Antoine de Févin (c.1470 – late 1511 or early 1512) was a French composer of the Renaissance. He was active at the same time as Josquin Desprez, and shares many traits with his more famous contemporary. Events May 15 - Charles VIII of Sweden who had served three terms as King of Sweden dies. ... Events Diego Velázquez and Hernán Cortés conquer Cuba; Velázquez appointed Governor. ... Events April 11 - Battle of Ravenna. ... The French Republic or France (French: République française or France) is a country whose metropolitan territory is located in western Europe, and which is further made up of a collection of overseas islands and territories located in other continents. ... Renaissance music is classical music written during the Renaissance period, approximately 1400 to 1600 CE. Defining the end of the period is easier than defining the beginning, since there were no revolutionary shifts in musical thinking at the beginning of the 15th century corresponding to the sudden development of the... Josquin Des Prez Josquin Des Prez (diminutive of Joseph; latinized Josquinus Pratensis) (c. ...

Life

Févin was born in Arras, the son of an alderman. His brother Robert de Févin was also a composer. Most likely Antoine left Arras in the late 1480s, though there is no evidence that he went to Italy, the commonest destination for Franco-Flemish composers of the time. Sometime during the 1490s he became a priest, and he also may have obtained a master's degree at a university, since he is commonly known as maistre later in his life. By 1507 he was working as a singer and composer for Louis XII of France, who praised him highly. He died at Blois. Arras ( Dutch: Atrecht) is a city and commune in northern France, préfecture (capital) of the Pas-de-Calais département. ... Centuries: 14th century - 15th century - 16th century Decades: 1430s 1440s 1450s 1460s 1470s - 1480s - 1490s 1500s 1510s 1520s 1530s Years: 1480 1481 1482 1483 1484 1485 1486 1487 1488 1489 Events and Trends Categories: 1480s ... Centuries: 14th century - 15th century - 16th century Decades: 1440s 1450s 1460s 1470s 1480s - 1490s - 1500s 1510s 1520s 1530s 1540s Years: 1490 1491 1492 1493 1494 1495 1496 1497 1498 1499 Events and Trends 1490: Tirant lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell & Martí Joan De Galba is published. ... Events The western continent is named America on the maps of Martin Waldseemüller. ... Louis XII Louis XII the Father of the People (French: Louis XII le Père du Peuple) (June 27, 1462 - January 1, 1515) was King of France from 1498-January 1, 1515. ... Blois is a city in France, the préfecture (capital) city of the Loir_et_Cher département, situated on the banks of the lower river Loire between Orléans and Tours. ...

The Swiss music theorist and biographer Heinrich Glarean, writing in 1547, noted that Févin was a follower of Josquin, and that he died young; he also mentioned him as being a composer of Orleans, though this most likely referred to the association of that city with the court of Louis XII. The Swiss Confederation or Switzerland is a landlocked federal state in Europe, with neighbours Germany, France, Italy, Austria and Liechtenstein. ... Music theory is a set of systems for analyzing, classifying, and composing music and the elements of music. ... Heinrich Glarean (also Glareanus) (June 1488 – March 28, 1563) was a Swiss music theorist, poet and humanist. ... Events January 16 - Grand Duke Ivan IV of Muscovy becomes the first Tsar of Russia. ...

Works

All of Févin's surviving music is vocal. He wrote masses, motets and chansons. Stylistically his music is similar to Josquin's in its clarity of texture and design, and its relatively progressive nature: Févin evidently wrote in the most current styles, adopting the method of contrasting imitative sections with homophonic sections which came into prominence around 1490. Unlike Josquin, he was less concerned with the careful setting of text than with formal structure; his setting of individual words is occasionally clumsy, though his larger-scale structures are easy to follow. He also particularly liked the device of using vocal duets to contrast with the full sonority of the choir. This article discusses the Mass as a standard form of classical music composition. ... In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions. ... 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. ... Homophony is music in which the top line has a dominant melody, and all the voices accompany it with chords in the same rhythm. ... Events Tirant Lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell, Martí Joan De Galba is published. ...

Some of Févin's music uses the technique of free contrapuntal fantasy, later perfected by Josquin, where strict imitation is absent; fragments of a cantus firmus pervade the texture, giving a feeling of overall unity and complete equality of all the voices. Counterpoint is a very general feature of music (especially prominent in much Western music) whereby two or more melodic strands occur simultaneously - in separate voices, either literally or metaphorically (if the music is instrumental). ... In music, cantus firmus is the basic material to be set using polyphony. ...

Of his music, 14 masses, 3 lamentations, 3 magnificats, 14 motets and 17 chansons survive. Magnificat is the Latin name of the canticle of Mary, the mother of Jesus, which she speaks to Elisabeth, the wife of Zechariah. ...

Sources

• Articles "Antoine de Févin" and "Robert de Févin," in 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. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0393095304