French Music in the Early Sixteenth Century

Book excerpt: A description, reconstruction and discussion of the repertory of an exceptional musical source, the French manuscript made at Lyons c. 1520-1525 as the private collection of a music copyist. The book contains 280 compositions, sacred and secular, from the period 1450-1524 with Loyset, Compère, Alexander Agricola, Antoine de Févin, Claudin de Sermisy and Clément Janequin as the prominent composers. Besides discussing the many-faceted repertory, the book studies the circulation of music in the early sixteenth century and the relationships between popular songs and courtly chansons and between provincial music and the music of the musical centres. -- The manuscript has been in the Royal Library of Copenhagen since 1921. This is the first comprehensive study of it.