Jehan de Lescurel (; also Jehannot de l'Escurel) was a

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 ...

-poet of late

medieval music Medieval music encompasses the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the first and longest major era of Western classical music and followed by the Renaissance ...

. Jehan's extensive surviving ''oeuvre'' is an important and rare examples 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 ...

'' before the time of

Guillaume de Machaut Guillaume de Machaut (, ; also Machau and Machault; – April 1377) was a French composer and poet who was the central figure of the style in late medieval music. His dominance of the genre is such that modern musicologists use his death to ...

; it consists of 34 works: 20

ballade Ballad is a form of narrative poetry, often put to music, or a type of sentimental love song in modern popular music. Ballad or Ballade may also refer to: Music Genres and forms * Ballade (classical music), a musical setting of a literary ballad ...

s, 12 rondeaus and two long narrative poems, '' diz entés''. All but one of his compositions is

monophonic Monaural or monophonic sound reproduction (often shortened to mono) is sound intended to be heard as if it were emanating from one position. This contrasts with stereophonic sound or ''stereo'', which uses two separate audio channels to reproduc ...

, representing the end of the ''

trouvère ''Trouvère'' (, ), sometimes spelled ''trouveur'' (, ), is the Northern French (''langue d'oïl'') form of the ''langue d'oc'' (Occitan) word ''trobador'', the precursor of the modern French word ''troubadour''. ''Trouvère'' refers to poet- ...

'' tradition and the beginning of the polyphonic '' ars nova'' style centered around the ''formes fixes''.

Identity and career

Jehan de Lescurel is also known as Jehannot de l'Escurel. Very little is known of his life; the transmission, notation and circumstances of his works suggest he was active in the early 14th century, and his compositions's textual references indicate he was active in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. It has also be inferred that Jehan was the son of a merchant and probably received his musical training at the

Notre Dame de Paris Notre-Dame de Paris (; meaning "Our Lady of Paris"), referred to simply as Notre-Dame, is a medieval Catholic cathedral on the Île de la Cité (an island in the Seine River), in the 4th arrondissement of Paris. The cathedral, dedicated to the ...

. For many years, scholars assumed he was the 'Jehan de Lescurel' who had been hung on 23 May 1304 along with three other young clerics of Notre Dame, including Oudinet Pisdoé, for "debauchery" and "crimes against women". Recent research has shown that "Jehan de Lescurel" was a rather common name in early fourteenth-century Paris, and there is no other clear link between the composer and cleric.

Music

He was a transitional figure from the

period to the . His lyrical style unites him with the composers of the later period. The sole source for his music is the same manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS français 146) which preserves the interpolated version of the ''

Roman de Fauvel The ''Roman de Fauvel'' is a 14th-century French allegorical verse romance of satirical bent, generally attributed to , a clerk at the French royal chancery. The original narrative of 3,280 octosyllabics is divided into two books, dated to 131 ...

''. Most of his works are

songs, in the style of the

s; only one of his 34 works is

polyphonic 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 ...

, although he wrote other works which have not survived. The songs are

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 ...

s, ballades, rondeaux; they include

word painting Word painting, also known as tone painting or text painting, is the musical technique of composing music that reflects the literal meaning of a song's lyrics or story elements in programmatic music. Historical development Tone painting of words ...

more in the style of the later 14th-century composers than those of the 13th century; they are simple, charming, and debauchery is not a prominent theme. Jehan also has two extant '' diz entés'', length poems with music set only to the refrain text.

Works

Editions

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

Books * * * * * Journals and articles * * Online *

External links

* *

in the Medieval Music Database from

La Trobe University La Trobe University is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Its main campus is located in the suburb of Bundoora. The university was established in 1964, becoming the third university in the state of Victoria an ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lescurel, Jehan de 1304 deaths French classical composers French male classical composers 13th-century French composers 14th-century French poets 14th-century French composers Medieval male composers Ars nova composers Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown