Pierre de Manchicourt
Aliases: Mancicourt, Manchicurti
Life
Born: c. 1510, Béthune
Died: 5 October 1564, Madrid
Biography
Few records of Manchicourt's life survive: information about his life and work is obtained primarily from publications of his works. The earliest known information indicates that in 1525 he was a choirboy at Arras. By 1539, he was provost at the cathedral in Tours, where he would have had access to a considerable library of the works of the great master, and previous incumbent, Johannes Ockeghem. For at least nine years, from 1545 to 1554, he held the post of maître de chapelle at Nôtre-Dame Cathedral in Tournai. On the death of the incumbent, Nicolas Payen, in 1559, Manchicourt was appointed maestro de capilla flamenca (master of the Flemish chapel) at the court of Philip II in Madrid, which post he held until his death five years later.
The fact that Pierre Attaingnant, publisher of the French Royal Court, devoted his fourteenth and final volume of motets in 1539 entirely to Manchicourt's work (an honour he bestowed on no other, and emulated by Flemish publishers Susato and Phalèse in 1545 and 1554 respectively) bears testament to the composer's reputation in his day. Around the time of his death, Manchicourt's highly polyphonic style of composition rapidly went out of fashion — a fate shared with his contemporaries Nicolas Gombert, Jacobus Clemens and Thomas Crecquillon — as the liturgical reforms of the Council of Trent took hold, marking the transition from the High Renaissance to the less florid Late-Renaissance style of Victoria and Palestrina.
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View the Wikipedia article on Pierre de Manchicourt.
List of choral works
Sacred works
Manchicourt’s sacred works appear in more than fifty printed collections and at least twenty hand-copied manuscripts, dating from 1532 through to the late 16th century. His surviving sacred output consists of nineteen masses, a mass section, a Magnificat, 71 Latin motets (of which one has doubtful attribution and two have conflicting attribution), and two chansons spirituelles. A further nine sacred works — polychoral psalm settings — are contained in a degraded manuscript in Zaragoza whose contents are not documented.
Masses, mass section, Magnificat
Manchicourt’s surviving complete masses consist of eighteen settings of the Mass Ordinary and a setting of the Ordinary and Propers of the Mass for the Dead. Most of the former are parody masses, based either on his own motet (three settings) or on sacred or secular works by other Franco-Flemish composers (eleven settings). Two mass settings are based on unidentified models, and the remaining two use Gregorian chant as their basis (likewise the Missa de Requiem). As was common practice, the final Agnus Dei of many of the mass settings includes one or two additional voice parts: such cases are indicated by a number in parentheses.
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Latin sacred motets
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Chansons spirituelles
These two chansons are a French paraphrase of Psalm 130, and appear in one printed source as two parts of a single work:
Summary of sacred works available at CPDL (listed automatically)
Secular works
Manchicourt's surviving secular output includes three dedicatory motets, and fifty French chansons that appear in at least sixteen publications (including one devoted entirely to Manchicourt's works).
Latin dedicatory motets
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Chansons
Summary of secular works available at CPDL (listed automatically)
Publications
Three of the pre-eminent publishers of the mid-16th century each devoted one of their volumes solely to Manchicourt’s works:
- Motettorum, Book 14 (Pierre Attaingnant, Paris, 1539, reprinted 1545) — contains thirteen 4vv, four 5vv and two 6vv motets
- Neufiesme livre des chansons a quatre parties (Tielman Susato, Antwerp, 1545) — contains twenty-eight 4vv and one 5vv chansons
- Cantionum sacrarum liber 5 (Pierre Phalèse, Leuven, 1554, reprinted 1558 and 1560) — contains nine 5vv and five 6vv motets
Two manuscripts that contain only Manchicourt’s works are held in the library of the Benedictine monastery in Montserrat, Catalunya:
- Montserrat, Biblioteca del Monestir, MS 768 ‘Douze messe musicales composees par M.P. de Manchicourt’ (Brussels, c.1545–55) — from the court of Mary of Hungary (daughter of Philip the Fair and Juana of Spain, and Regent of the Netherlands 1531–55); contains twelve of his nineteen masses
- Montserrat, Biblioteca del Monestir, MS 772 ‘Liber quatuor missarum musicalium nec non aliquot carminum ecclesiasticorum Petre de Manchicourt’ (Madrid, c.1560) — possibly copied by the composer himself during his tenure in the Court of Philip II; contains four masses, one 6vv motet, seven 5vv motets and three 4vv motets
Manchicourt's works also appear in the following printed collections catalogued at CPDL:
- Motettorum, Book 7 (Attaingnant, 1534) — contains one each 4vv, 5vv and 6vv Magnificat antiphons for Advent
- Excellentiss. autorum liber primus quatuor vocum (Antonio Gardano, Venice, 1539, reprinted 1549) — contains one 4vv motet
- Sacrarum cantionum, liber 2 (Susato, 1546) — contains one 5vv motet
- Sacrarum cantionum, liber 3 (Susato, 1547) — contains two 4vv motets
- Sacrarum cantionum, liber 4 (Susato, 1547) — contains one 4vv motet
- Ecclesiasticarum cantionum quatuor vocum, liber 2 (Susato, 1553) — contains one 4vv motet
- Ecclesiasticarum cantionum quatuor vocum, liber 3 (Susato, 1553) — contains two 4vv motets
- Ecclesiasticarum cantionum quatuor vocum, liber 4 (Susato, 1554) — contains one 4vv motet
- Ecclesiasticarum cantionum quinque vocum, liber 5 (Susato, 1553) — contains three 5vv motets
- Ecclesiasticarum cantionum quinque vocum, liber 7 (Susato, 1553) — contains one 5vv motet
- Ecclesiasticarum cantionum quinque vocum, liber 9 (Susato, 1554) — contains one 5vv motet
- Cantionum sacrarum liber 1 (Phalèse, 1554, reprinted 1555) — contains one 5vv motet
- Cantionum sacrarum liber 2 (Phalèse, 1554, reprinted 1555) — contains one 6vv motet
- Cantionum sacrarum liber 3 (Phalèse, 1554) — contains one 5vv and two 6vv motets
- Cantionum sacrarum liber 4 (Phalèse, 1554, reprinted 1555 and 1557) — contains one 4vv motet
- Sacrarum cantionum quinque et sex vocum, liber 1 (Hubert Waelrant & Jan de Laet, Antwerp, 1554) — contains one 5vv and one 6vv motet
- Second livre des chansons a quatre parties (Susato, 1544) — contains five 4vv chansons
- Quatrieme livre des chansons a quatre parties (Susato, 1544) — contains three 4vv chansons
- Sixiesme livre contenant XXXI chansons nouvelles a cinq et six parties (Susato, 1545) — contains his only 6vv chanson
- Treziesme livre contenant XXII chansons nouvelles a six et a huyt parties (Susato, 1550) — contains his only 8vv chanson
- Secundus tomus biciniorum … gallica, latina, germanica (Georg Rhau, Wittenberg, 1545) — contains all seven 2vv chansons
- Seysiesme livre contenant XXIX chansons … a quatre parties (Attaingnant, 1545) — contains one 4vv chanson
- Vingtiesme livre contenant XXVIII chansons … a quatre parties (Attaingnant, 1546) — contains two 4vv chansons
External links
Works by Pierre de Manchicourt in the Petrucci Music Library (IMSLP)