[Winterreisender]

I thought I would start a thread in honour of this wonderful eccentric of Renaissance music.

Clément Janequin (c. 1485 - 1558)

He wrote many secular chansons, notable for their use of unusual onomatopoeic vocal sound effects. Among the best known examples are La bataille and Le chant des oiseaux . In the former, he gets the voices to produce the sound of cannons and trumpet calls, whilst in the latter, we hear the voices mimicking bird song.

Although most of his music is secular, he has a nice Mass, which is also called La bataille. This is a bit more conventional, but it uses some of the same melodic material from the namesake chanson and is a worthy addition to any collection of Renaissance sacred music.

If you are interested in this composer, I would suggest the recordings of the Ensemble Clément Janequin on the Harmonia Mundi label. This group, led by Dominique Visse, specialises in Janequin's music and their recordings are lively and humorous, but at times actually quite beautiful!

I would love to hear if any other TC members have an opinion on this composer!

 

[science]

View attachment 43354

This appears to be a classic album. It's been released a few times. Very fun music, a history lesson on every track.

 

[Winterreisender]

Yes I enjoy that CD enormously. A good complement to it, performed by the same musicians, might be this CD:

This recordings of the two Janequin masses excellently captures the composer's more serious side. In fact, his Missa La "Bataille" is one of my very favourite in the renaissance repertoire.

By the way (a slightly obscure question) does anyone know the origin of the "La Bataille" melody that features in Janequin's mass and chanson of this name. I ask because Susato's "Battle Pavane" contains exactly the same melody. Susato is generally referred to as a publisher rather than a composer, so I am guessing he borrowed the melody from someplace else. What I'm not sure of is whether it is taken from Janequin (who was a very popular composer in his day) or whether perhaps they shared a common source.