Jacques Brunel (''Brumel'', ''Brumello'', ''Brunello'', ''Giaches Brumel'', etc.) (died 1564) was a French

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ (music), organ. An organist may play organ repertoire, solo organ works, play with an musical ensemble, ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumentalist, instrumental ...

and

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

, active mostly 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 ...

Life

He may have been organist at the

Rouen Cathedral Rouen Cathedral (french: Cathédrale primatiale Notre-Dame de l'Assomption de Rouen) is a Roman Catholic church in Rouen, Normandy, France. It is the see of the Archbishop of Rouen, Primate of Normandy. It is famous for its three towers, each in ...

until December 1524, when a certain ''Jacques Brunel'' left the post. From 1532 until 1564 a ''Brunel'', probably the same person, worked as organist at the Este chapel in

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 ...

, where in 1547–1558 he served under the famous composer

Cipriano de Rore Cipriano de Rore (occasionally Cypriano) (1515 or 1516 – between 11 and 20 September 1565) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, active in Italy. Not only was he a central representative of the generation of Franco-Flemish compose ...

. Between 1543 and 1559 Brunel received money for the keep of a horse, which he needed to travel to oversee the Este chapels at

Modena Modena (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language#Dialects, Modenese, Mòdna ; ett, Mutna; la, Mutina) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) on the south side of the Po Valley, in the Province of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region of northern I ...

and

Reggio nell'Emilia Reggio nell'Emilia ( egl, Rèz; la, Regium Lepidi), usually referred to as Reggio Emilia, or simply Reggio by its inhabitants, and known until Unification of Italy, 1861 as Reggio di Lombardia, is a city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romag ...

. At the request of

Guidobaldo II della Rovere Guidobaldo II della Rovere (2 April 1514 – 28 September 1574) was an Italian condottiero, who succeeded his father Francesco Maria I della Rovere as Duke of Urbino from 1538 until his death in 1574. He was a member of the House of La Rove ...

Duke of Urbino The Duchy of Urbino was an independent duchy in early modern central Italy, corresponding to the northern half of the modern region of Marche. It was directly annexed by the Papal States in 1625. It was bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the eas ...

, Brunel also stayed in

Pesaro Pesaro () is a city and ''comune'' in the Italian region of Marche, capital of the Province of Pesaro e Urbino, on the Adriatic Sea. According to the 2011 census, its population was 95,011, making it the second most populous city in the Marche, ...

and

Urbino Urbino ( ; ; Romagnol: ''Urbìn'') is a walled city in the Marche region of Italy, south-west of Pesaro, a World Heritage Site notable for a remarkable historical legacy of independent Renaissance culture, especially under the patronage of ...

in the summer of 1534, and later in 1561–63. The last references to him in the archives are from early 1564: he was last paid in March, and had died by May. He was succeeded by his son Virginio Brunel, who later became organist at the

Basilica of San Vitale The Basilica of San Vitale is a late antique church in Ravenna, Italy. The sixth-century church is an important surviving example of early Christian Byzantine art and architecture. It is one of eight structures in Ravenna inscribed on the UNESCO ...

. He served there from August 1572 until some time after 1580.

Works

Brunel enjoyed an exceptionally high reputation during his lifetime. Numerous writers, including

Cosimo Bartoli Cosimo Bartoli (December 20, 1503 in Florence – October 25, 1572) was an Italian diplomat, mathematician, Philology, philologist, and Humanism, humanist. He worked and lived in Rome and Florence and took minor orders. He was a friend of architect ...

, Cinciarino, Jacopo Corfini and

Luigi Dentice Luigi Dentice (1510 in Naples – 1566 in Naples) was an Italian composer, musical theorist, singer and lutenist who served the powerful Sanseverino family, and was father of Fabrizio Dentice (1539 – 1581), also a composer and lutenist. He was ...

, praised his skills. Bartoli wrote that Brunel played "with more grace, with more art and more musically than any other, whoever he may be." However, few of his works survive. The most important pieces, a number of

ricercar A ricercar ( , ) or ricercare ( , ) is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. The term ''ricercar'' derives from the Italian verb which means 'to search out; to seek'; many ricercars serve a preludial functi ...

s from the so-called Bourdeney Codex, were attributed to Brunel by

Anthony Newcomb Anthony Newcomb (August 6, 1941 - November 18, 2018) was an American musicologist. He was born in New York City and studied at the University of California, Berkeley where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1962. He then studied with Gustav Le ...

in 1987. These works are of considerable importance in the evolution of the genre: there are frequent instances of advanced

contrapuntal In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...

techniques such as

inversion Inversion or inversions may refer to: Arts * , a French gay magazine (1924/1925) * ''Inversion'' (artwork), a 2005 temporary sculpture in Houston, Texas * Inversion (music), a term with various meanings in music theory and musical set theory * ...

and augmentation,

hexachord In music, a hexachord (also hexachordon) is a six-note series, as exhibited in a scale (hexatonic or hexad) or tone row. The term was adopted in this sense during the Middle Ages and adapted in the 20th century in Milton Babbitt's serial theor ...

transpositions ('' inganno'') of the subjects; some of the pieces even employ countersubjects. Two ricercares also appear in another manuscript: one imitative, structured like a

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Margar ...

, and the other completely devoid of any imitative passages. One other piece was attributed to Brunel by

Knud Jeppesen Knud Jeppesen (15 August 1892 – 14 June 1974) was a Danish musicologist and composer. He was the leading scholar of the composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, about whose life and music he wrote numerous studies. Biography Jeppesen demonst ...

: an organ

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 ...

discovered in the 1940s in manuscripts that were kept in the main church of

Castell'Arquato Castell'Arquato (; Piacentino: or ) is an Italian town located on the first hills of Val D’Arda in the province of Piacenza, in Emilia-Romagna, approximately from Piacenza and from Parma. Places nearby include Bacedasco, Vigolo Marchese, ...

. The mass, subtitled ''Messa de la dominica'', is signed ''Jaches'' at the end of the last Kyrie verset. It is a typical Italian organ mass, consisting of many short pieces for the alternation practice. All of the pieces are in four voices, but the texture is frequently interrupted either by passages in three voices, or with chordal passages which include chords of five, six, or even seven notes.Apel 1972, 112.

List of works

* ''Messa de la dominica'' * ''Ricercare di Jaches'' (in F) * ''Ricercare di Jaches'' (in d) * ''Recercare del nono tuono'' * ''Ricercar sopra la sol fa re mi'' * ''Ricercar del terzo tono'' * ''Ricercar del nono tono'' * ''Ricercar del quinto tono'' * ''Ricercar del duodicesimo tono'' * ''Ricercare del primo tono'' * ''Ricercare del primo tono'' * ''Ricercare del secondo tono'' * ''Ricercare del seconto tono'' * ''Ricercare del terzo tono'' * ''Ricercare del quarto tono'' * ''Ricercare del duodecimo tono'' * ''Ricercare sopra Cantai mentre ch'i arsi iCypriano e Rore'

Notes

References

* Apel, Willi. 1972. ''The History of Keyboard Music to 1700''. Translated by Hans Tischler. Indiana University Press. . Originally published as ''Geschichte der Orgel- und Klaviermusik bis 1700'' by Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel. *Hudson, Barton. "Jacques Brunel", ''

Grove Music Online ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

'', ed. L. Macy
grovemusic.com
(subscription access).

Life

Works

List of works

Notes

References

Further reading