Claude LeJeune
Claude LeJeune was the last great chanson composer of the 16th century. Being a Protestant his religious music consists mostly of psalm settings, but he is known primarily for his chansons especially those employing musique mesurée. Which consists of applying longer note durations to accented syllables in the text resulting in irregular meters. “Revecy venir du Printemps” heard below is a good example.
Claude LeJeune was born in Valenciennes on the French/Flemish border in 1528. Little is known of his life until he moved to Paris in 1564, eventually becoming associated with Baif and Courville at the Académie de Poésie et de Musique in 1570. After the St Bartholemew’s Day massacre in 1572, LeJeune managed to maintain his position as a Protestant in a Catholic City until in 1589 he was forced to flee for his life to La Rochelle, a Protestant-friendly town on the Atlantic coast. After a few years LeJeune was able to return to Paris and is listed among the Royal Household musicians of Henry IV, whose Edict of Nantes provided a more tolerant situation for Protestants.
LeJeune died in September 1600, less than a month before the wedding of Henry IV and Maria de’ Medici where the featured music was ‘Euridice’ by Peri and Caccini . . . sounding a death-knell for the superb multi-voiced polyphony of Claude LeJeune. A posthumous consolation might well be found in the 1606 publication of a collection of thirty-six of his songs under the general title of ‘Octonaires de la vanité et inconstances du monde’ (Octonaires on the Vanity and Inconstancy of the World), organized and with an introduction by his sister, Cecile.
Mon ame, ou sorti
Claude LeJeune "Mon ame, ou sorti"
Quand le Jour
Claude LeJeune "Quand le Jour"
Le rocher orgueilleux
Claude LeJeune "Le rocher orgueilleux"
Revecy venir du printemps
Probably the most performed of LeJeune’s chansons . . . surprising since the optimum tempo requires singers of exceptional virtuosity. It is one of 39 chansons in the collection, ‘Le printemps’, printed posthumously by Ballard in Paris, 1603.
Claude LeJeune "Revecy venir du printemps"
Refrain: Revecy venir du printans,
L’amoureuz et belle saison.
Le courant des eaus recherchant
Le canal d’èté s’e claircit
et la mer calme ceses flots.
Amolit le triste courous.
Le canard s’égay’ se plonjant
Et se lave coint dedans l’eau.
Et la grù qui fourche son vol
Retraverse l’air et s’en va.
Revecy venir . . .
Le soleil éclaire luizant
D’une plus séraine clairté.
Du nuage l’ombre s’enfuit
Qui se ioù et court et noircit.
Et foretz et champs et coutaus
Le labeur humain reverdit
Et la prè’ découvre ses fleurs.
Revecy venir . . .
De Venus le filz Cupidon
L’univers semant de ses trais
Da sa flamme va rechaufer
Animaus, qui volet en l’air,
Animaus, qui rampet au chams,
Animaus qui naget auz eaus
Ce qui mesmement ne sent pas
Amoureux se fond de plaizir.
Revecy venir . . .
Rions aussi nous, et cherchons
Les ébas et jeus du printans.
Toute chose rit de plaizir,
Sélébron la gaye saison.
Revecy venir . . .
Refrain: Spring has come again
That amorous and fair season.
The currents of water that seek
The canal in summer are clearer;
And the sea waves are calmer
Soothing their sad anger.
The lively duck dives
And washes itself in the water.
And the crane lifts off in flight
Traversing the air, and flies away.
Spring has come again . . .
The sun shines brightly
But with a calmer light.
The cloud loses its shade
On him who sports and runs then darkens.
And forests and fields and slopes
Are renewed by the work of man
As the meadow brings forth its flowers.
Spring has come again . . .
Cupid, the son of Venus
Seeds the universe with his arrows,
As his flame rekindles
Animals that fly in the air,
Animals that prance in the fields,
Animals that inhabit the waters.
Even those that have no cognition
Feel the pleasure of love.
Spring has come again . . .
Let us, also, laugh and seek
The sports and games of Spring:
Everything smiles with pleasure;
As we celebrate this merry season.
Spring has come again . . .