Philippe Verdelot

Philippe Verdelot, also: " Verde Lotto", suffixed " Deslouges " or " Des Loges " are due to the place of residence, (* 1480-1485 probably in Les Loges in the community Verdelot; † in Florence probably 1527-1532 ) was a French composer.

Life

Although Verdelot was the most important composer of Italian madrigals before Arcadelt and one of the pioneers of the genre, is about his life very little is known.

Born in northern France, he spent most his early years. When exactly Verdelot repaired to Italy, is unclear. Maybe he spent 1510-1513 in Rome, but that is not accounted for. A note by a painting by Sebastiano del Piombo in 1511 has not yet been secured. The Verdelot presence in Italy before 1520 therefore remains hypothetical. The earliest sources are secured copies of sacred music Verdelot that were made ​​around 1520 in northern Italy.

At the latest 1520/1521 to Verdelot went to Florence, however, the fact there is agreement. For he was no later than March 1522 maestro di capella at the Baptistery of the cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore, and no later than April 1523, he held the same office at the cathedral itself thus Verdelot had united the two most important church music departments of the city on itself and held this probably until mid- 1527.

Probably Verdelot has the Florentines disaster years 1527-1530 did not survive, because there are no works that are dated after 1530, and on the music for the Florentine Royal Wedding 1539, he was not involved, but instead Arcadelt, which was designated as his successor.

In the 1530s he was by far the meistpublizierte composer in Italy. Until appeared in the 1540s individual and collective prints of his works, until the 1560s reprints. 1566 published a commemorative edition of his first two books Madrigal ( by Cl. Merulo, Venice).

The fact that the tradition of the madrigals in the 1530s began with vigor, was due to the development of the Italian music printing and the rapidly increasing popularity of the madrigal in society.

Creation

Philippe Verdelot shaped the musical history of his time mainly through its variety of madrigals. He is even referred to as the " founder of the madrigal as a musical genre ".

The texts set to music Verdelot in his madrigals, content act almost all of unrequited love, but came from very different genres, such as the sonnet, the canzone or the literary form of the madrigal. Only relatively few texts were from Francesco Petrarca, which in Italy was rather unusual at that time. Verdelot composed the music for many texts by contemporary poets such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Ludovico Martelli Angelo Poliziano or.

In composing the music Verdelot divided according to the text, so that sections in the text correspond to the sections in the music. Musically this structure is particularly evident through cadences.

In tune education Verdelot tried to imitate the natural intonation. Therefore, a voice often remains declamatory on only one or a few tones. Larger jumps within a phrase are very rare.

Musical Unity plays for Verdelot a big role, but also the content of the text is important for him. Since the structure of the sentence is often very simple, the later for the Madrigal characterizing musical means come to the interpretation of the text to its best advantage. These effects are however used only very selectively with single words when Verdelot.

The compositional technique of the early four-part madrigals Verdelot is usually rather homophonic. An overarching structure arises here often by an agent of the French Chanson: The beginning is kept very strictly homophonic, the middle part is a bit polyphonic and homophonic concluding section again, the last verse of the poem is repeated. The final cadence is built on long sustained notes in one or more voices.

The five - or six-part madrigals, however, are designed polyphonic. The voices imitate each other or form a kind Doppelchörigkeit. An outline can also be produced by transition to a homophoneren set way here.

Verdelot madrigals were so well known that they were still printed after his death. But not only his madrigals have an important significance for the history of music, including motets Verdelot constitute a large and diverse body of work.

Works

( a clear assignment to Verdelot is not possible in many plants)

Mental: 1 Magnificat, two exhibitions and more than 50 motets

Secular: 4 French chansons and madrigals 146

Music

• Norbert Böker - Heil ( ed. ): The motets of Philippe Verdelot. Frankfurt / Main, 1967 ( contains in Annex 3 Motets for 4- 5stimmigen mixed choir. ).

Discography

• Verdelot, Philippe: " Philippe Verdelot Madrigals for a Tudor King.. " Christopher Watson, Clare Wilkinson, David Skinner, Lynda Sayce, Mark Dobell, Robert Macdonald, Ruth Massey, Steven Harrold, Timothy Scott Whiteley, Will Unwin, David Skinner ( Director), Obsidian Records., 2007.
• Verdelot, Philippe: " A Renaissance Songbook Philippe Verdelot. The Complete Madrigal Book from 1536. " Catherine King, Charles Daniels, Jacob Heringman, Brian Shelley, Robert Macdonald, Linn Records ( CODAEX Germany ) 2001.
• Verdelot, Philippe: " Crisóbal De Morales Missa Si bona suscepimus. . " The Tallis Scholar, Peter Phillips, Gimell 2011 CDGIM 033