Mouton, Jean (EN)

Mouton Jean, *before 1460 Holluige (now Haut-Wignes near Samer), †30 October 1522 St Quentin, French composer, and clergyman. In 1477 he became a singer and teacher of religion, and in 1483 maître de chapelle at the Collegiate Church of Notre Dame in Nesle. In 1500 he was “maistre des enfans” at Amiens Cathedral (where he co-organised the staging of a Passion Play). From September 1501 he held the same position at the Collegiate Church of Saint-André in Grenoble, and probably moved to the court of Queen Anne of Brittany in June 1502. Through her intercession on his behalf, he obtained income from a canonry in Grenoble in 1510 and remained a court musician until his death, serving Louis XII and Francis I in turn. At least eight motets by Mouton have been identified (H.M. Brown – The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol. 12 and E.E. Lowinsky), whose texts show a connection to events important to the reigning monarchs. In another, Mouton celebrated the election of Pope Leo X (1513), who held his works in high esteem. W 1515 Mouton participated in a meeting between the king and the pope in Bolonia; the rivalry between the chapels on this occasion gained notoriety in Europe, and the composer received the title of apostolic notary from Leo X (on his way to Bologna, Mouton may have stopped in Ferrara, where the Duke of Este had already sought his works in 1507). He probably also participated in a similar competition in 1520 during the meeting between Francis I and the English king, Henry VIII. At the end of his life, he obtained a benefice in St Quentin and was buried there in the collegiate church. Glarean includes four of Mouton’s works in his treatise, praising him as a creator of smooth-flowing melodies, which he used with great ingenuity, and mentions his personal meeting with him, while P. Aaron, in the second edition of Toscanello (1529), discusses the problems of musica ficta, using Mouton’s works as an example. Mouton’s most outstanding pupil was A. Willaert.

Despite the existence of four (unpublished!) theses devoted to Mouton’s masses and motets, the phenomenon of his work, often compared to that of Josquin des Prés, has not been thoroughly researched, and the lack of a widely available edition of his motets, the primary genre he cultivated, makes it difficult to evaluate them. The literature emphasises Mouton’s ability to construct fluid, rhythmically undifferentiated melodic lines, often related to chant, and his mastery of contrapuntal technique, evident in numerous canons (e.g. the fourfold canon in the 8-voice Nesciens mater), as in free imitation or non-imitative polyphony, and both in structures based on cantus firmus (most often rhythmic) and those without it. It is also believed that, by focusing on abstract musical constructions, Mouton was not interested in expressing the texts he was working on, and his work differs in this respect from that of Josquin. This opinion seems to require verification in light of new research in this field, as even a cursory observation reveals, for example, the significant use of fauxbourdon on the words “simul” or “conglorificatur”, although, for example, Mouton’s composition of a motet celebrating a victorious battle (Exalta Regina Galliae) in the Phrygian mode, generally considered mournful, may indicate a certain independence of the composer from the emerging conventions. From a formal point of view, in motets not based on the chant, various kinds of sectional repetitions have been observed, with or without variations; among these works are early examples of a two-part reprise form. In his mass cycles, Mouton included only the Ordinary, usually linked together in terms of material. As a cantus firmus he introduced a paraphrased chant melody (the Credo in the Missa Alma Redemptoris, the antiphon in Tu es Petrus) or one drawn from a single voice of a polyphonic work (from Fevin’s motet in the Missa Benedictus Dominus, from an anonymous chanson L’oserai je dire); only in the Missa Quem dicunt has the use of an entire multi-vocal voice model been observed (J. Richafort’s motet) and this constitutes an early example of the parody-mass type. In some masses, Mouton introduces contrasts of scoring, reducing the number of voices to three or two in certain sections of successive movements, and increasing it to five or six in Agnus III; he employs metrical contrast less frequently, introducing triple meter, and textural contrasts – such as the appearance of chordal passages – are rare. 

Literature: C. Gomart Notes historiques sur la maîtrise de Saint-Quentin et sur les célébrités musicales de cette ville, “Bulletin de la Société Académique de Saint-Quentin”, 1850; M. Brenet Jean Mouton, “Tribune de Saint-Gervais” V, 1899; G. Durand La musique de la Cathédrale d’Amiens avant la Révolution, “Bulletin de la Société des antiquaires de Picardie” XXIX, 1920–22; J. Delporte L’école polyphonique franco-flamande. Jean Mouton, “Revue Liturgique et Musicale” XVI–XIX, 1932–35; J. Delporte Nouveaux documents sur Jean Mouton, “Musique et Liturgie” XXI, 1937; L. Royer Les musiciens et la musique à l’ancienne collégiale Saint-André de Grenoble du XVe au XVIIIe siècle, “Bibliothèque d’Humanisme et Renaissance” IV, 1937; B.A. Wallner La messe “Queramus cum pastoribus” de Cristobal Morales et son modèle, le motet de Jean Mouton, “Musica Sacra” XLV, 1938; A.C. Minor The Masses of Jean Mouton, thesis, University of Michigan, 1950; F. Lesure Un document sur la jeunesse de Jean Mouton, “Revue Belge de Musicologie” V, 1951; R. Dammann Studien zu den Motetten von Jean Mouton, dysertacja, Universität Freiburg, 1952; D. Plamenac Deux pièces de la Renaissance florentins tirées de fonds florentins, “Revue Belge de Musicologie” VI, 1952; R. Dammann Spätformen der isorhythmischen Motetten im 16. Jahrhundert, “Archiv für Musikwissenschaft” X, 1953; J.M. Shine The Motets of Jean Mouton, thesis, New York University, 1953; P. Kast Studien zu den Messen des Jean Mouton, thesis, Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, 1955; P. Kast Zu Biographie und Werk Jean Moutons, in: Kongressbericht Wien Mozart-Jahr 1956, ed. E. Schenk, Graz 1956; H.M. Brown The Genesis of a Style: the Parisian Chanson, 1500-1530, in: Studies in Comparison and Contrast, ed. J. Haar, Cambridge 1964; L. Lockwood A View of the Early Sixteenth-Century Parody Mass, in: Queens College Twenty-fifth Anniversary Festschrift, New York 1964; E.E. Lowinsky, introduction to The Medici Codex of 1518, «Monuments of Renaissance Music» III–V, Chicago 1968; A. Dunning Die Staatsmotette 1480–1555, Utrecht 1970; W.R. Clendenin Sr. Canons in the Missa “L’homme armé” by Forestier or Mouton, 1974; S. Bonime Anne de Bretagne (1477–1514) and Music, thesis, Bryn Mawr College, 1975; D. Crawford Sixteenth-Century Choir books in the Archivio Capitolare at Casale Monferrato, Rome 1975; L. Lockwood Jean Mouton and Jean Michel. New Evidence on French Music and Musicians in Italy, 1505–1520, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XXXII, 1979; M. Picker The Motet Anthologies of Petrucci and Antico Published between 1514 and 1521. A Comparative Study, in: Formen und Probleme der Überlieferung mehrstimmiger Musik im Zeitalter Josquin Desprez, ed. L. Pinscher, Munich 1981; H. Dill Non-Cadential Articulation of Structure in Some Motets of Josquin and Mouton, “Current Musicology” XXXIII, 1982; R.J. Snow Toledo Cathedral MS Reservado 23, “Journal of Musicology” II, 1983; T.G. MacCracken The Manuscript Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, Vokalmusik i Handskrift 76b, thesis, University of Chicago, 1985; F. Tirro Renaissance Musical Sources in the Archive of San Petronio in Bologna. I: G. Spataro’s Choirbooks, Neuhausen 1986; R. Sherr The Membership of the Chapels of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne in the Years Preceding their Deaths, “Journal of Musicology” VI, 1988; J.M. Vaccaro, introduction to G. Morlaye II, Oeuvres pour le luth. Manuscrits d’Uppsala, «Corpus des Luthistes Français», Paris 1989; Y.H. Hur Conflicting Attributions in the Continental Motet Repertory from ca.1500 to ca.1550, thesis, City University of New York, 1990; T. Brass The Five-Part Motet Missus est Angelus Gabriel and Its Conflicting Attributions, H.M. Brown Notes Towards a Definition of Personal Style: Conflicting Attributions and the Six-Part Motets of Josquin and Mouton and R. Stewart Jean Mouton: Man and Musician. Motets Attributed to both Josquin and Mouton, in: Proceedings of the International Josquin Symposium Utrecht 1986, ed. W. Elders and F. de Haen, Utrecht 1991; J.T. Brobeck The Motet at the Court of Francis I, thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1991; T. Nouwen-van de Ven Cristobal de Morales’ Parody Mass „Benedicta es caelorum Regina” and Its Two Sources, Steenwijk 1991 (contains Mouton’s motet); R. Heyink Zur Wiederentdeckung der Motu proprio-Erlasse Papst Leos X. an Jean Mouton und weitere Mitglieder der französischen Hofkapelle, “Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch” LXXVI, 1992; M. Bent Accidentals, Counterpoint and Notation in Aaron’s Aggiunta to the Toscanello in musica, “The Journal of Musicology” XII, 1994; J. van Benthem The Alamire Fragments of the Plantin-Moretus Museum in Antwerp, in: Musicology and Archivai Research, ed. B. Haggh, F. Daelemans and A. Vanrie, Bruksela 1994; S. Schlagel Josquin des Prez and His Motets: a Case-Study in Sixteenth-Century Reception History, thesis, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1996; A. Gosman Stacked Canon and Renaissance Compositional Procedure, “Journal of Music Theory” XLI, 1997; A. Coeurdevey La Missa sans cadence de Mouton et son modèle: Quelques réflexions sur le “mode de La”, “Acta musicologica” LXXVIII, 2006; I. Ott Das kompositorische Verfahren in Jean Moutons Quadrupelkanon Nesciens mater virgo virum, “Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie” IX, 2012; P.W. Urquhart Remarks on some chansons by Jean Mouton, and related matters, “Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis” LXV, 2016; P.P. Macey Jean Mouton: Canon, cantus firmus, and the ‘combinative impulse’ in motets for five voices, “Journal of the Alamire Foundation” X, 2018.