Morlaye, Guillaume (EN)

Morlaye Guillaume, *ca. 1510, †ca. 1577, French composer, lutenist, and editor. He described himself as a pupil of Albert de Rippe, whose works he collected from the 1530s onwards. In the 1540s, while living in Paris, he ran extensive businesses as a merchant, including slave trading and engravings’ production; he also taught viola and lute playing. On 13 February 1552, he obtained a publishing privilege and began his editorial activity in cooperation with the printer M. Fezandat (he was responsible for selecting the repertoire for the collections, proofreading and, to some extent, sales); his last known publication dates from 1558. It cannot be ruled out that he spent the last years of his life in Sweden, where his musical autographs have been preserved, including intabulations of chansons published in Paris in 1576. In 1560, the poet J. Grévin praised the lute skills of Morlaye and his daughter Anthoinette.

The largest group of Morlaye’s works consists of dances. Among them, there are almost 100 galliards (in manuscripts, they are sometimes referred to only by their textual incipits or written without titles, so it is sometimes difficult to distinguish them from related dances, such as the saltarello), 20 pavanes, as many different bransles and several others (e.g. 3 almandes). Morlaye uses rich and non-schematic ornamentation in them, especially when repeating sections. Several dances are cycles of variations of up to 17 parts, such as the pavane based on the romanesque scheme. The second large group of compositions are intabulations: over 50 chansons (secular and religious) and 14 psalms with French texts, 15 motets and 7 pieces with Italian texts; the exceptions include two arrangements of Latin odes. In most of these works, Morlaye preserves the polyphony of the model, while richly embellishing the melodic lines. The composer made an interesting change to Certon’s psalms. From the four-part vocal structure based on popular melodies placed in the tenor, he chose the highest voice for vocal performance, while the others (including the cantus firmus) were assigned to the lute. In addition to the finished intabulations, the manuscripts also contain their drafts, which provide a very interesting insight into Morlaye’s creative process. Ten of Morlaye’s fantasias have also been preserved in print, and the manuscripts contain a prelude and an untitled piece of an illustrative nature, of the “battle” type.

Literature: J.G. Prod’homme Guillaume Morlaye, éditeur d’Albert de Rippe, luthiste et bourgeois de Paris, “Revue de Musicologie” IX, 1925; J.M. Vaccaro introductions to Oeuvres d’Albert de Rippe, 3 vols., Paris 1972–75; J.M. Vaccaro La musique de luth en France au XVI siècle, Paris 1981; J.M. Vaccaro Les tabulatures de luth manuscrites du XVI siècle conservées à la bibliothèque universitaire d’Uppsala. Quelques hypothèses, “Revue de Musicologie” LXXI, 1985; T.T. Hoyt The Early Guitar in Paris: A Comparative Study of the Music of Adrian Le Roy and Guillaume Morlaye, master’s thesis, Rice University, 1990; J. Tyler and P. Sparks The Guitar and its Music from the Renaissance to the Classical Era, Oxford 2002.