Jean Titelouze - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Jean Titelouze
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jean (Jehan) Titelouze (c. 1562/63 24 October 1633) was a

French composer, poet and organist of the early Baroque period.
His style was firmly rooted in the Renaissance vocal tradition, and
as such was far removed from the distinctly French style of organ
music that developed during the mid-17th century. However, his
hymns and Magnificat settings are the earliest known published
French organ collections, and he is regarded as the first composer
of the French organ school.

Contents
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The city of Rouen in 1610. Titelouze

spent most of his life here, working as
organist of the Rouen Cathedral.

Life
Works
Media
Notes
References
External links
6.1 General information
6.2 Sheet music
6.3 Audio

Life
In a 1930 study Amde Gastou suggested that the surname Titelouze may be of English or Irish origin
(more specifically, derived from "Title-House"),[1] but recently this theory has been disproven, and
"Titelouze" is now linked to "de Toulouse".[2] Titelouze was born in Saint-Omer in 1562/3 (his exact date
of birth is unknown) and educated there; by 1585 he entered the priesthood and served as organist of the
Saint-Omer Cathedral. He moved to Rouen later that year and in 1588 succeeded Franois Josseline as
organist of the Rouen Cathedral. His work was not limited to Rouen: he also acted as organ consultant
and helped with the installation and repair of important instruments in various cities.[2]
In 1600 Titelouze invited the famous Franco-Flemish organ builder Crespin Carlier to Rouen to work on
the cathedral organ. The result of this collaboration was referred to by contemporary critics as the best
organ in France. This instrument and Carlier's later work in France defined the French classical organ.
Titelouze occasionally collaborated with Carlier on various instruments. In 1604 Titelouze became a
French citizen (at the time, Saint-Omer, where Titelouze was born, was part of the Spanish Netherlands).
In 1610 he was appointed one of the Rouen Cathedral's canons. In 1613 he won his first award from
Rouen's literary society, the Acadmie des Palinods, for his poems.[2]

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The year 1623 saw publication of Titelouze's Hymnes de l'Eglise, a

collection of organ settings of various plainchant hymns to be used
during the liturgy. The same year, due to health problems, Titelouze
partially retired from his organist position (although he kept the post
until his death). In 1626 he published a second organ collection, Le
Magnificat, that contained eight Magnificat settings. In 1630 he
received another award from the Acadmie des Palinods and was
made "Prince des Palinods". He died three years later.[2]

The Rouen Cathedral, where

Titelouze worked from 1588 until
his death.

Titelouze was a friend of Marin Mersenne, an important French

music theorist, mathematician, philosopher and theologian. Seven
letters survive from their correspondence, from 16221633.
Titelouze gave Mersenne advice on L'Harmonie Universelle,
published from 1634 to 1637.[2] Although the strict polyphonic style
of Titelouze's music soon disappeared from French organ music, his
influence was still felt for some time after his death; for instance, the
Parisian composer and organist Nicolas Gigault included a fugue
la maniere de Titelouze (literally "in Titelouze's style") in his 1685
Livre de musique pour l'orgue. Some three hundred years later, the
composer inspired one of Marcel Dupr's organ works, Le Tombeau

de Titelouze, op. 38 (1942).

Works
Titelouze's surviving output comprises two
collections of organ pieces. These are the first
published collections of organ music in 17th century
France. The first, Hymnes de l'glise pour toucher
sur l'orgue, avec les fugues et recherches sur leur
plain-chant (1623, 2nd edition in 1624), contains 12
hymns:
1. Ad coenam (4 versets)
2. Veni Creator (4 versets)
3. Pange lingua (3 versets)
4. Ut queant laxis (3 versets)
5. Ave maris stella (4 versets)
6. Conditor alme siderum (3 versets)
7. A solis ortus (3 versets)
8. Exsultet coelum (3 versets)
9. Annue Christe (3 versets)
10. Sanctorum meritis (3 versets)
11. Iste confessor (3 versets)
12. Urbs Jerusalem (3 versets)

Example 1. Opening bars of Titelouze's 3rd verset of

Veni Creator. The hymn in the tenor is highlighted.
The outer voices form a canon at the octave; in the
other two canonic versets in the 1623/4 collection,
Titelouze created canons at the fifth (and the hymn is
in the soprano voice [Conditor], or bass [Ave maris
stella]).

Every hymn begins with a verset with a continuous cantus firmus: the hymn melody is stated in long note

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values in one of the voices, usually the bass, while the other voices provide contrapuntal accompaniment.
Other versets are only occasionally cast in this form. More frequently the 16th century motet practice is
used: the hymn melody either migrates from one voice to another, with or without imitative inserts
between verses, or is treated imitatively throughout the piece. In three versets (Veni Creator 3, Ave maris
stella 3, and Conditor 2) the melody in one voice is accompanied by two voices that form a canon, in two
(Ave maris stella 4 and Annue Christe 3) one of the voices provides a pedal point. In most versets,
counterpoints to the hymn melody engage in imitation or fore-imitation, and more often than not they are
derived from the hymn melody. All of the pieces are in four voices, except the canonic versets, which use
only three.[3]
The second collection, Le Magnificat ou Cantique de la Vierge pour toucher sur l'orgue suivant les huit
tons de l'glise, published in 1626, contains eight Magnificat settings in all eight church modes. There are
seven versets in each setting, presenting the odd-numbered versets of the canticle, with two settings of
Deposuit potentes:
1. Magnificat
2. Quia respexit
3. Et misericordia
4. Deposuit potentes, first setting
5. Deposuit potentes, second setting
6. Suscepit Israel
7. Gloria Patri et Filio
In the preface, Titelouze explains that this structure makes these Magnificat settings usable for the
Benedictus. Save for the introductory ones, all of the versets are fugal. Most feature two main points of
imitation: the first concludes on the mediant cadence of the mode, and so, Titelouze writes, the organist
can shorten any verset during the service by substituting this cadence with one on the final.[2] Most fugue
subjects are derived from the chant; there are many double fugues and inversion fugues in the collection.
Four-voice polyphony is employed throughout the collection. The music is much more forward-looking
than in the Hymnes[3] (see Example 2 for an excerpt from one of the inversion fugues).

Example 2. Bars 1013 from the second setting of Deposuit potentes from Magnificat primi toni. In this inversion
fugue (the subject is highlighted with shades of blue), like in much of the rest of the collection, Titelouze's musical
language is more progressive than in any of the 1624 hymns.

Although French organs already had colorful solo stops at the time, Titelouze did not use them.
According to the prefaces of both collections, he was concerned with making his pieces easier to play and
playable by hands alone. Titelouze goes as far as suggesting, in the preface to Hymnes, to alter the music
if it is too difficult to play.[4]

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Media
Notes
1. See Gastou 1930 for details.
2. Howell, Cohen, Grove.
3. Apel 1972, 500502.
4. Silbiger 2004, 106.

Conditor alme siderum

Problems playing this file? See media help.

References
Apel, Willi. 1972. The History of Keyboard Music to 1700. Translated by Hans Tischler. Indiana
University Press. ISBN 0-253-21141-7. Originally published as Geschichte der Orgel- und
Klaviermusik bis 1700 by Brenreiter-Verlag, Kassel.
Gastou, Amde. 1930. Note sur la gnalogie et la famille de l'organiste Titelouze, RdM, xi,
pp. 1715.
Howell, Almonte, and Cohen, Albert. "Jehan Titelouze". In Macy, Laura. Grove Music Online.
Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. (subscription required)
Silbiger, Alexander. 2004. Keyboard Music Before 1700. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-96891-7

External links
General information
Jehan Titelouze: a short biographical sketch and analysis of
Hymnes (http://www.musimem.com/Jehan_Titelouze.htm)

Wikimedia Commons
has media related to
Jean Titelouze.

(French)

Sheet music
Complete opera in the edition of Alexandre Guilmant in 1897 (http://clanfaw.free.fr/titelouze.pdf)
Free scores (and midi files) by J. Titelouze at the Mutopia Project (http://www.mutopiaproject.org
/cgibin/make-table.cgi?Composer=TitelouzeJ)
Free scores by Jean Titelouze at the International Music Score Library Project
The Mutopia Project has compositions by Jean Titelouze (http://www.mutopiaproject.org/cgibin
/make-table.cgi?Composer=TitelouzeJ)

Audio
Listen to the last verset of Titelouze's setting of Urbs Jerusalem (http://www.guibray.org/gui/Sons
/titelouzeurbs.mp3)
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Categories: 1560s births 1633 deaths People from Saint-Omer Renaissance composers
Baroque composers French classical organists Cathedral organists Composers for pipe organ
17th-century classical composers Male classical composers
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