Pierre de La Rue (c.1452 – November 20, 1518) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. A member of the same generation as Josquin des Prez, he ranks with Agricola, Brumel, Compère, Isaac, Obrecht, and Weerbeke as one of the most famous and influential exponents of the Netherlands polyphonic style in the decades around 1500. Events October - English troops under John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, land in Guyenne, France, and retake most of the province without a fight. ... November 20 is the 324th day of the year (325th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar. ... Events A plague of tropical fire ants devastates crops on Hispaniola. ... In music, the Dutch School refers, somewhat imprecisely, to the style of polyphonic vocal music composition in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. ... Renaissance music is European classical music written during the Renaissance, approximately 1400 to 1600. ... Josquin des Prez Josquin Des Prez (French rendering of Dutch Josken, diminutive of Joseph; latinized Josquinus Pratensis, alternatively Jodocus Pratensis) (c. ... Alexander Agricola (1445 or 1446 – August 1506) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. ... Antoine Brumel (around 1460 – 1512 or 1513) was a French composer. ... Manuscript of Omnium bonorum plena, a motet by Compère, and possibly his earliest surviving work; the exact date is uncertain, but it was possibly written for the dedication of Cambrai Cathedral on July 2, 1472. ... Heinrich Isaac (also Henricus, Arrigo dUgo, and Arrigo il Tedesco) (around 1450 – March 26, 1517) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. ... Jacob Obrecht Jacob Obrecht (November 22, 1458 – late July, 1505) was a Dutch composer of the Renaissance. ... Gaspar van Weerbeke (c. ... Polyphony is a musical texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony). ... 1500 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Life

He was probably born at Tournai, in modern Belgium, and likely educated at the Notre-Dame Cathedral there, which had a substantial musical establishment. While no records remain of his childhood, he was mentioned in the archives of the cathedral of Ste Gudule in Brussels in 1469-1470, as an adult singer. In 1471 he was in Ghent at the Jacobskerk. Subsequently he was employed in Nieuwpoort (from 1472 to around 1477), Cologne (ending in 1489), and Cambrai (date unknown), as well as one location called "St Ode" (date and city not known). Previous biographies of La Rue place him in Siena, Italy between 1483 and 1485; however it has been determined that the La Rue in the records there was a different singer. Pierre de La Rue probably never went to Italy, making him one of the few prominent Franco-Flemish composers of this generation never to travel there. The cathedral of Notre Dame de Tournai Tournai (in Dutch: Doornik) is located 85 kilometers southwest of Brussels on the river Scheldt in the Belgian province of Hainaut. ... Tournai Cathedral Notre-Dame Cathedral of Tournai is one of the most important architectural monuments in Belgium. ... Nickname: The Capital Of Europe, Comic City City of a 100 Museums Map showing the location of Brussels in Belgium Coordinates: Country Belgium Region Brussels-Capital Region Founded 797 Founded (Region) June 18, 1989 Mayor (Municipality) Freddy Thielemans Area    - City 162 (Region) km²  (62. ... Events July 26 - Battle of Edgecote Moor October 17 - Prince Ferdinand of Aragon wed princess Isabella of Castile. ... Events May 15 - Charles VIII of Sweden who had served three terms as King of Sweden dies. ... This article is about the year 1471, not the BT caller ID service accessible by dialling 1-4-7-1. ... Gent at Night Ghent (IPA: ; Gent in Dutch; Gand in French, formerly Gaunt in English) is a city located in Flanders, Belgium. ... Nieuwpoort is the name of a Belgian municipality and a Dutch village: Nieuwpoort, Belgium Nieuwpoort (mun. ... Events February 20 - The Orkneys and Shetlands are annexed to the crown of Scotland Discovery of Newfoundland by Didrik Pining and João Vaz Corte-Real. ... Events January 5 - Battle of Nancy - Charles the Bold of Burgundy is again defeated, and this time is killed. ... Köln redirects here. ... Events March 14 - The Queen of Cyprus, Catherine Cornaro, sells her kingdom to Venice. ... Cambrai (Dutch: Kamerijk) is a French city and commune, in the Nord département, of which it is a sous_préfecture. ... Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. ... Events The São Tomé settlement is founded. ... // Events August 5-7 - First outbreak of sweating sickness in England begins August 22 - Battle of Bosworth Field is fought between the armies of King Richard III of England and rival claimant to the throne of England Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond. ...

In 1492 he went to 's-Hertogenbosch Cathedral (in present-day Netherlands), but the next year he joined the chapel of Emperor Maxmilian. The remainder of his career was centered on Brussels, though he made at least two trips to Spain. On the second trip to Spain, in 1506, he was shipwrecked in the English Channel, and spent three months at the court of Henry VII of England. After two more years in Spain, in the service of Juana of Castile — Joanna the Mad — he returned to the Netherlands in 1508, probably because Juana had been forced out of power (her husband, Philip the Fair, had died of typhus in 1506). Juana was inconsolable, unable to leave the corpse of her dead husband, and had become quite insane; why La Rue stayed as long as he did is not known, but it is not impossible that his dark, intensely expressive music was one of the few things that brought her solace. 1492 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... s-Hertogenbosch (literally The Dukes Forest in Dutch; translated in French as Bois-le-Duc), unofficially also called Den Bosch, is a municipality in the Netherlands, the capital of the province of North Brabant. ... Portrait by Albrecht Dürer, 1519 (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). ... Nickname: The Capital Of Europe, Comic City City of a 100 Museums Map showing the location of Brussels in Belgium Coordinates: Country Belgium Region Brussels-Capital Region Founded 797 Founded (Region) June 18, 1989 Mayor (Municipality) Freddy Thielemans Area    - City 162 (Region) km²  (62. ... 1506 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Henry VII (January 28, 1457 – April 21, 1509), King of England, Lord of Ireland (August 22, 1485 – April 21, 1509), was the founder and first patriarch of the Tudor dynasty. ... Joanna of Castile Joanna (Spanish: Juana) (November 6, 1479 – April 12, 1555), called Juana the Mad (Juana La Loca), queen of Castile and mother of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, was the second daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain, and was born at Toledo on... 1508 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Philip and his wife Joanna of Castile Philip the Handsome (July 22, 1478 – September 25, 1506), (Felipe el Hermoso - Philipp der Schöne) was the son of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I. Through his mother Mary of Burgundy he inherited the greater part of the Burgundian state and through...

After returning north La Rue spent some time in Mechelen and at Kortrijk, where he died. An epitaph from his tomb in Kortrijk implies that he may have worked at the courts in France and Hungary as well, though no other evidence supports this. Then again, the location of "St Ode" has not been determined. Mechelen: Grote Markt square, with St. ... Kortrijk (French: Courtrai) is a city and municipality located in West Flanders, Belgium. ...

On his trips to Spain he met many of the other Franco-Flemish composers who were working at the same time (for instance, Josquin, Isaac and Robert de Févin) and these meetings may have proved decisive on the development of his style. Robert de Févin (late 15th and early 16th centuries) was a French composer of the Renaissance. ...

Works

La Rue wrote masses, motets, Magnificats, settings of the Lamentations, and chansons, and overall showed more diversity than almost any of the other composers of his generation, except perhaps for Josquin. Some scholars have suggested that he only composed music for only about the last 20 years of his life, mainly when he was in the imperial service; but it has proven difficult to date any of his works precisely, and they mostly conform to the stylistic trends prevalent around 1500. Stylistically, his works are more similar to Josquin than to any other composer working at the same time. In fact, misattribution of doubtful works has gone both ways. The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the fixed portions of the Eucharistic liturgy (principally that of the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, generally known in the US as the Episcopal Church, and also the Lutheran Church) to music. ... In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions. ... Sandro Boticelli. ... The Book of Lamentations (Hebrew מגילת איכה) is a book of the Bible Old Testament and Jewish Tanakh. ... 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. ... 1500 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Yet there are some unique features to La Rue's style. He had a liking for extreme low voice ranges, descending sometimes to C or even B flat below the bass staff; he employed more chromaticism than most of his contemporaries; and much of his work is rich in dissonance. He also broke up long, dense textures with passages for two voices only, something done also by Ockeghem and Josquin. In addition, he liked to write canons of considerable complexity. One of his masses for six voices, the Missa Ave sanctissima Maria, is a six-voice canon, a technically difficult feat reminiscent of some of the work of Ockeghem. This is also the earliest six-voice mass known to exist. The second of his two masses based on the L'homme armé tune begins and ends with mensuration canons, yet another feat of contrapuntal virtuosity worth of Josquin or Ockeghem; indeed La Rue sometimes seemed to be in conscious competition with the more renowned Josquin. This article is about the musical use of the word canon. For other uses, see canon (disambiguation). ... Lhomme armé was a secular song from the time of the Renaissance. ... A prolation canon is a type of musical canon. ... Counterpoint is a broad organisational feature of much music, involving the simultaneous sounding of separate musical lines. ...

Most of his masses are of the cantus firmus type, though he occasionally wrote a parody mass. In music, cantus firmus is the basic material to be set using polyphony. ... A parody mass is a mass that uses a piece of secular music, typically a fragment of a motet or chanson as part of its melodic material. ...

La Rue wrote one of the earliest polyphonic Requiem masses to survive, and it is one of his most famous works. Unlike later Requiems, it includes polyphonic settings only of the Introit, Kyrie, Tract, Offertory, Sanctus, Agnus, and Communion (the Dies Irae, often the center of gravity in more recent Requiems, was a later addition). This was the liturgical normality in the region of northern Europe he worked in. This mass, more than many others, emphasises the low registers of voices, and even the lowest voices themselves. The Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known formally (in Latin) as the Missa pro defunctis or Missa defunctorum, is a liturgical service of the Catholic Church and its Eastern Rite. ...

La Rue's motets are mostly for four voices; they use pervasive imitation, though not usually at the outset (unlike the style of Josquin). His thirty chansons show a diversity of style, some being rather similar to the late Burgundian style (for example, as seen in Hayne van Ghizeghem or Gilles Binchois), and others using the more current imitative polyphonic style. Since he never spent time in Italy, he never picked up the Italian frottola style which featured light, homophonic textures (which Josquin used so effectively in his popular El Grillo and Scaramella), and which so charmed the other members of his generation. Hayne van Ghizeghem (c. ... Gilles de Binchois or Bins (c. ... Polyphony is a musical texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice (monophony) or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords (homophony). ... The frottola is the predominant type of Italian popular, secular song of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century. ... In music, the word texture is often used in a rather vague way in reference to the overall sound of a piece of music. ...

External links

• Free scores by Pierre de La Rue in the Werner Icking Music Archive
• Listen to a free recording of a songs from Umeå Akademiska Kör.

The Werner Icking Music Archive, often abbreviated WIMA, is a web archive of public domain sheet music. ...

Sources

• Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4
• Article "Pierre de La Rue," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ISBN 1-56159-174-2
• Honey Meconi: "Pierre de La Rue", Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed September 18, 2005), (subscription access)