Martini, Johannes (EN)

Martini Johannes, *ca. 1430–1440 Leuze-en-Hainaut (?), †23 October 1497 Ferrara, Franco-Flemish composer. Nothing is known about his youth. The first mention of him is from 1471, when he worked as a musician at the bishop’s court in Constance. In January 1473, he entered the service of Ercole d’Este, Duke of Ferrara. From February 1474, he was employed by Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza in Milan, where he had the opportunity to meet, among others, Josquin des Prez, L. Compère and G. van Weerbeke; in November of that year, he returned to the court in Ferrara, to remain there for the rest of his life. His duties included directing the prince’s band and contacts with foreign musicians. In the following years, he travelled several times: in January 1487 to Hungary together with the 8-year-old Ippolito d’Este, who was to take over the archbishopric of Esztergom, and in February 1487 and November 1488 to Rome to settle formalities connected with the prebends he held. In 1490–92, he corresponded on music matters with his employer’s daughter, Isabella d’Este Gonzaga; previously, he had been her teacher in Ferrara and briefly in Mantua (1490). Martini’s friends included P. Hofhaimer.

Martini composed most of his pieces for the needs of the princely chapel in Ferrara. The basis of his work are masses, the majority of which use secular cantus firmi. The mass Coda de pavon is based on the dance chanson Der Pfoben Swancz Barbingant – it is one of the first cases of using basse-danse as a cantus firmus. In the La Martinella mass, there is a segmented cantus firmus, probably based on the work of J. Obrecht. The tenor of the Cucu mass uses an imitation of a cuckoo’s voice, unusual for this genre. Martini’s occasional motet is Per funde coeli rore, composed in 1473 on the occasion of the wedding of Duke Ercole d’Este to Eleonora d’Aragona. Other motets have liturgical purposes, e.g. Levate capita vestra is an antiphon for Christmas, and Domine, non secundum is a tractus from the Ash Wednesday mass. In both masses and motets, Martini uses imitative techniques and sequences on a large scale. The collection of compositions for Holy Week (psalms, hymns, Magnificat tertii toni), created in collaboration with J. Brebis, is one of the first collections of two-choir music. The Magnificat and most of the psalms are based on the fauxbourdon technique, which was already disappearing at that time. Of the secular compositions, only Fortuna d’un gran tempo is provided with text, the rest have only French or Italian incipits and were probably intended for instrumental performance. The works of this type that appear most frequently in manuscripts include La Martinella and Des biens d’amours. However, Martini’s work, considered to be from Josquin’s generation, refers stylistically more to the era of Ockeghem. The composer’s rank among his contemporaries is evidenced by the fact that Petrucci published three of his songs (in Canti C., Venice 1504), two motets (Motetti libro quarto, Venice 1505) and at least one hymn in the now lost Hymnorum liber primus (Venice 1507).

Literature: Th. Karp The Secular Works of Johannes Martini, in: Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music, G. Reese’s memorial book, ed. J. LaRue, New York 1966, 2^nd ed. 1978; Th.L. Noblitt The Magnificats of Johannes Martini, P.A. Pisk’s memorial book, published by J. Głowacki, Austin 1966; J.G. Brawley The Magnificats, Hymns, Motets and Secular Compositions of Johannes Martini, dissertation, Yale University, New Haven 1968; G.P. Calessi Riccerche sull’Accademia della morte di Ferrara, “Quadrivium” XVI, 1975; M. Kanazawa Martini and Brebis at the Estense Chapel, M. Gilmore’s memorial book, ed. S. Bertelli and G. Ramakus, Florence 1978; L. Lockwood Music in Renaissance Ferrara 1400–1505, Oxford 1984; J.P. Burkholder Johannes Martini and the Imitation Mass of the Late Fifteenth Century, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XXXVIII/3, 1985. E. Moohan The masses of Johannes Martini, dissertation University of Manchester 1994; M. Steib A Composer Looks at His Model: Polyphonic Borrowing in Masses from the Late Fifteenth Century, “Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis” XLVI, 1996; P. Starr Strange Obituaries: The Historical Use of the „per obituum” Supplicaton, in: Papal Music and Musicians in Medieval and Renaissance Rome, ed. R. Sherr, Oxford 1998; W.F. Prizer Una “Virtù Molto Conveniente A Madonne”: Isabella D’Este as a Musician, “The Journal of Musicology” VII, 1999; M. Steib The old guard goes to school: The evolution of style in Johannes Martini’s motets, in: The motet around 1500: On the relationship of imitation and text treatment?, ed. Th. Schmidt-Beste, Turnhout 2012; M. Steib Herculean labours: Johannes Martini and the manuscript Modena, Biblioteca Estense, MS α.M.1.13, “Early Music History” XXXIII, 2014.