![Concert in the Egg](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/91/Concert_in_the_Egg.jpg)
Thomas Crecquillon or Créquillon ( – probably early 1557) was a
Franco-Flemish school
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 ...
. While his place of birth is unknown, it was probably within the region loosely known at the time as 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 ...
, and he probably died at
Béthune
Béthune ( ; archaic and ''Bethwyn'' historically in English) is a city in northern France, sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department.
Geography
Béthune is located in the former province of Artois. It is situated south-east of Calais, ...
.
Biography
Very little is known about his early life. He was a priest and a member of the chapel of Emperor
Charles V Charles V may refer to:
* Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (1500–1558)
* Charles V of Naples (1661–1700), better known as Charles II of Spain
* Charles V of France (1338–1380), called the Wise
* Charles V, Duke of Lorraine (1643–1690)
* Infan ...
, but whether he was ''maître de chapelle'' or merely a singer is still a matter of dispute; the surviving documents are contradictory. Later he seems to have held positions at
Dendermonde
Dendermonde (; french: Termonde, ) is a city in the Flemish province of East Flanders in Belgium. The municipality comprises the city of Dendermonde and the towns of Appels, Baasrode, Grembergen, Mespelare, Oudegem, Schoonaarde, and Sint-Gillis-b ...
,
Béthune
Béthune ( ; archaic and ''Bethwyn'' historically in English) is a city in northern France, sub-prefecture of the Pas-de-Calais department.
Geography
Béthune is located in the former province of Artois. It is situated south-east of Calais, ...
,
Leuven
Leuven (, ) or Louvain (, , ; german: link=no, Löwen ) is the capital and largest city of the province of Flemish Brabant in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is located about east of Brussels. The municipality itself comprises the historic ...
, and
Namur
Namur (; ; nl, Namen ; wa, Nameur) is a city and municipality in Wallonia, Belgium. It is both the capital of the province of Namur and of Wallonia, hosting the Parliament of Wallonia, the Government of Wallonia and its administration.
Namu ...
. Unlike many of the composers of the
Franco-Flemish school
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 ...
, he seems never to have left his home region for
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 ...
or other parts of
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
. Crecquillon was retired by 1555, and most likely he died in 1557, probably a victim of the serious outbreak of the plague in Béthune that year. The location of his burial remains a mystery, and no likeness of Crecquillon is known to exist.
Crecquillon's music was highly regarded by his contemporaries, and shows a
harmonic
A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'', the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the ''1st harmonic'', the ...
and
melodic
A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combinat ...
smoothness which prefigures the culminating
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 ...
style of
Palestrina
Palestrina (ancient ''Praeneste''; grc, Πραίνεστος, ''Prainestos'') is a modern Italian city and ''comune'' (municipality) with a population of about 22,000, in Lazio, about east of Rome. It is connected to the latter by the Via Pren ...
. He wrote twelve
masses, more than 100
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 ...
s and almost 200 ''
chanson
A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic s ...
s''. Stylistically he uses points of imitation, rather in the manner of
Josquin des Prez
Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez ( – 27 August 1521) was a composer of High Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he was a central figure of the ...
, in almost all of his sacred works (the masses and motets), following the contemporary trend toward
pervading imitation
Pervading imitation refers to a way of organizing a piece of music in which all voices sing the same melodic material in sequence.
Voices enter one by one at points of imitation and sing the same melodic material although they begin at different ...
and
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 ...
complexity. Unlike Josquin, however, Crecquillon rarely varies his texture for dramatic effect, preferring smoothness and consistency.
His secular ''chansons'', unlike most of those by other composers of the same time, also use pervading imitation, although as is normal in a lighter form of music, they make considerable use of repetition (for example of the final phrase). Because they were imitative, it was Crecquillon's ''chansons'' which provided some of the best models for the later development of the instrumental ''
canzona
The canzona is an Italian musical form derived from the Franco-Flemish and Parisian chansons, and during Giovanni Gabrieli's lifetime was frequently spelled canzona, though both earlier and later the singular was spelled either canzon or canzone ...
'', the instrumental form which developed directly from the ''chanson''. Many of his ''chansons'' were arranged for instruments, especially
lute
A lute ( or ) is any plucked string instrument with a neck and a deep round back enclosing a hollow cavity, usually with a sound hole or opening in the body. It may be either fretted or unfretted.
More specifically, the term "lute" can ref ...
.
The printers
Petrus Phalesius the Elder
Peeter van der Phaliesen, Latinised as Petrus Phalesius, French versions of name Pierre Phalèse and Pierre de PhaleysSusan Bain and Henri Vanhulst, "Phalèse Family", ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', second edition, edited by ...
(of Leuven) and
Tielman Susato
Tielman (or Tylman) Susato (''c.'' 1510/15 – after 1570) was a Renaissance composer, instrumentalist and publisher of music in Antwerp.
Biography
While Susato's exact place of birth is unknown, some scholars believe that because of his n ...
(of Antwerp) published more music by him than by any other composer, which shows the extent of his reputation at the time, though his music is not as often recorded today as is that of many of the Netherlanders working at the same time.
His name is pronounced "toh-MAH krehk-kee-YON." Some historical sources spell the composer's last name with an acute accent mark above its "e", then the composer's last name is actually pronounced "krayk-kee-YON."
Scores
*
*
*The complete musical works of Thomas Crecquillon (the ''Opera Omnia'') were published in twenty volumes, between 1974 and 2011, by the
American Institute of Musicology
The American Institute of Musicology (AIM) is a musicological organization that researches, promotes and produces publications on early music. Founded in 1944 by Armen Carapetyan, the AIM's chief objective is the publication of modern editions ...
.
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. ()
*"Thomas Crecquillon." ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London, Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. ()
* Jas, Eric, ed. ''Beyond Contemporary Fame. Reassessing the Art of Clemens non Papa and Thomas Crecquillon''. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005.
* ''Thomas Crecquillon in Context: A Reappraisal of his Life and of Selected Works'', by Martin A. O. Ham (1998), published by the University of Surrey (a doctoral thesis).
{{DEFAULTSORT:Crecquillon, Thomas
1500s births
1557 deaths
Belgian classical composers
Belgian male classical composers
16th-century Franco-Flemish composers
Renaissance composers