Mijn muziek (10)

Johannes Legrant (fl. c. 1420 – 1440) was a French or Burgundian composer of the early Renaissance.
Little is known for certain about his life, and as is common for composers of the early 15th century, there are problems of identification in the existing records. In 1423 and 1424, he may have been a vicar at St. Vincent in Soignes, a collegiate church with an active music establishment. Antwerp Cathedral's records mention a 'Heer Jan le Grant' as a singer there from 1441 to 1443, and this may also have been him.
All of Legrant's surviving music is vocal. His style is related to that of the early Burgundian School, and resembles some of the early work of Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois; influence may have gone either way. He wrote elegant melodic lines in the Burgundian manner, and used the secular forms which were typical of the Burgundians: the rondeau and the ballade. Imitation is also prominent in his work.[1]
In addition to his secular music – four rondeaux and a ballade – four sacred pieces have survived, including two settings of the Gloria of the mass, for two and three voices, and a three voice Credo.
It is not known if he is related to Guillaume Legrant, a slightly better-known contemporary of Johannes. The one ballade attributed to Johannes has also been suggested to be the work of Guillaume based on stylistic characteristics.[2]

Mijn muziek (5)

Guillaume Legrant (Guillaume Lemacherier, Le Grant) (fl. 1405 – 1449) was a French composer of the early Renaissance, active in Flanders, Italy, and France. He was one of the first composers in writing polyphony to distinguish between passages for solo and multiple voices on each part.[1]
Nothing is known about his early life, but his real name (Lemacherier) suggests a French origin. His first appearance in church records is in 1405, when he was a singer at Bourges. In 1407 he became a chaplain there, and he remained in Bourges until 1410. The next eight years contain no record of his activities, but he was in Rome by October 1418, at which time he entered the papal chapel as a singer, at that time under Pope Martin V; he stayed there until 1421. While no musical activity of his has been documented in France, he had been given benefices there, in the diocese of Rouen. Since he kept at least one until 1449 he is presumed to have still been alive then.[2]
Legrant's music is collected in Volume 11 of the Corpus mensurabilis musicae. Seven pieces survive, of which three are sacred, and the rest secular. The sacred music includes two settings of the Credo of the Mass, and one setting of the Gloria; these are the pieces in which he makes a distinction between solo and full chorus in the polyphonic parts.[3]
All of his surviving secular works are in the form of the virelai, one of the formes fixes.[4] Most of the composers of the period wrote in another of formes fixes, the rondeau, but Legrant seems to have preferred the virelai, which had been set widely the century before. By 1420 few composers are known to have been writing virelais, suggesting that Legrant's compositions may predate 1420 (the virelai was to return to favor later in the 15th century, in the music of Antoine Busnois and Johannes Ockeghem).[5]
Works:
Virelais (all for three voices):
Pour l'amour de mon bel amy
Ma chiere mestresse et amye
Or avant, gentilz fillettes
La doulce flour (rendered in CMM as an instrumental piece)
Mass movements (all for three voices):
Gloria
Credo (I)
Credo (II)