Vaet, Jacobus (EN)

Vaet Jacobus, *1529 or 1530 Kortrijk or Harelbeke, †8 January 1567 Vienna, Flemish composer. In 1543, he was accepted as a boy chorister into the chapel at the Onze Lieve Vrouwkerk church in Kortrijk (Count’s Chapel), recording that he was 13 years old. On 29 August 1547, he matriculated at the University of Leuven; in 1550, he sang in the chapel of Emperor Charles V of Habsburg, and from 1 January 1554, until the end of his life, he acted as Kapellmeister at the courts of his nephew, Maximilian, whose respect and friendship he enjoyed; initially at the court in Prague, and from 1564 at the imperial court in Vienna. Vaet’s students included J. Regnart. Theorists such as H. Finck (1556), L. Zacconi (1596), and P. Cerone (1613) spoke highly of Vaet.

Almost every Vaet’s piece has survived in numerous printed sources (since 1553) and manuscripts (several also in organ and lute intavolations), which testifies to the composer’s considerable esteem among his contemporaries. Dense polyphony with free imitations, close to the style of N. Gombert, predominates throughout his work, with occasional appearances of older techniques such as the cantus firmus, ostinato (and also cavato delle parole), canon, and fragments in a newer chordal texture of a recitative nature. In the 6- and 8-voice pieces, Vaet divides the ensemble over short sections into two groups, each varying within the piece; only in the 8-voice Te Deum is the division into two choirs consistent. All the masses, some of the Salve Regina, and at least three motets belong to the parody type (the masses are based on works by J. Mouton, C. de Rore, Clemens non Papa, Orlando di Lasso, among others, and one of the motets is based on a piece by Josquin des Prés, whose style several other works by Vaet also refer to). Over 30 motets are two-movement works; as many as 17 were written by Vaet to secular texts, usually of a panegyric nature, such as Romulidum invicti, for the wedding of Archduchess Catherine to the Polish King Sigismund Augustus (1553). Among the hymns, there is a noteworthy original measure which consists of repeating the entire course of the 2^nd verse, composed in duple metre, and repeating it in triple metre in the 4^th verse.

Literature: H. Jancik Die Messen des Jacobus Vaet, dysertacja, Universität Wien, 1929; J. Schmidt-Görg Die Acta Capitularaa der Notre-Dame-Kirche zu Kortrijk als musikgeschichtliche Quelle, “Vlaam Jarboek voor Muziekgeschiedenis” I, 1939; H. Federhofer Etats de la chapelle musicale de Charles-Quint (1528) et de Maximilien (1554), “Revue Belge de Musicologie” IV, 1950; M. Steinhardt Jacobus Vaet and His Motets, East Lansing 1951; M. Steinhardt The Hymns of Jacobus Vaet, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” IX, 1956; Matricule de l’Université de Louvain, vol. 4, ed. A. Schillings, Brussels 1961; M. Steinhardt Addenda to the Biography of Jacobus Vaet, in: The Commonwealth of Music. In Honor of Curt Sachs, ed. G. Reese and R. Brandel, New York 1965; M. Steinhardt The Missa „Si me tenes”. A Problem of Authorship, in: Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music. A Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese, ed. J. LaRue et al., New York 1966, 2^nd ed. 1978; W. Kirsch „Musica Dei donum optimi”: zu einigen weltlichen Motetten des 16. Jahrhunderts, in: Helmuth Osthoff zu seinem siebzigsten Geburtstag, ed. W. Stauder, V. Aarburg and P. Cahn, Tutzing 1969; M. Steinhardt The „Notes de Pinchart” and the Flemish Chapel of Charles V, in: Renaissance-muziek 1400–1600. Donum natalicium René Bernard Lenaerts, ed. J. Robijns et al., Leuven 1969; W. Pass Jacob Vaets und Georg Prenners Vertonungen des „Salve regina” in Joanellus’ Sammelwerk von 1568, in: De ratione in musica. Festschrift Erich Schenk, ed. T. Antonicek et al., Kassel 1975; M. Steinhardt A Musical Offering to Emperor Maximilian II: a Political and Religious Document of the Renaissance, “Studien zur Musikwissenschaft” XXVIII, 1977; D. Arnold The grand motets of Orlandus Lassus, “Early Music” VI, 1978; R. Lindell Music and the Religious Crisis of Maximilian II: from Vaet’s Qui operatus est Petro to Lasso’s Pacis amans’, in: Orlandus Lassus and His Time, ed. I. Bossuyt, E. Schreurs and A. Wouters, Antwerp 1994; H. Vanhulst Le Manuscript C1, in: Music Fragments and Manuscripts in the Low Countries, ed. H. Schreurs and H. Vanhulst, Leuven 1997; E. Kiem „Musico antico & celebrato”: Versuch über Jacobus Vaet, “Musik & Ästhetik” XXXVIII, 2006; C. Reynolds Motive, Structure and Meaning in Willaert’s Motet Videns Dominus, “Journal of Musicology” XXXII, 2015; J. Pfohl The Court Chapels of the Austrian Line (I): From Emperor Ferdinand I to Emperor Matthias, in: A Companion to Music at the Habsburg Courts in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, ed. A.H. Weaver, Lejda 2021; J. Pfohl Motetten am Hof Maximilians II. (1527– 1576): Komponieren im Zeitalter der Konfessionalisierung, Vienna 2022.