Attaingnant and Du Chemin: Competition or Cooperation?

After two decades of sending his compositions to Pierre Attaingnant in Paris, starting in 1549 Janequin’s works began appeaing from the shop of Nicolas Du Chemin. For a time, however, his music appeared from both sets of presses, causing some observers to wonder if theft is ethics spelled backwards. There are, I think, other possibilities.

Compositeur du Roi: The Court Position that Never Was

Recent scholarship has conjectured that Janequin, Sandrin and Certon were honored in turn with a position described loosely as «Royal Composer» for the French court. It’s a pleasant concept, and certainly not undeserved, but the realities are a bit less regal.

Janequin and the Guise Dynasty: Commissions or Chimera?

In a dedication in 1555, Janequin expressed his gratitude to one of the Guise clan and signed himself «your faithful chaplain» for one of the others. Should this, as has been suggested, be taken at face value, and put Janequin on the Guise family payroll?

The Battle of Metz: An Unlikely Landmark in the History of Western Music

At certain points in the partbooks of Janequin’s La bataille de Mets (1555), the names of a variety of instruments are appended above the staff. Not just a few scholars have greeted this practice as an event of note in the developmental scheme of things. In this overview I cast my lot with those who beg to differ.

The Missa L’Aveuglé Dieu: A Case of Critical Contagion

Some secondary sources credit Janequin with two masses, some with only one, and others with none at all. How the unquestionably authentic Missa L’Aveuglé dieu from 1554 came to be lumped together with the unquestionably questionable Missa La bataille of 1532 is traced from start to finish.

Tightening the Canon: Janequin and Three-voice Arrangements

In the 1965-71 edition of Clément Janequin: chansons polyphoniques, Lesure and Merritt present eleven 3-part chansons as part of Janequin’s opus. The dust may never settle on the perennially contentious issue of LM5 «L’Alouette» (The Lark), but there are plenty of reasons for relieving Janequin of the responsibillity for the other ten.

Verdelot, Susato and Janequin: Fanfares Without Politics

In 1545, the Antwerpian music printer Tylman Susato published a version of Janequin’s «La Guerre» with an added fifth voice credited to Verdelot. Antwerp is a long way from Florence, where Verdelot was active (but not notably concerned with chanson writing) and by 1545, two decades had passed since Verdelot had moved on to his eternal reward. How does all this connect?