Janequin, Clément (EN)

Janequin, Jannequin, Jennequin, Jehannequin, Jannekin, Clément, *ca. 1485 Châtellerault, †1558 Paris, French composer. As a child, he was probably a singer in the school choir in Châtellerault, and subsequently in the boys’ choir at St-André Cathedral in Bordeaux. Between 1505 and 1531 he lived in Bordeaux; until 1523 he remained in the service of Lancelot du Fau, a humanist, Vicar-General of the Archdiocese of Bordeaux, canon of St-André and St-Surin and (from 1515) Bishop of Luçon, and between 1523 and 1529 – in the service of Jean de Foix, Bishop of Bordeaux. In the 1520s, he presumably completed seminary and was ordained a priest, as from 1525 he held various ecclesiastical posts in the Diocese of Bordeaux (in 1525 he became a canon of St-Emilion, in 1526 – as ‘procureur des âmes’ at the same church and parish priest of St-Michel de Rieufret, and in 1530 – as parish priest of St-Jean de Mezos). It was then that he met Eustorg de Beaulieu, the poet and musician. In 1530, Janequin witnessed the entry of Francis I into Bordeaux and commemorated the occasion with the chanson Chantons, sonnons, trompettes. It may have been thanks to this composition that he was awarded the title of ‘chantre du roi’ at that time. In 1531, Janequin directed the boys’ choir in Auch, and subsequently (probably that same year) settled in Angers. His stay in Angers had been preceded by connections with the city and its surroundings, as he had already been appointed parish priest of Brossay in 1526 and, in 1527, chaplain at St-Maurice Cathedral in Angers. Between 1533 and 1538 he was parish priest in Avrillé, and between 1534 and 1537 he served as maître de chapelle at Angers Cathedral. He probably remained in Angers until 1549, although only one document (dated 1548) confirms Janequin’s presence in the city during the 1540s; this document refers to him as a student at the University of Angers and, at the same time, as parish priest of Unverre (near Chartres). In 1549, Janequin settled in Paris, where he studied at the university. In the 1550s, he was associated with the court of Henry II, notably with Duke François de Guise, to whom he dedicated La bataille de Metz (a chanson about the siege of Metz) and from whom he received the honorary title of ‘chapelain’. In 1555 he became ‘chantre ordinaire du roi’, and in 1556 or 1557 he was appointed ‘compositeur ordinaire du roi’, a title previously held only by P. Sandrin. On 18 January 1558, Janequin drew up his will, bequeathing his modest estate to the poor. He probably died shortly afterwards, as none of the Parisian collections of chansons published after 1559 contain any new works by him, and following the first volume, Verger de musique contenant partie des plus excellents labeurs de M. Clément Janequin… (Paris 1559), the second volume that had been announced never appeared.

Janequin enjoyed great fame and acclaim amongst his contemporaries; his works were published during his lifetime in many European cities (Paris, Lyon, Venice, Antwerp, Nuremberg, Rome, Ferrara and others), and many of them appeared in collections devoted exclusively to Janequin’s works (chansons and motets published primarily by P. Attaingnant, as well as by N. Du Chemin, A. Le Roy and R. Ballard in Paris). Some compositions enjoyed immense popularity, also serving as the basis for transcriptions for lute, guitar and keyboard instruments. Such arrangements include, amongst others, V. Bakfark’s lute intabulations of the chansons Or vien ça vien (published 1533) and Martin menait son pourceau (published 1535) in his 1553 collection, as well as anonymous works preserved in the so-called Kraków lute tablature from the second half of the 16th century, La guerre (published 1528), Or vien ça vien and Unggai bergier (published 1540), as well as organ intabulations of L’alouette (published 1520) and La guerre in the Tabulatura Jana z Lublina and La guerre in the Tabulatura z klasztoru Św. Ducha w Krakowie. Despite his reputation as a great composer, Janequin did not hold a permanent high-ranking musical post for any length of time and struggled with financial difficulties throughout his life.

Today, Janequin’s name is most commonly associated with the so-called programmatic chansons. These works brought the composer European fame in the 16th century; however, they constitute a relatively small body of work, composed mainly during the earliest phase of Janequin’s creative activity. These include, above all, L’alouette, Le chant des oyseaux, La guerre (later renamed La bataille de Marignan), La chasse and Les cris de Paris, first published between 1520 and 1530 and subsequently reprinted many times, often in new arrangements by Janequin himself or other composers (e.g. the five-part version of La guerre with an additional part by Ph. Verdelot, published in 1545). Later, the composer wrote programmatic chansons sporadically, usually for specific occasions (Le rossignol, published in 1537, and La réduction de Boulongne in 1551, La bataille de Metz in 1555, and La guerre de Renty in 1559, celebrating the military successes of François de Guise). The texts of the chansons – mostly epic (often with satirical undertones), and occasionally lyrical – are drawn from 16th-century poetry, composed within the circle of the successors to the Grands Rhétoriqueurs of the 15th century (C. Marot, M. de Saint-Gelais, L. Jamet, G. Chappuys, J. Bouchet, Francis I and others) and the circle of the Pléiade (P. de Ronsard, J. du Bellay, J.A. de Baif and others), as well as from late medieval poetry (anonymous poems from the 14th century). Some are characterised by virtuosity in versification, the use of onomatopoeia, elaborate rhetorical devices and symbolism. Texts containing onomatopoeic effects are particularly characteristic of programmatic chansons. These compositions draw on the tradition of 14th-century chaces and the tradition of Northern French realistic virelais from the late Middle Ages (indeed, Janequin’s programme chansons include texts from late medieval virelais: L’alouette and Le chant des oyseaux), whilst also reflecting the Renaissance aesthetic of ‘imitazione della natura’. A distinctive feature of the musical setting of these chansons is its connection to the semantic and onomatopoeic qualities of the poetic text. The music emphasises the phonetic layer of the text. Repeated syllables or words that mimic the sounds of birds, the clamour of battle, the calls of combatants or hunters, or the cries of the street, are combined with the syllabic recitation of short, frequently repeated motifs in short rhythmic values. These motifs, whether repetitive in structure or featuring a descending third, also appear alternately in the individual voices through motivic correspondence or imitation. Within the four-voice setting, the composer frequently employs pairs of voices. The mood, particularly the martial one, is conveyed through imitatio tubarum (fanfare-like melodies) and the imitation of drumbeats. The emphasis on the onomatopoeic nature of the text through musical means therefore results in a restriction of the melody’s interval structure and a considerable uniformity in the harmonic progression; homogeneous motifs are repeated or imitated within a static sound complex, a fixed harmony that occasionally permeates the melody. Variety is provided by the rhythm – sharply pulsating and often progressively accelerating. In the remaining chansons, which are usually brief, the relationship between word and music concerns only the structure of the text and the prosodic qualities of the verse. The division of the text determines the artistic articulation of the musical flow, whilst the rhythm of the words directly influences the rhythmic shaping of the syllabic sections of the composition, which are predominant in Janequin’s work. Such interrelationships naturally occur in programmatic chansons as well. 

Many of the characteristics of Janequin’s musical settings of chansons, however, do not stem from the qualities of the poetic text, but from a purely musical concept, characteristic of most of his chansons and, in a sense, of the so-called Parisian chanson in general. This applies above all to the treatment of the vocal ensemble, usually four-part, typical of the 16th-century chanson. Throughout Janequin’s entire oeuvre, this vocal line-up varies in register; alongside his preferred combination of soprano–mezzo-soprano–alto–baritone, there are also combinations such as soprano–alto–tenor–bass, soprano–alto–tenor–baritone, soprano–mezzo-soprano–alto–bass, soprano-mezzo-soprano-tenor-bass, soprano-mezzo-soprano-alto-tenor, soprano-2 altos-bass, soprano-2 altos-baritone, 2 sopranos-alto-tenor, 3 sopranos-tenor, mezzo-soprano-alto-tenor-baritone; within individual compositions, the vocal line-up is reduced (most often by omitting the lowest voice) and divided into contrasting groups, usually two-part, whose composition frequently changes. This approach to performance techniques undoubtedly demonstrates the composer’s sensitivity to tone colour and his attention to timbral effects.

Above all, however, the distinctive features of Janequin’s chansons are evident in the polyphonic texture, and particularly in the form. Free counterpoint predominates, and within this framework the voices are either led independently in terms of rhythm (in which case melismas appear, as well as phrases with a fairly wide range and a fluid rhythmic flow), or are framed within homorhythmic patterns; at the same time, however, the technique of imitation is employed in these works. Some chansons even display a structure similar to that of an imitative motet, but strict imitation is usually limited to a few notes, is sometimes carried out by only three or two voices, or is reduced to the successive entry of voices merely imitating the general melodic contour of the opening motif. Exceptionally, there is strict imitation of phrases comprising a dozen or so notes (in the two lower voices of the exordium Si tu as vu que pour ton feu, published 1550), canonical imitation (Si j’ay esté vostre amy, published 1536), imitation of two different motifs in pairs of voices (Assouvy suis, published in 1529) or an over-complete imitative passage (Ung coup d’essay, published in 1534; Martin menoit, published in 1535; Et vray Dieu qu’il m’ennuye, published in 1549). Imitation within the composition generally occurs sporadically; as a rule, it constitutes only the opening exordium of the piece and often highlights a repetitive motif typical of the Parisian chanson: one long note followed by two short ones (in duple metre), although, of course, such a motif also appears in some chansons that do not begin with imitation. The analogy with motet structure is therefore quite general and relates rather to the ‘motet-like’ treatment of the text – linking successive textual fragments with successive musical phrases, sometimes shaped by imitation.

A characteristic feature of many of Janequin’s compositions, particularly those from his Parisian period (1549–58), is the repetition of musical phrases. The form of these works can be categorised into the following patterns: a pattern with a repeated opening and/or closing phrase; a pattern in which all phrases are repeated (sometimes with the musical material of the last pair of phrases alluding to the second pair of phrases); a pattern with repetitions of the two opening phrases, as well as the characteristic Parisian chanson framework, which is more or less elaborate and often features elements of a rondo structure. In some chansons, composed almost entirely using the simple contrapuntal technique of ‘nota contra notam’ with a uniform metrical and rhythmic flow, there is a division into sections of similar length.

Janequin’s masses show a strong connection with his chansons, as they are, in fact, paraphrases of them. Hence, the difference between the original song and the mass composition often boils down to differences in the text. In the psalms set to French texts and the chansons spirituelles, composed by Janequin towards the end of his life and mostly preserved in incomplete form, the composer employs simpler contrapuntal techniques than in his secular chansons, utilises Calvinist chorale melodies and occasionally employs chromaticism, which was exceptionally present in his late secular chansons (Vivons folâtres, En la prison, Non feray, Ce faux amour, published in 1556). A single surviving motet and a song with an Italian text, stylistically indistinguishable from his French chansons, occupy a marginal place in Janequin’s oeuvre.

Literature: M. Cauchie Clément Janequin Recherches sur la famille et sur lui-même, “Revue de Musicologie” IV, 1923; M. Cauchie Clément Janequin, chapelain du duc de Guise, “Le Ménestrel” XXI, 1927; M. Cauchie Les psaumes de Janequin, in: Mélanges de musicologie offerts à M. Lionel de la Laurencie, Paris 1933; J. Lewron Clément Janequin, musicien de la Renaissance. Essai sur sa vie et ses amis, Grenoble 1948; F. Lesure Clément Janequin Recherches sur sa vie et sur son oeuvre, “Musica Disciplina” V, 1951; F. Lesure, P. Roudié Clément Janequin chantre de François Ier (1531), “Revue de Musicologie” XXXIX–XL, 1957; F. Lesure Les chansons à trois voix de Clément Janequin, “Revue de Musicologie” XLIII–XLIV, 1959; F. Lesure, P. Roudié La jeunesse bordelaise de Clément Janequin, “Revue de Musicologie” XLIX, 1963; A.T. Merritt Janequin Reworkings of Some Early Chansons, in: Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music, Festschrift for G. Reese, New York 1966; Th. D. Brothers Two Chansons Rustiques à 4 by C. de Sermisy and Clément Janequin, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XXXIV, 1981.