Colinet de Lannoy (died before 6 February 1497) was a French composer of the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...

. He was one of the composers/singers working at the

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard language, Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the List of cities in Italy, second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 ...

chapel at the time of the assassination of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza in 1476, and he possibly also worked in France.

Life

Very little is known for certain about his life, and some details have been confused with other musicians named "Lannoy" or "Lanoy". Two other singers named Lannoy, Jehan and David, were known to be active at the French court in the middle of the 15th century, and may have been related; in addition, a "Karolus de Launoy", active at

Bourges Bourges () is a commune in central France on the river Yèvre. It is the capital of the department of Cher, and also was the capital city of the former province of Berry. History The name of the commune derives either from the Bituriges, ...

and later in France, was previously confused with him.Fitch, Grove online In 1477, Lannoy, along with

Jean Japart Jean Japart (fl. c. 1474 – 1481) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in Italy. He was a popular composer of '' chansons,'' and may have been a friend of Josquin des Prez. Life and work Nothing is known about his life except ...

Johannes Martini Johannes Martini (c. 1440 – late 1497 or early 1498) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. Life He was born in Brabant around 1440, but information about his early life is scanty. He probably received his early training in F ...

, and

Loyset Compère Loyset Compère ( – 16 August 1518) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. Of the same generation as Josquin des Prez, he was one of the most significant composers of motets and chansons of that era, and one of the first musicia ...

, was given a pass to leave Milan following the murder of Duke

Galeazzo Maria Sforza Galeazzo Maria Sforza (24 January 1444 – 26 December 1476) was the fifth Duke of Milan from 1466 until his assassination a decade later. He was notorious for being lustful, cruel, and tyrannical. He was born to Francesco Sforza, a popula ...

. The singing group at the chapel had been one of the most distinguished in Europe, and the compositional style which developed there in the 1470s was widely influential: for example the

motet-chanson The motet-chanson was a specialized musical form of the Renaissance music, Renaissance, developed in Milan during the 1470s and 1480s, which combined aspects of the contemporary motet and chanson. Many consisted of three voice parts, with the low ...

was probably a Milanese invention. It is not known to what degree Lannoy was involved in the development of this style, nor is it known where Lannoy went after his dismissal. Most of the singers scattered, with Japart going to

Ferrara Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...

, and Compère probably going back to France. Since one of Lannoy's known songs is in Dutch, he may have spent some time, either before or after Milan, in the

Low Countries The term Low Countries, also known as the Low Lands ( nl, de Lage Landen, french: les Pays-Bas, lb, déi Niddereg Lännereien) and historically called the Netherlands ( nl, de Nederlanden), Flanders, or Belgica, is a coastal lowland region in N ...

. A line in Guillaume Crétin's elegy on the death of

Johannes Ockeghem Johannes Ockeghem ( – 6 February 1497) was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of early Renaissance music. Ockeghem was the most influential European composer in the period between Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez, and he was—with ...

(6 February 1497) indicates that Lannoy had died by then.

Music and influence

Only two compositions are definitely attributed to Lannoy, both secular songs: ''Cela sans plus'' and ''Adieu natuerlic leven mijn''. The former of these was used as a basis for mass settings by other composers, including Johannes Martini and

Jacob Obrecht Jacob Obrecht (also Hobrecht; 1457/8

. One other piece has been considered as a possible composition by Lannoy, a partial

cyclic mass In Renaissance music, the cyclic mass was a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass, in which each of the movements – Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei – shared a common musical theme, commonly a cantus f ...

for three voices. It is given to "lanoy" in the source, and the style is consistent both with Lannoy's songs and with that of other composers working at Milan.

References and further reading

Gustave Reese Gustave Reese ( ; 29 November 1899 – 7 September 1977) was an American musicologist and teacher. Reese is known mainly for his work on medieval and Renaissance music, particularly with his two publications ''Music in the Middle Ages'' (1940) ...

, ''Music in the Renaissance''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. *Fabrice Fitch: "Colinet de Lannoy", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed June 30, 2007)
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Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lannoy, Colinet de Renaissance composers French classical composers French male classical composers 15th-century births 15th-century deaths