meeting in
Bologna between the French king and the pope after the
Battle of Marignano. This trip to
Italy was the first, and probably only trip that Mouton made outside of France.
Sometime between
1517 and
1522 the Swiss music theorist
Heinrich Glarean met Jean Mouton, and praised him effusively; he wrote that "everyone had copies of his music." Glarean used several examples of Mouton's music in his influential treatise, the
Dodecachordon.
Mouton may have been the editor of the illuminated manuscript known as the
Medici Codex, one of the primary manuscript sources of the time, which was a wedding gift for
Lorenzo de' Medici, who was Duke of
Urbino.
It is considered to be very likely, but not proven, that Mouton was in charge of the elaborate musical festivities by the French at the meeting between
François I and
Henry VIII at the
Field of the Cloth of Gold, based on the similarity to the similar festivities five years earlier after the Battle of Marignano.
Near the end of his life, Mouton moved to
St. Quentin, where he may have been a canon, taking over for
Loyset Compère who died in
1518. Mouton died in St. Quentin and is buried there.
Music and influence
Mouton was hugely influential both as a composer and as a teacher. Of his music, 9
Magnificat settings, 15
masses, 20
chansons, and over 100
motets survive; since he was a court composer for a king, the survival rate of his music is relatively high for the period, it being widely distributed, copied, and archived. In addition, the famous publisher
Ottaviano Petrucci printed an entire volume of Mouton's masses (early in the history of music printing, most publications contained works by multiple composers).
The style of Mouton's music has superficial similarities to that of
Josquin Desprez, using paired
imitation,
canonic techniques, and equal-voiced
polyphonic writing: yet Mouton tends to write rhythmically and texturally uniform music compared to Josquin, with all the voices singing, and with relatively little textural contrast.
Glarean characterized Mouton's melodic style with the phrase "his melody flows in a supple thread."
Around
1500, Mouton seems to have become more aware of
chords and
harmonic feeling, probably due to his encounter with
Italian music. At any rate this was a period of transition between purely linear thinking in music, in which chords were incidental occurrences as a result of correct usage of intervals, and music in which the harmonic element was foremost (for example in lighter Italian forms such as the
frottola, which are
homophonic in texture and sometimes have frankly diatonic harmony).
Mouton was a fine musical craftsman throughout his life, highly regarded by his contemporaries and much in demand by his royal patrons. His music was reprinted and continued to attract other composers even later in the
16th century, especially two joyful Christmas motets he wrote,
Noe, noe psallite noe, and
Quaeramus cum pastoribus
, which several later composers used as the basis for masses.
Works list
Masses and mass fragments
- Missa "Alleluia"
- Missa "Alma redemptoris mater"
- Missa "Argentum et aurum (lost)"
- Missa "Benedictus Dominus Deus"
- Missa "Dictes moy toutes vos pensées"
- Missa "Ecce quam bonum"
- Missa "Lo serai je dire"
- Missa "Faulte d'argent"
- Missa "l'Homme armé"
- Missa "Quem dicunt homines"
- Missa "Regina mearum"
- Missa "sans candence"
- Missa sine nomine 1 (without a name)
- Missa sine nomine 2 (without a name)
- Missa "tu es Petrus"
- Missa "Tua est potentia"
- Missa "Verbum bonum"
- Credo (fragment)
Motets (selected)
Antequam comedam suspiro
Benedicam Dominum
Exalta Regina Galliae (written to celebrate the French victory at the battle of Marignano, September 13-14, 1515)
Missus est Gabriel
Nesciens mater for eight voices, a tour de force of canon writing, being a quadruple canon at an interval of the fifth, proceeding a space of two measures.
Non nobis Domine (written for the birth of the Princess Renée, October 25, 1510)
O Maria piissima; Quis dabit oculis nostris (on the death of Queen Anna, January 9, 1514)
Salve Mater Salvatoris performed here.
Chansons (selected)
La la la l'oysillon du bois
Qui ne regrettroit le gentil Févin (Deploration on the death of Févin, 1511-1512)Further Information
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