Jean Cousin (composer)

Jean Escatefer dit Cousin ( * 1425, † after 1474 ) was a French or frankoflämischer composer and singer.

Life and work

Jean Cousin served from 1446 to 1448 together with Johannes Ockeghem and eleven other singers in the chapel of Duke Charles I of Bourbon at Moulins.

Between 1448 and 1461 he found employment in the French court chapel, perhaps as early as 1452, since at that time Ockeghem official of the French king was. It was not until 1461, however, there is cousin detectable as a member of the court orchestra: the occasion of the funeral of Charles VII, he received a dress.

In order to facilitate the adoption of a third cousin stipend, asked the king Louis XI. the Pope to allow Ockeghem, cousin and other members of the royal chapel of the possession of three benefices. The Pope gave the place with his Bull of December 5, 1463.

Cousin took to the 1463-64 campaign rallies the city of Tours in part.

Until at least 1474 cousin served as singer and priest to the French king, which he had in 1473 reached the third place in the hierarchy of the court orchestra. When this office was terminated, is not be elicited because of the loss of the accounts of the court chapel for the period after 1474.

From cousin only the Missa tubae has been preserved, which derives its name from trumpet designs tenor and countertenor. One of John Tinctoris 1473 mentioned Missa Nigra sum seems lost.