Gilles Joye (1424 or 1425 – 31 December 1483) was a

Franco-Flemish The designation Franco-Flemish School, also called Netherlandish School, Burgundian School, Low Countries School, Flemish School, Dutch School, or Northern School, refers, somewhat imprecisely, to the style of polyphonic vocal music composition or ...

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 ideas ...

. A member of the

Burgundian school The Burgundian School was a group of composers active in the 15th century in what is now northern and eastern France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, centered on the court of the Dukes of Burgundy. The school inaugurated the music of Burgundy. The ...

, he was known mainly for his secular songs which were in a lyrical and graceful style.

Life

He may have come from

Kortrijk Kortrijk ( , ; vls, Kortryk or ''Kortrik''; french: Courtrai ; la, Cortoriacum), sometimes known in English as Courtrai or Courtray ( ), is a Belgian City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality in the Flemish Regio ...

, since an Oliver Joye, possibly his father, has been identified there in 1420. Gilles seems to have had an excellent musical education, probably at either Kortrijk or

Bruges Bruges ( , nl, Brugge ) is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the sixth-largest city of the countr ...

, where he was hired as a singer in 1449. Documents from the cathedral archives show that he was often in trouble: engaging in street brawls, frequenting brothels, refusing to take part in regular singing events, and in particular visiting a notorious prostitute of the town named "Rosabelle". In spite of these activities, he was made a priest, and became a

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...

Cleves Kleve (; traditional en, Cleves ; nl, Kleef; french: Clèves; es, Cléveris; la, Clivia; Low Rhenish: ''Kleff'') is a town in the Lower Rhine region of northwestern Germany near the Dutch border and the River Rhine. From the 11th century ...

in 1453 and at St. Donatian in 1459.Fallows, Grove online Between 1454 and 1459 no record of his activities survives 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 ...

; based on his composition of an Italian ''

ballata The ''ballata'' (plural: ''ballate'') is an Italian poetic and musical form in use from the late 13th to the 15th century. It has the musicapenim AbbaA, with the first and last stanzas having the same texts. It is thus most similar to the Fre ...

'' on a poem by a contemporary Florentine, it has been suggested that he spent some time in

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, as did so many other Franco-Flemish composers of his and succeeding generations. By 1459 he was back at St. Donatian in Bruges.Fallows, Grove online In 1462 he was hired as a singer by the Burgundian court chapel, a position he retained officially until 1471, although he had ceased to perform his duties in 1468. Between 1465 and 1473 he was also a

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Delft Delft () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and Municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, Netherlands. It is located between Rotterdam, to the southeast, ...

. After 1471 he most likely returned to St. Donatian. He died in Bruges, and was buried in the church of St. Donatian.Fallows, Grove online A portrait of Joye has survived, possibly painted by

Hans Memling Hans Memling (also spelled Memlinc; c. 1430 – 11 August 1494) was a painter active in Flanders, who worked in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. He was born in the Middle Rhine region and probably spent his childhood in Mainz. He ...

in 1472.Fallows, Grove online Currently it is in the

Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, commonly referred to as the Clark, is an art museum and research institution located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. Its collection consists of European and American paintings, sculp ...

Williamstown, Massachusetts Williamstown is a town in the northern part of Berkshire County, in the northwest corner of Massachusetts, United States. It shares a border with Vermont to the north and New York to the west. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolit ...

Music

All of Joye's surviving music is vocal and secular, and for three voices only. Four of his works are '' rondeaux'', in French (though the text for one rondeau is lost), and one is an Italian ''ballata'', probably written between 1454 and 1459 when he may have been in Italy. Joye's songs are typical of the Burgundian secular music of the period; they are melodic, clear, and lyrical in style. One of them, ''Ce qu'on fait'', is frankly obscene.Fallows, Grove online No sacred music is known for certain to have been written by Joye, but two anonymous masses based on the contemporary lyric '' O rosa bella'' have been attributed to Joye for stylistic reasons; in addition, the similarity of ''O rosa bella'' to the name of his favorite prostitute, along with the general irreverent character evident in his life and other work, may support this hypothesis.Fallows, Grove online Joye is one of the composers mentioned in

Guillaume Crétin Guillaume Dubois or Guillaume Crétin (c. 1460 – 30 November 1525) was a French poet who is considered to belong to the school of the Grands Rhétoriqueurs ("rhetoricians"). Life He was treasurer of the Sainte-Chapelle de Vincennes, then cantor ...

's famous poem ''Déploration sur le trépas de Jean Ockeghem'' written 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 his ...

in 1497; in it he is one of the angels welcoming Ockeghem into

Heaven Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...

. The composers mentioned by Crétin have long been used as a list of those considered most famous in the late 15th century, thus indicating Joye's reputation, in spite of the small number of his works which have survived.Reese, p. 115

Works

# ''Ce qu'on fait a catimini'' (3 voices, rondeau, in French) # ''Mercy mon dueil je ne supplied'' (3 voices, rondeau, in French) # ''Non pas que je veuille penser'' (3 voices, rondeau, in French) # Textless rondeau, also for three voices # ''Poy ché crudel Fortuna et rio Distino'' (3 voices, ballata, in Italian)

Notes

References

* * "Gilles Joye," ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. *

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. (Note: Reese makes the claim that Joye was also a theologian and poet; this derives from the biographical compilation by J. F. Foppens in 1731, ''Compendium chronologicum episcoporum brugensium'' (Bruges, 1731), but a more recent study by F. Van Molle (1960) refutes this, showing that Foppens confused Joye with someone else.) {{DEFAULTSORT:Joye, Gilles 1420s births 1483 deaths Belgian classical composers Belgian male classical composers Burgundian school composers Flemish composers 15th-century Franco-Flemish composers People from Kortrijk Renaissance composers