Jean Mouton (c.1459 - 1522) was one of the most
important motet composers of the French Renaissance
period. He enters the historical record when, at the
age of 18 or older, he was appointed a singer and also
a teacher of religious subjects in the collegiate
church of Notre Dame in Nesle in 1477. In 1483 he rose
to the position of maître de chapelle there. The
documents showing this also say that he was a priest,
so his age was a minimum of 25.
There is a gap of over 15 years in his his...(+)
Jean Mouton (c.1459 - 1522) was one of the most
important motet composers of the French Renaissance
period. He enters the historical record when, at the
age of 18 or older, he was appointed a singer and also
a teacher of religious subjects in the collegiate
church of Notre Dame in Nesle in 1477. In 1483 he rose
to the position of maître de chapelle there. The
documents showing this also say that he was a priest,
so his age was a minimum of 25.
There is a gap of over 15 years in his history, when he
is noted as being maitre des enfin (or director of
choir boys) at Amines Cathedral, and the author or
organizer of the performance of a mystery play. It is
considered likely that he earned his master's degree,
perhaps in Paris, after leaving his position in Paris
and before arriving in Amines.
In 1501, he became director of music in the collegiate
church of St André in Grenoble. King Louis XII and his
wife, Queen Anne of Brittany, visited Grenoble in June
1502. It appears that they took Mouton with them, for
church records show that he left his position there
without the permission of his chapter, and other
records soon after that show he had joined Queen Anne's
chapel some time during that decade. The Queen arranged
in 1509 that Mouton would be appointed a canon at St.
André in Grenoble, in absentia, meaning he got the
income but did not have to do the work. (Such sinecures
were not uncommon during this period.)
Mouton remained attached to the royal court for the
rest of his life, remaining when François I took the
throne. Whether the title existed or not, he filled the
functions of an official court composer. He wrote both
secular and sacred music for specific public and
private royal functions, including royal weddings. For
instance, his motet Inter natos mulierum is though to
have been written to Queen Anne's order after she was
cured of an illness in 1506 and attributed the cure to
a relic of John the Baptist. He wrote a touching motet,
Quis debit oculis, on the Queen's death in 1514.
Another, Missus et angelus Gabriel was composed for the
arrival of Louis XII's new wife, Mary Tudor, in Paris
in 1514. Whatever music he wrote on the occasion of
Louis' death less than a year later is unknown, but he
wrote Domine salvum fac regem for the coronation of
François I in Reims in 1515, and celebrated that
King's first notable military victory, at the Battle of
Marignano in that same year, with Exalte Regina
Galliae, even though the losers in that battle were the
forces of Pope Leo X. When the Pope and the King met to
conclude a peace treaty in December of that same
eventful year, they were accompanied by their own
respective musical establishments. On hearing Father
Mouton's musicians and music, the Pope rewarded him by
appointing him an apostolic notary. Leo remained fond
of Mouton's music. Some sources describe him as the
Pope's favorite composer, and it is likely that he sent
several Masses to the Pope.
Mouton's fame was widely spread, and he was among the
first composers to have an entire volume of his music
published. This was done by the pioneer of music
printing, Petrucci, who issued a book of his Masses in
1515. Another important collection of his music is a
compilation of his motets issued in 1555, several years
after his death. This attention allows a large
proportion of his works to survive, numbering over 100
motets, 15 masses, and more than 20 chansons. Another
legacy of his stems from his having been the teacher of
Adrian Willaert, who himself became a great teacher in
the Franco-Netherlands style, which exerted great
influence in Italian music of the high Renaissance. On
the other hand, it is unlikely that Mouton was (as has
been speculated) a pupil of Josquin.
While Mouton's music uses many of the techniques
associated with Josquin's, his musical personality is
entirely different. Josquin's temperament was fiery,
while Mouton tended to write calming, meditative music
with smooth, flowing polyphony. For the most part, the
music is written in longer notes of even pace, with a
few shorter notes used mainly to add variety. In his
religious music he seems not to have cared much whether
the accents of the music matched that of the texts, and
therefore the words are not easily understood. However,
in his writing for political occasions, where the words
were less familiar and much more important, he did take
care that the music helped project them.
The description of this music might suggest that much
of it suffered sameness or that it was so uniform that
it becomes dull, but this is not generally the case.
Within the music is the work of a brilliant
contrapuntal thinker. His Nesciens mater virgo virum is
a quadruple canon partly based on a plainchant. There
are distinct periods in his music that mirror the age's
general progress from reliance on a cantus firmus to
newer devices such a parody and paraphrase. In later
motets he used a repetitive structure that seems to
anticipate the Baroque's ritornello technique.
In 1518, Duke Lorenzo de Medici or Urbino married
Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne. One of their wedding
gifts was a collection called the Medici Codex, an
elegant illuminated manuscript of music of the time, of
which Mouton was probably editor-in-chief. Once again,
in 1520, Mouton was involved in a kind of musical
contest attending a peace parley when François met
King Henry VIII of England at the Field of the Cloth of
Gold and both monarchs brought their musicians. Toward
the end of his life, Mouton received another
beneficence, at St. Quentin, which is where he died and
was buried.
The text of the music is as follows: "Nesciens mater
virgo virum peperit sine dolore salvatorem saeculorum.
Ipsum regem angelorum sola virgo lactabat, ubere de
caelo pleno" (Knowing no man, the Virgin mother bore,
without pain, the Saviour of the world. Him, the king
of angels, only the Virgin suckled, breasts filled by
heaven).
Source: AllMusic
(https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jean-mouton-mn00013239
63/biography).
Although this piece was originally written for 3 Voices
and Continuo, I created this interpretation of the
"Nesciens mater virgo virum" for Winds (Flute, Oboe,
English Horn & Bassoon) & Strings (2 Violins, Viola &
Cello).
PARTITION