Guillaume Legrant (Guillaume Lemacherier, Le Grant) (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

1405–1449) was a French composer of the early

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 ...

, active in

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, ...

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 ...

, and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. He was one of the first composers in writing

polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...

to distinguish between passages for solo and multiple voices on each part.Wright, Grove online

Life and music

Nothing is known about his early life, but his real name (Lemacherier) suggests a French origin. His first appearance in church records is in 1405, when he was a singer 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, t ...

. In 1407 he became a chaplain there, and he remained in Bourges until 1410. The next eight years contain no record of his activities, but he was in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

by October 1418, at which time he entered the papal chapel as a singer, at that time under

Pope Martin V Pope Martin V ( la, Martinus V; it, Martino V; January/February 1369 – 20 February 1431), born Otto (or Oddone) Colonna, was the head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 11 November 1417 to his death in February 1431. Hi ...

; he stayed there until 1421. While no musical activity of his has been documented in France, he had been given

benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

s there, in the

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, pro ...

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of ...

. Since he kept at least one until 1449 he is presumed to have still been alive then. Legrant's music is collected in Volume 11 of the ''

Corpus mensurabilis musicae The ''Corpus mensurabilis musicae'' (CMM) is a collected print edition of most of the sacred and secular vocal music of the late medieval and Renaissance period in western music history, with an emphasis on the central Franco-Flemish and Italian re ...

.'' Seven pieces survive, of which three are sacred, and the rest secular. The sacred music includes two settings of the ''

Credo In Christian liturgy, the credo (; Latin for "I believe") is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed – or its shorter version, the Apostles' Creed – in the Mass, either as a prayer, a spoken text, or sung as Gregorian chant or other musical setti ...

'' of the

Mass Mass is an intrinsic property of a body. It was traditionally believed to be related to the quantity of matter in a physical body, until the discovery of the atom and particle physics. It was found that different atoms and different elementar ...

, and one setting of the

Gloria Gloria may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music Christian liturgy and music * Gloria in excelsis Deo, the Greater Doxology, a hymn of praise * Gloria Patri, the Lesser Doxology, a short hymn of praise ** Gloria (Handel) ** Gloria (Jenkins) ...

; these are the pieces in which he makes a distinction between solo and full chorus in the polyphonic parts. All of his surviving secular works are in the form of the ''

virelai A ''virelai'' is a form of medieval French verse used often in poetry and music. It is one of the three ''formes fixes'' (the others were the ballade and the rondeau) and was one of the most common verse forms set to music in Europe from the lat ...

,'' one of the ''

formes fixes The ''formes fixes'' (; singular: ''forme fixe'', "fixed form") are the three 14th- and 15th-century French poetic forms: the ''ballade'', '' rondeau'', and ''virelai''. Each was also a musical form, generally a ''chanson'', and all consisted of ...

''. Most of the composers of the period wrote in another of ''formes fixes'', the rondeau, but Legrant seems to have preferred the ''virelai,'' which had been set widely the century before. By 1420 few composers are known to have been writing ''virelais,'' suggesting that Legrant's compositions may predate 1420 (the ''virelai'' was to return to favor later in the 15th century, in the music of

Antoine Busnois Antoine Busnois (also Busnoys; – before 6 November 1492) was a French composer, singer and poet of early Renaissance music. Busnois and colleague Johannes Ockeghem were the leading European composers of the second half the 15th century, and ...

and

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 ...

).Wilkins, Grove online

Works

Virelais (all for three voices) *''Pour l'amour de mon bel amy'' *''Ma chiere mestresse et amye'' *''Or avant, gentilz fillettes'' *''La doulce flour'' (rendered in CMM as an instrumental piece) Mass movements (all for three voices) *''Gloria'' *''Credo'' (I) *''Credo'' (II)

References

* Craig Wright: "Guillaume Legrant", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed June 16, 2007)
(subscription access)
* Nigel Wilkins: "Virelai", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed June 16, 2007)
(subscription access)
*

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. * Howard Mayer Brown, ''Music in the Renaissance''. Prentice Hall History of Music Series. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey; Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1976.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Legrant, Guillaume 14th-century births 15th-century deaths Renaissance composers Male classical composers