Antoine de Bertrand (also Anthoine) (1530/1540 – probably 1581) was a French composer of the Renaissance. Early in his life he was a prolific composer of secular chansons, and late in his life he wrote hymns and canticles, under the influence of the Jesuits. He was murdered by Protestants during the French Wars of Religion. Events June 25 - Augsburg confession presented to Charles V of Holy Roman Empire. ... Events January 6 - King Henry VIII of England marries Anne of Cleves, his fourth Queen consort. ... Events January 16 - English Parliament outlaws Roman Catholicism April 4 - Francis Drake completes a circumnavigation of the world and is knighted by Elizabeth I. July 26 - The Northern Netherlands proclaim their independence from Spain in the Oath of Abjuration. ... Renaissance music is European classical music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 to 1600. ... Chanson is a French word for song, and in English-language contexts is often applied to any song with French words, particularly a cabaret song. ... A hymn is a type of song, usually religious, specifically written for the purpose of praise, adoration or prayer, and typically addressed to a god or other religiously significant figure. ... A canticle is a hymn (strictly excluding the Psalms) taken from the Bible. ... The Society of Jesus (Latin: Societas Iesu), commonly known as the Jesuits, is a Roman Catholic religious order. ... Protestantism is a general grouping of denominations within Christianity. ... The French Wars of Religion were a series of conflicts fought between the Catholic League and the Huguenots from the middle of the sixteenth century to the Edict of Nantes in 1598. ...

Life

Details of his life are relatively scanty for an otherwise prominent composer of the period, probably because he never held a salaried position as a musician at an establishment whose records have survived. He was born at Fontanges, in the Auvergne, and from about 1560 he lived in Toulouse. Details of his death are not known, but that he was martyred for his Jesuit-inspired songs by Protestants is attested by several writers of the time. According to Michel Coyssard, writing in 1608, he was traveling between Toulouse and one of the farms he managed when he was attacked and killed. This event was also mentioned in the preface to his posthumously published Airs spirituels (1582), but neither of these sources gives the date of his assassination. History Auvergne was also historically a province of France, deriving its name from Averni, a Gallic tribe who once occupied the area. ... The Capitole, the 18th century city hall of Toulouse and best known landmark in the city; in the foreground is the Place du Capitole, a hub of urban life at the very center of the city Toulouse (pronounced in standard French, and in local Toulouse accent) (Occitan: Tolosa, pronounced ) is...

Music and influence

Bertrand published three large books of chansons, and, towards the end of his life, three books of sacred music. A total of 84 chansons and one Italian madrigal have survived, out of his secular music, and 10 hymns in Latin, 14 canticles, and three Latin motets, of his sacred music. Most of his music is for four unaccompanied voices. He wrote in the preface to his first book of chansons (1576) that he intended to publish five or six books in total, including many pieces which he wrote much earlier in his life; this would seem to indicate that much of his music was left unpublished. Chanson is a French word for song, and in English-language contexts is often applied to any song with French words, particularly a cabaret song. ... A madrigal is a setting for 3–6 voices of a secular text, often in Italian. ... A canticle is a hymn (strictly excluding the Psalms) taken from the Bible. ... In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions. ...

His first two volumes of chansons are for four voices, and are settings of the Amours of Pierre de Ronsard, poems which describe the stages and incidents in a love affair gone sour. Some of the harmonic language used in the chansons is daring, and approaches the experimental level of Vicentino; Bertrand uses microtones, including quarter-tones, as an expressive device in some of the pieces. The most extreme example of this is the last seventeen measures of the chanson Je suis tellement amoureux, in which Bertrand completely avoids diatonic writing, using "only chromatic and enharmonic, with no mixture of diatonicism except in an interval in the bassecontre and another in the hautecontre, made to express the word 'death'". ^[1] However, in a later edition of the same songs (published posthumously in 1587) he rewrote the music to avoid the quarter-tones; evidently they were too hard to sing. In the preface he also mentions that music is best when it appeals to the senses, and avoids mathematical subtleties. Nicola Vicentino (Vicenza, 1511 – Milan, 1575 or 1576) was an Italian music theorist and composer of the Renaissance. ... In Music theory, the diatonic major scale (also known as the Guido scale), from the Greek diatonikos or to stretch out, is a fundamental building block of the European-influenced musical tradition. ... The chromatic scale is the scale that contains all twelve pitches of the Western tempered scale. ... In music, an enharmonic is a note which is the equivalent of some other note, but spelled differently. ... A quarter tone is an interval half as wide (aurally, or logarithmically) as a semitone, which is half a whole tone. ...

Although Bertrand only wrote one Italian madrigal—actually a villanella—he was clearly influenced in his chanson-writing by the Italian concern for text-painting and careful underlining of words and phrases with appropriate and symbolic melodic and harmonic material. He was careful to use contrasting textures and meters, for example switching from duple to triple meter several times during the course of a composition. A madrigal is a setting for 3–6 voices of a secular text, often in Italian. ... In music, a villanella (pl. ...

Bertrand's sacred works, contained in his three publications of Airs spirituels and sonets chrestiens, are closely related stylistically to the contemporary psalm-settings by the Huguenots: they are simple both melodically and harmonically, and usually maintain a homophonic texture throughout. The melodies are mostly from Gregorian chant. Except for the origin of their tunes, they are very similar to some of the psalm settings by the Huguenot composer Claude Goudimel, who had been killed by Catholics in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre a decade earlier. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the name of Huguenots came to apply to members of the Protestant Reformed Church of France, or historically as the French Calvinists. ... Gregorian chant is also known as plainchant or plainsong and is a form of monophonic, unaccompanied singing, which was developed in the Catholic church, mainly during the period 800-1000. ... Claude Goudimel was a French composer and music theorist of the Renaissance. ... 19th century painting by François Dubois The St. ...

Works

Sacred

• Premier livre de sonets chrestiens mis en musique (4vv, Lyon, 1580)
• Second livre de sonets chrestiens mis en musique (4vv, Lyon, 1580)
• Airs spirituels contenant plusieurs hymnes et cantiques (4vv and 5vv, Paris, 1582)

Three of the main sights in Lyon, the Cathedral St-Jean, the Basilica Notre Dame de Fourvière, and the Tour métallique de Fourvière City flag City coat of arms Motto: (Franco-Provençal: Forward, forward, Lyon the best) Coordinates : , Time Zone : CET (GMT +1) Administration Subdivisions 9... The Eiffel Tower, the international symbol of the city, with the skyscrapers of La Défense business district 5 km/ 3 mi behind. ...

Secular

• Les amours de Pierre de Ronsard (4vv, 1576) (second edition 1578) (contains 35 chansons)
• Second livre des amours de Pierre de Ronsard (4vv, 1578) (total of 25 chansons)
• Tiers livre de chansons (4vv, 1578)
• Three chansons also published separately in 1570

References

• Frank Dobbins: "Anthoine de Bertrand", François Lesure, "France", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed December 31, 2005), Grove Music online (subscription access only)
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1561591742
• ↑  Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance, p.389. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0393095304