Waelrant, Hubert (EN)

Waelrant, Waelrandus, Hubert, Hubrecht, *1516 or 1517, †19 November 1595 Antwerp, Flemish composer, singer and publisher. For most of his life, he was associated with his hometown, although it is possible that he studied in Italy. However, he was most likely not, as was once claimed, a student of A. Willaert. The first mentions of Waelrant refer to his employment in 1544–45 as a tenor at Antwerp Cathedral. In 1553–56, in exchange for renting a house, he taught singing at a school run by the instrumentalist G. De Coninck. According to F. Sweerst (1628), who claimed to be a pupil of Waelrant, for teaching purposes, he replaced hexachord-based solmisation with his own octave system, called bocedisation (from the first syllables of the series: bo, ce, di, ga, lo, ma, ni). Around 1554, he began collaborating with the publisher J. De Laet, with whom he published 16 collections by 1558: eight volumes of motets (Sacrarum cantionum (…) liber…, 4–6-part, 1554–56, including a book of motets by Waelrant), four volumes of chansons (Jardin musical, 3–4-part, around 1556), three volumes of French psalms (J. Louys) and a book of his own madrigals and chansons. He returned to publishing in 1585, preparing a collection of madrigals, Symphonia angelica (including five of his own compositions), for P. Phalèse and J. Bellère. Based on his choice of texts in motets, as well as his arrangements of C. Mart’s psalms, a hypothesis has been put forward about Waelrant’s pro-Reformation sympathies, which, however, are not confirmed by the surviving sources. At least three of his numerous children (he was married three times) also became musicians.

Waelrant’s compositions (35 motets, 42 chansons, 64 madrigals and canzoni napolitane) show the influence of Orlando di Lasso’s music and are considered to be of great value. The motets and madrigals are characterised by textural diversity (free imitations, homorhythm, contrasting voice groups), careful declamation of the text, usually treated syllabically, and bold harmonies, usually introduced for expressive purposes. Of similar importance are the parallelisms of perfect consonances (e.g. the beginning of Pater Abraham), dissonances, oblique sounds and chromaticism, which appear especially in Waelrant’s motets. Chansons and canzoni napolitane belong to more traditional compositions. E. Lowinsky’s view, based largely on an analysis of Waelrant’s motets, concerning the introduction of, among other things, “secret chromaticism” in these works, remains a brilliant but still unverified hypothesis.

Waelrant and De Laet’s publications stand out among Dutch prints for their selection of modern repertoire (including N. Gombert, Th. Crequillon, C. non Papa, and J. Caulery), for which Waelrant was responsible, and their high editorial standards. Waelrant’s experience as a singer influenced the exceptionally precise notation of syllables under the notes, the correlation of line endings with the tactus, and an attention to detail in marking accidentals that was unusual for the period (especially in Waelrant’s own works, e.g. in the four-voice motet Recumbentibus undecim discipulis, the flat appears at the clef and 15 times before e, the sharp 20 times before f, 7 times before c, 18 times before h and 2 times before e). The arrangement of the pieces in the anthologies is modelled on French prints and is based on tonal types.

Literature: P.F. Sweerts Athenae belgicae, Antwerp 1628; G. Becker Hubert Waelrant et ses psaumes, Paris 1881; E.E. Lowinsky Secret Chromatic Art in the Netherlands Motet, New York 1946, reprint 1967; H. Slenk The Music School of Hubert Waelrant, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XXI, 1968; W. Piel Studien zum Leben und Schaffen Hans Waelrants unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Motetten, «Marburger Beiträge zur Musikforschung» III, Marburg 1969; R.L. Weaver The Motets of Hubert Waelrant, dissertation Syracuse University 1971 (vol. 3 contains all motets, also from collective prints); E.E. Lowinsky Secret Chromatic Art Re-Examined, in: Perspectives in Musicology, ed. B.S. Brook et al., New York 1972; R.L. Weaver A Descriptive Bibliographical Catalog of the Music Printed by Hubert Waelrant and Jan de Laet, «Detroit Studies in Music Bibliography» vol. 73 and Waelrant and Laet. Music Publishers in Antwerp’s Golden Age, «Detroit Monographs in Musicology» XV, Warren (Michigan) 1994 and 1995 and a review of both these articles: T. McTaggart, “Music and Letters” LXXVII, 1996; Music Printing in Antwerp and Europe in the 16^th Century, materials from a congress, ed. E. Schreurs and H. Vanhulst, “Yearbook of the Alamire Foundation” II, Leuven 1997 (contains, among others: S. Bain The Typography of the Firm of Hubert Waelrant and Jean De Laet, J.A. Owens Waelrant and Bocedization. Reflections on Solmization Reform, R.L. Weaver Waelrant’s Working Relationship with Jan De Laet, as Given in the Prefaces to their Partbooks); R.L. Weaver Additions and Corrections to a Descriptive Catalog of the Music Printed by Hubert Waelrant and Jan de Laet and Additions and Corrections to Waelrant and Laet. Music Publishers in Antwerp’s Golden Age, Warren (Michigan) 1998; S. Bilmayer Der Chansonsammeldruck „Jardin musiqual, le premier livre” [1555] von Hubert Waelrant, “Neues musikwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch” XVI, 2008–2009.