Adrien Basin ( 1457 – 1476; died after 1498) 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, singer, and diplomat 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 ...

of the early

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...

. He was listed along with

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

Hayne van Ghizeghem Hayne van Ghizeghem ( 1445 – 1476 to 1497) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the early Renaissance Burgundian School. While many of his works have survived, little is known about his life. He was probably born in Gijzegem (near Aalst, in mode ...

as one of the personal singers to

Charles the Bold Charles I (Charles Martin; german: Karl Martin; nl, Karel Maarten; 10 November 1433 – 5 January 1477), nicknamed the Bold (German: ''der Kühne''; Dutch: ''de Stoute''; french: le Téméraire), was Duke of Burgundy from 1467 to 1477. ...

, Duke of Burgundy. Little is known about his early life, and he first appears in the records as a singer to

Isabella of Bourbon Isabella of Bourbon, Countess of Charolais (c. 1434 – 25 September 1465) was the second wife of Charles the Bold, Count of Charolais and future Duke of Burgundy. She was a daughter of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon and Agnes of Burgundy, an ...

, who was the wife of Charles the Bold. Later he seems to have joined the personal chapel of Charles, when Charles became Duke. Unlike many of the musicians of the Burgundian court, who travelled along with Charles on his military exploits (who loved music as much as war, and enjoyed having musical entertainment during his military adventures), Basin seems to have remained in

Bruges Bruges ( , nl, Brugge ) is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the sixth-largest city of the country by population. The area of the whole city a ...

most of the time. After the death of Charles at the

Battle of Nancy The Battle of Nancy was the final and decisive battle of the Burgundian Wars, fought outside the walls of Nancy on 5 January 1477 by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, against René II, Duke of Lorraine, and the Swiss Confederacy. René's ...

in 1477, Basin served the court as a diplomat, according to records from the 1480s. The last record of his life is dated to 1498, when he was named as heir to his brother Pierre. All of Basin's surviving music is secular, although some of the anonymous music in the manuscripts of the time may be by him. Of his secular songs, one became immensely popular. ''Nos amys vous vous abusés'' was used by several later composers, including

Tinctoris Jehan le Taintenier or Jean Teinturier (Latinised as Johannes Tinctoris; also Jean de Vaerwere; – 1511) was a Renaissance music theorist and composer from the Low Countries. Up to his time, he is perhaps the most significant European writer ...

, as a source for

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 eleme ...

settings, and numerous copies of the song have been found, some in collections as far away as

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

and

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. Before the advent of music printing at the beginning of the 16th century, such distribution is rare, and generally shows the popularity of a piece. This song, included in the Mellon Chansonnier, is the only one securely attributed to Adrien Basin: his others, ascribed simply to 'Basin' in their sources, may have been written by his brother.Fallows, Grove online Dates of composition of Basin's songs are not known, but probably they were written during the period when he was a singer for Charles. If he wrote later music, either it has not survived, or has survived anonymously.

Works

Three songs are attributed to Basin: * ''Nos amys vous vous abusés'' (rondeau, 3vv) * ''Ma dame faytes moy savoir'' (ascribed to 'Basin' in the source ome, Biblioteca Casanatense, sezione Musica, 2856 is may be by Basin's brother, Pierre) * ''Vien'avante morte'' (ascribed simply to 'Basin'; also may be by Pierre Basin)

Notes

References

* David Fallows, "Adrien Basin", in ''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. (Contains no information on Adrien Basin, but has detailed information on the activities at the Burgundian court) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Basin, Adrien 15th-century Franco-Flemish composers Year of birth unknown Place of birth unknown 1490s deaths Place of death unknown Burgundian school composers French classical composers French male classical composers