La Rue, Pierre de (EN)

La Rue Pierre de, Petrus de Platea, Peteren vander Straten, Petrus de Vico, Pierchon, *ca. 1452 (?) Tournai (?) †20 November 1518 Courtrai (Kortrijk), Flemish composer and singer. In 1469/70, he was already a professional singer employed at St. Gudula’s Cathedral in Brussels, then he worked in church choirs, including in Ghent (1471–1472), Nieuwpoort (1472–before 1477), and Cologne (until 1489). In 1489–1492, he sang as a tenor in the Marian brotherhood at the cathedral in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, and possibly continued after 1492. Between 1492 and 1506, he was a member of the Burgundian Grande Chapelle, traveled around Spain between 1501 and 1503, and received a canonry in Courtrai in 1505. In 1506, he spent over two months in England and then in Spain. After the death of Philip the Fair (1506), he remained in the service of his widow, Juana, for some time. In 1508, he returned to the Burgundian chapel at the court of Marguerite of Austria in Mechelen, and in 1514–16 he worked in the private chapel of Archduke Charles Habsburg. He spent the last years of his life as a canon in Courtrai.

La Rue, alongside H. Isaac, is considered the most outstanding composer of the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries after Josquin des Prez. He also gained great recognition among his contemporaries. This is evident, among other things, in the number of sources in which his works have been preserved. W. Rubsamen (MGG) lists 100 such manuscripts; O. Petrucci included a work by La Rue in his first publication (1501) and five of his masses in a separate print (1503); most of his works have been preserved in several copies, and some masses in more than 10. On the other hand, lamentations (authorship uncertain) and some motets have been preserved only in German prints from around the mid-16th century, thanks to their long-lasting popularity in Protestant circles (Luther himself mentioned La Rue among the greatest composers). Masses form the core of La Rue’s oeuvre. He based 27 of them on a cantus firmus, only four of which are derived from secular songs. He achieved uniformity in the cycle by placing either the same cantus firmus or successive sections of it in individual parts, or – which was a novelty – different songs intended for the same celebration (Missa pascale), often using melodies not used by other composers. In the sections where the number of voices is reduced, the cantus firmus is absent, in other sections it appears most frequently in the tenor, though it also moves to other voices. It is embellished, paraphrased, and presented in augmentation, diminution, and in retrograde. Motets are also often based on cantus firmus, with the chant sometimes being transformed to the point of free paraphrase (e.g., Ave Regina). The composer also used the ostinato technique in his masses and motets, repeating short (even two-note) or longer phrases, sometimes with rhythmic transformations; the rhythm in La Rue’s works is often complex and at the same time very expressive. La Rue’s four masses are early examples of the missa parodia type (Tous les regrets, Nunca fué pena mayor, Incessament, and Ave Sanctissima). Here, the composer maintains a much closer connection to the model than his contemporaries: he introduces full polyphonic quotations, uses almost all the important phrases, and retains the contrapuntal procedures (e.g., canons) from the model. La Rue was one of the first (alongside Josquin and A. de Fevin) to parody the motet (Ave Sanctissima). His 8-voice Credo, based on H. Isaac’s 6-voice motet, also belongs to the parody type; he also draws material from other people’s works in his motets. La Rue introduces free imitation on a small scale, but often uses the canonic technique. In more than ten masses, the canon appears in at least one section, and in five of these masses it appears in all parts, always at the interval of a fifth or a fourth (double canon in the Ave Sanctissima mass – and 12 triple canons in the masses: De feria, Incessament, O salutaris Hostia, L’homme armé). Most often these are two-voice canons, at various intervals, but in the masses O salutaris Hostia and L’homme armé there are four-voice canons. In the latter, considered the crowning achievement of La Rue’s early work (published in 1503), the composer seems to rival with Josquin’s mass based on the same cantus firmus, published a year earlier. La Rue’s canons were cited as examples in treatises (Zarlino, Glareanus, Heyden, Morley), and the composer also introduces them in motets (Da pacem, Pater de coelis, 3-voice in Laúdate Dominum, 4-voice in Salve Regina), in the magnificat (primi toni) and in chansons (including En espoir vis). The tendency to create complex, deeply thought-out polyphonic structures is accompanied in all La Rue’s works by a freedom in shaping inventive phrases, often of a declamatory character. Noteworthy is his technique of transforming motifs in terms of melody and rhythm, primarily within the parts of the mass (and in motets), but also between sections, which contributes to the uniformity of the cycle; examples of the repetition of the entire polyphonic structure for this purpose can be found at the beginning of the Kyrie, Gloria, and Credo in the masses O quam pulchra and De Sancta Anna. Certain motifs, transformed, appear also in his various works. La Rue, like Josquin des Prez, uses pairs of voices in masses (especially O quam pulchra est, Almana, Sub tuum praesidium), motets, and some chansons, sometimes contrasting groups of three voices (six-voice Credo). Unlike Josquin, he hardly ever uses techniques aimed at expressing words. In some works, however, one can notice the expression of a general mood. The composer achieves the mood of mourning in the Requiem by means of an exceptionally low sound. In the lamentations, a cycle distinguished in La Rue’s work by its simplicity of structure, the mood of misery and depression is achieved, among other things, by the use of seventh chords, general pauses, and homorhythm. La Rue also introduces contrasts in texture to highlight fragments of the text, e.g. in the motets Lauda anima mea (homorhythm surrounded by complex polyphony) and Considera Israel (polyphony with elaborate melismas surrounded by a syllabic structure close to homorhythm). As N. Davison stated, although La Rue’s motets do not match his masses or Josquin’s motets, they are very interesting for performers, requiring great skill and perfectly illustrating the composer’s contrapuntal proficiency. Among La Rue’s chansons are works of an older type, with a different treatment of one or two vocal parts and the remaining instruments (e.g., the three-voice Tous nobles cueurs or the four-voice Pourquoi tant). In other chansons, many features characteristic of his mass and motet compositions can be observed; they resemble the chansons of Josquin.

Literature: E. vander Straeten La musique aux Pays-Bas avant le XIXe siècle, VII, VIII, Brussels 1885, 1888, reprint 1969; W.H. Rubsamen P. de La Rue ais Messenkomponist, thesis, Munich 1937; A. Auda La transcription en notation moderne du „Liber missarum”de P. de La Rue, “Scriptorium” I, 1946/47; J. Robijns P. de La Rue (circa 1460–1518). Een bio-bibliographische Studie, Brussels 1954; N. Davison The Motets of P.de La Rue, “The Musical Quarterly” XLVIII, 1962; M. Rosenberg Symbolic and Descriptive Text Setting in the Sacred Works of P. de La Rue (c. 1460–1518), “Miscellanea musicologica” I, Adelaide 1966; C. Maas Josquin-Agricola-Brumel-de La Rue, een authenticiteits probleem, “Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor Nederlandse” XX, 1966; M. Staehelin P. de La Rue in Italien, “Archiv für Musikwissenschaft” XXVII, 1970; J.E. Kreider The Masses for Five and Six Voices by P. de La Rue, 2 vols. (contains transcriptions of nine masses), thesis, Indiana University 1974; H. Meconi Style and Authenticity in the Secular Music of Pierre de la Rue, thesis, Harvard University 1986); L.F. Bernstein Chansons attributed to both Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue: A problem of establishing authenticity, in: Proceedings of the International Josquin Symposium, eds. W. Elders, F. de Haen, Utrecht 1991; M.J. Bloxam In praise of spurious saints: The Missae Floruit egregiis by Pipelare and La Rue, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XLIV, 1991; A. Leszczyńska Melodyka niderlandzka w polifonii Josquina, Obrechta i La Rue, Warsaw 1997; A. Leszczyńska Na marginesie petrucciańskiego wydania mszy Pierre’a de la Rue z 1503 roku, “Przegląd Muzykologiczny” I, 2001; M. Just Das Salve-Regina-Repertoire von Pierre de la Rue in den Handschriften Brüssel, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, Ms. 9126 und München, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Musiksammlung, Musica Ms. 34, “Yearbook of the Alamire Foundation” V, 2003; H. Meconi Pierre de la Rue and musical life at the Habsburg-Burgundian court, Oxford 2003; H. Meconi Habsburg-Burgundian manuscripts, borrowed material, and the practice of naming, in: Early musical borrowing, ed. H. Meconi, London 2004; A.H. Weaver Aspects of musical borrowing in the polyphonic Missa de feria of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in: Early musical borrowing, ed. H. Meconi, London 2004; W. Fuhrmann Pierre de la Rues Trauermotetten und die Quis dabit-Tradition, in: Tod in Musik und Kultur: Zum 500. Todestag Philipps des Schönen, ed. H. Schneider, Tutzing 2007; L. Finscher „Varietas”, Gattungsnorm und die Magnificat von Pierre de la Rue, in: Musik des Mittelalters und der Renaissance: Festschrift Klaus-Jürgen Sachs zum 80. Geburtstag, eds. W. Frobenius et al., Hildesheim 2010; D.J. Burn Pierre de la Rue’s chant-based motets, “Die Tonkunst” V, 2011; S. Gasch Pierre de la Rues sieben Freuden: Einige Bemerkungen zur Motette „Gaude virgo mater Christi”, “Die Tonkunst” V, 2011; J. Kiel Songs and salves: The case of „Vita par le regart” by Pierre de la Rue, “Die Tonkunst” V, 2011; H. Meconi London Royal 8.G.VII and the motets of Pierre de la Rue, “Die Tonkunst” V, 2011; H. Meconi Plus oultre, Pierre de la Rue, and the Emperor’s Music, “Journal of the Alamire Foundation” VI, 2014; S. Bradley Order and finality in the Agnus Dei of Pierre de la Rue’s „Missa L’homme armé”, “Journal of the Alamire Foundation” XIII, 2021; H. Meconi Pierre de la Rue (d. 1518): Missa pro fidelibus defunctis, in: The book of Requiems: From the earliest ages to the present period. I: 1450–1550, ed. D. J. Burn, Leuven 2022.