Biographies

Levron

Jacques Levron (1906-2004) was archivist in Angers, where Janequin resided from ca. 1530 to 1549. Clément Janequin: Musicien de la Renaissance: Essai sur sa vie et ses amis (B. Artaud, 1948, 108 pages; reissued by Editions d’Aujourd’hui) is an early and slightly local-patriotic account of the composer’s life.

Lesure and Merritt

Pages I-V of Clément Janequin: Chansons Polyphoniques (Ed. Francois Lesure and A. Tillman Merritt, Éditions de l’Oiseaux-Lyre: Monaco, 1965-71, six volumes; 2nd edition with corrections, 1983) give a capsule summary (in French) of the composer’s life, building on a series of articles by musicologist Lesure (1923-2001)and Bordeaux archivist Paul Rodie.

Groves

The New Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians (6th ed., 1980) article on Janequin was written by the iconic American musicologist Howard Mayer Brown (1930-1993) with emendations in the 7th edition (2000) by Richard Freedman.

Wikipedia

The Wikipedia article derives largely from the Groves articles and is distinguished only by the inclusion of a purported portrait of the composer, which is in fact of King Henry III of France (1551-1589). (No portrait of Janequin is known to exist.)

Clement Janequin: un musicien au milieu des poètes (2013)

Focusing especially on Janequin’s relationship to the texts which he set, this collection of articles, edited by Olivier Halévy, Isabelle His and Jean Vignes, also includes some biographical material.

Norsen

Clément Janequin: French Composer at the Dawn of Music Publishing by Rolf Norsen is in preparation. To learn more, click here.