Loyset compere biography of william murphy

Of the same generation as Josquin des Prez , he was one of the most significant composers of motets and chansons of that era, and one of the first musicians to bring the light Italianate Renaissance style to France. His exact place of birth is not known, but documents of the time assign him to a family from the province of Artois in modern France , and suggest he may have been born in Hainaut in modern Belgium.

At least one source from Milan indicates he described himself as coming from Arras , also in Artois. Both the date and probable place of birth are extremely close to those of Josquin des Prez; indeed the area around the current French-Belgian border produced an astonishing number of excellent composers in the 15th and 16th centuries, composers whose fame spread throughout Europe.

Often these composers are known as the Franco-Flemish or Netherlandish School. The chapel choir in the early s grew into one of the largest and most famous singing ensembles in Europe. Sometime during the next ten years he began to work at the French court, and he accompanied Charles VIII on his invasion of Italy in in what capacity is not known.

He was in Rome in early during the occupation of the city by Charles and his army.

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Next he had a series of church positions. Throughout this time he seems to have been in part-time service to the French court, as evidenced by his many compositions for official and ceremonial occasions. He died at Saint-Quentin. By temperament he seems to have been a miniaturist, and his most popular and numerous works were in the shorter forms of the day—primarily chansons and motets.

Two stylistic trends are evident in his music: the style of the Burgundian School , which he seems to have learned in his early career before coming to Italy, and the lighter style of the Italian composers current at the time, who were writing frottolas the light and popular predecessor to the madrigal. Occasionally he seems to have given himself a formidable technical challenge and set out to solve it, such as writing quodlibets an example is Au travail suis , which combines no less than six different tunes written to the same text by different composers.

Some mix texts from different sources, for instance a rather paradoxical Sile fragor which combines a supplication to the Virgin Mary with a drinking song dedicated to Bacchus. His choice of secular texts tended towards the irreverent and suggestive. His chansons are his most characteristic compositions, and many scholars of Renaissance music consider them to be his best work.