Brumel, Antoine (EN)

Brumel, Brummel, Brommel, Brunel, Antoine, *ca. 1460, †ca. 1513, Flemish composer. Based on the content of Guillaume Crétin’s Déploration sur le trépas de Jean Ockeghem, it is believed that he may have been a student of Ockeghem. In 1483, he conducted the boys’ choir at Chartres Cathedral, and in 1486–92 he worked at St. Peter’s Church in Geneva. In 1489–90, he stayed at the ducal court in Chambéry, where he received a job offer, which he declined and returned to Geneva. The location of Brumel’s activities immediately after his sudden departure from Geneva in 1492 is unknown. In 1497, he was a canon in Laon, and then directed the boys’ choir at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris from 1498 to 1500. Later, he returned to Chambéry, where he was a singer in the ducal chapel from 1 June 1501, to July 1, 1502. For some time, he probably stayed at the court of Sigismondo Cantelmo, Duke of Sora, who mediated Brumel’s employment by Duke Alfonso I d’Este. From 1506, he worked at the court of Alfonso in Ferrara, as the successor to Josquin des Prés and Jacob Obrecht, until the chapel was dissolved in 1510. In the last years of his life, he may have gone to Mantua. In 1513, he was probably present in Rome during the election of Pope Leo X.

Brumel’s work was rated by his contemporaries, such as Gaffurius, as highly as that of Obrecht or Josquin des Prés. It is dominated by sacred compositions: masses, motets, sequences, hymns, magnificats, psalms, and antiphons; secular and instrumental works are few and far between. Brumel’s masses are based on the choral cantus firmus, as well as on secular melodies. The characteristic features of the composer’s works include clearly presented text and, at the same time, perfect polyphonic structures, numerous canons, imitations of short themes, frequent cadences, a striving for thematic uniformity, and sometimes also complex mensural arrangements. A unique feature for its time is Brumel’s 12-voice Missa Et ecce terrae motus, in which the division into choirs heralds the later polychoral technique.

Literature: A. Pirro Dokumente über Antoine Brumel, Louis van Pullaer und Crispin van Stappen, “Zeitschrift für Musikwissenschaft” XI, 1928–29; C. van den Borren Geschiedenis van de muziek in de Nederlanden, Amsterdam 1948–51; L. Biggle The Masses of Antoine Brumel, thesis, University of Michigan, 1953; H.C. Wolff Die Musik der alten Niederländer, Leipzig 1956; P. Pidoux Antoine Brumel à Genève (1486–92), “Revue de Musicologie” L, 1964; C. Maas Josquin – Agricola – Brumel – De la Rue: een authenticiteitsprobleem, “Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis” XX, 1964–65; C.J. Maas Geschiedenis van het meerstemmig Magnificat tot omstreeks 1525, Groningen 1967; M.T. Bouquet La cappella musicale dei duchi di Savoia dal 1450 al 1500, “Rivista Italiana di Musicologia” III, 1968; C.A. Miller The Musical Source of Brumel’s „Missa Dringhs”, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XXI, 1968; C. Gottwald Antoine Brumels Messe „Et ecce terrae motus”, “Archiv für Musikwissenschaft” XXVI, 1969; B. Hudson Antoine Brumel’s Magnificat 8. Toni. An Erroneous Ascription?, “Revue Belge de Musicologie” XXV, 1971; B. Hudson Antoine Brumel’s „Nativitas unde gaudia”, “The Musical Quarterly” LIX, 1973; E. Russell The Missa in agendis mortuorum of Juan García de Basurto: Johannes Ockeghem, Antoine Brumel, and an Early Spanish Polyphonic Requiem Mass, “Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis” XXIX, 1979; C. Wright Antoine Brumel and Patronage at Paris, in: Music in Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Patronage, Sources and Texts, ed. I. Fenlon, Cambridge 1981; H.M. Brown A „New” Chansonnier of the Early Sixteenth Century in the University of Uppsala. A Preliminary Report, “Musica Disciplina” XXXVII, 1983; R.E. Murray (Jr.) The Influence of the Cantus Firmus on Modal Structure in the Masses of Antoine Brumel, “Theoria” I, 1985; L.T. Woodruff The „Missae de Beata Virgine” c. 1500–1520. A Study of Transformation from Monophonic to Polyphonic Modality, thesis, North Texas State University, 1986; H.M. Brown The Importance of Sixteenth-Century Intabulations, in: Proceedings of the International Lute Symposium Utrecht 1986, eds. L.P. Grijp and W. Mook, Utrecht 1988; B. Hudson Josquin and Brumel: the Conflicting Attributions, in: Proceedings of the International Josquin Symposium Utrecht 1986, eds. W. Elders and F. de Haen, Utrecht 1991; M.J. Bloxam La contenance italienne: the Motets on Beata es, Maria by Compère, Obrecht, and Brumel, “Early Music History” XI, 1992; R. Sherr A Biographical Miscellany: Josquin, Tinctoris, Obrecht, Brumel, in: Musicologia humana. Studies in Honor of Warren and Ursula Kirkendale, eds. S. Gmienwieser, D. Hiley and J. Riedlbauer, Florence 1994; E. Ros-Fábregas Phantom Attributions or New Works by Antoine Brumel in an Iberian Manuscript, in: Encomium musicae: Essays in memory of Robert J. Snow, eds. D. Crawford and G.G. Wagstaff, Hillsdale 2002; R.C. Wegman Ockeghem, Brumel, Josquin: New Documents in Troyes, “Early Music” XXXVI, 2008; M. Horyna and V. Maňas Two mid-16th-century manuscripts of polyphonic music from Brno, “Early Music” XL, 2012; W. Fuhrmann, A Humble Beginning? Three Ways to Understand Brumel’s Missa Ut re mi fa sol la, A. Magro Elementi di parafrasi contrappuntistica nella Missa Je n’ay dueil di Antoine Brumel, I. Ott Model-based Canonic Writing in Brumel’s Missa A l’ombre d’ung buissonet and F. Pitch Antoine Brumel and the Sense of Scale, “Journal of the Alamire Foundation” VII, 2015; E. Schreurs Noel Bauldewey: Magister cantorum in Mechelen and Antwerp (?) Some reflections arising from a „Brumel” Mass in Brno, “Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis” LXV, 2015; W. Fuhrmann Brumel’s Masses: Lost and Found, M.J. Hall Brumel’s Laudate Dominum de caelis an the „French-Court Motet”, O. Korte Reconstructing Antoine Brumel: How to bring the chanson Dieu te gart, bergere back to life and S. Tröster Brumel’s Chansons in German Sources, and a Lost Voice Recovered, “Journal of the Alamire Foundation” VIII, 2016; K. Pietschmann Die Sequenz in der Messvertonung um 1500: Antoine Brumels Missa victimae paschali laudes und ihre Rezeption in Josquins Missa pange lingua, in: Musica floreat! Jürgen Blume zum 70. Geburtstag, Mainz 2016; A. Magro Ancora sui procedimenti di parafrasi polifonica nelle messe di Antoine Brumel: Il caso della Missa de Dringhs, “Rivista di analisi e teoria musicale” XXIII, 2017; D.J. Rothenberg Eternal rest, perpetual light and the Last Judgement: Antoine Brumel’s Dies irae in the early Requiem tradition, “Early Music” XLVIII, 2020; D.J. Burn Antoine Brumel (c. 1460–1512/13): Missa pro defunctis, in: The Book of Requiems, 1450–1550. From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period, ed. D.J. Burn, Leuven 2022.