HMR Project: History of Music & Modern Recording

Antoine Brumel

Born about 1460 near Chartres, Antoine Brumel was probably French among the numerous Franco-Flemish composers who hogged the show during the High Renaissance. Brumel composed chansons, instrumentals and motets, but he is best-known for his Masses. He was strongly influenced by Johannes Ockeghem and could be a complicated composer until later years when both the imitative polyphony of Josquin des Prez and Italian composition anticipating the madrigal entered into his works. Possibly composing by the late seventies, though codex or publishing dates may sometimes lend a notion of when works were composed, they otherwise may differ by decades. The stacking of works by Brumel below is largely a massage of the directory at All Music prepared by whom I know not. Publishing dates may be used where composing dates can't be estimated.

Brumel first appears in documents as a singer at Notre Dame de Chartres in 1483. From Chartres he moved on to Geneva in 1486 until 1492. He was in Laon in 1497 until becoming choirmaster at Notre Dame de Paris in 1498 to 1500. He may have been a singer at the Italian court of Duke Filiberto il Bello of Savoy in 1501. Brumel was employed at the French court of Charles XII in 1502. Upon Jacob Obrecht's death of plague while in service to Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, in July of 1505 Brumel replaced him. His employment in Ferrara come to a close in 1510, Brumel then worked in churches in Faenza and Mantua, the latter where he likely died in 1512, though Vincenzo Galilei has him among a group of composers who met with Pope Leo X in 1513. Further speculation has him living until perhaps 1520.

Dating Brumel's compositions can be a fix even for doctors of music, namely, Laurie Stras, who lends a wide window of circa 1480 to circa 1520 for Brumel's 'Lamentations of Jeremiah'. It has for centuries been assumed that 'Heth', 'Caph' and the refrain which belongs to them, 'Jerusalem convertere ad Dominum tuum', were Brumel's only excursions into Jeremiah's lament over the fall of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. in the 'Book of Lamentations' in the Old Testament. Text for 'Heth' arrives from 'Lamentations' 2:8, for 'Caph' from 2:11. These along with the refrain, 'Jerusalem, convertere ad Dominum tuum' ('Jerusalem, return to the Lord your God'), were transcribed into the I-Fn MS II.I.350 begun in Florence in 1514 and finished circa 1520. It has since been discovered, however, that 'Heth' and 'Caph' may well be only "Act 1" of four more being Joth, Lamed, Nun and Gimel. Stras was reading through compositions in what she calls the P.M. manuscript (which is the MS II.I.285 of 1559) when it dawned on her that anonymous works therein, transcribed by Fra Antonio Moro and referring to the 'Lamentations', might actually be Brumel's. In 2019 Musica Secreta issued the album, 'From Darkness Into Light', which contains all 5 acts in accordance with Stras' research along with liner notes by Stras addressing her discovery (refs below).

'Heth' & 'Caph' Lamentations for Good Friday by Antoine Brumel

Settings to Jeremiah's 'Book of Lamentations' Chapter 2:8 & 11

Possibly c 1480 onward Included in the I-Fn MS II.I.350 in Florence c 1520

These would be Act 1 of Stras' 5

Performance by I Buoni Antichi 1995

Before revelations by Stras the most famous work by Brumel was his 'Missa Et ecce terrae motus' aka 'The Earthquake Mass' which is a canon for 12 voices addressing the resurrection of Jesus. This work was included in the D-Mbs Mus. MS 1 that was begun circa 1510 in Vienna and compiled through the years for use at the court chapel of Maximilian I.

'Missa Et ecce terrae motus' ('Earthquake Mass') Canon for 12 voices by Antoine Brumel

Circa 1495-97 Included in the D-Mbs Mus. MS 1 in Vienna c 1510 onward

Performance by the Tallis Scholars directed Peter Phillips

All Music lends a date of 1500 for 'Missa A l'ombre d'ung buissonet' which is a double stretto canon. A stretto canon is one in which imitative voices begin before the subject finishes. This Mass was based on a chanson written by Josquin des Prez in the latter seventies and was published in Rome in Andrea Antico's 'Liber quindecim missarum' of 1516.

'Missa A l'ombre d'ung buissonet' Kyrie | Gloria | Credo Antoine Brumel

1500 [All Music] Published in 'Liber quindecim missarum' 1516

Performance by Daltrocanto directed by Dario Tabbia Album 'Il Codice di Staffarda'

'Missa A l'ombre d'ung buissonet' Sanctus | Agnus Dei Antoine Brumel

1500 [All Music] Published in 'Liber quindecim missarum' 1516

Performance by Daltrocanto directed by Dario Tabbia Album 'Il Codice di Staffarda'

Another of three Brumel Missae finding their way into Antico's 'Liber quindecim missarum' was his requiem, 'Missa pro defunctis'. The original polyphonic Mass for the Dead (Requiem) was composed for the funeral of Charles VII in 1461 by Johannes Ockeghem. Brumel's work is the first to include the Sequentia, 'Dies iræ, dies illa' ('The Day of wrath, that day') authored by Thomas of Celano circa 1250 in reference to the Last Judgment.

'Dies irae, dies Illa' Sequentia of the 'Missa Pro defunctis' Antoine Brumel

'Day of wrath, that day'

c 1500 Published in 'Liber quindecim missarum' 1516

Performance by the Huelgas Ensemble directed by Paul Van Nevel

If anything remarks upon Brumel as composer of the high Renaissance it is inclusion in Octavio Petrucci's 'Harmonice Musices Odhecaton' of 1501, which was the first book of scores printed via movable type in a three-step process. Gutenberg's printing press of circa 1440 could publish the humanist literature of the Renaissance, but polyphonic scores wanting staves with musical notes and text were not possible until Petrucci. Publishing music no longer meant one score copied by one scribe into one codex (manuscript compilation) for one client, but as many copies as please for broad dissemination. This technology was a major step in music alike progressing from early wax cylinders without molding in the 19th century, which required titles to be recorded multiple times into multiple machines to increase distribution, until Edison developed its Gold-Moulded cylinders which could reproduce multiple copies from a single metal master in 1902. Emile Berliner had meanwhile solved that problem in disc recording, though with sacrifice to fidelity until merger with Victor in 1901, the latter owned by Eldridge Johnson who improved the process toward greater distribution with improved fidelity. Columbia was the third major record company at that time competing neck to neck with Edison and Berliner/Victor. Five hundred years afore, however, Petrucci's movable type made sheet music accessible by considerably more than the chapels of royalty or the Roman Church. Petrucci added Brumel's motet, 'Mater Patris et filia', to the 'Canti A' of his 'Odhecaton'. Titles by Brumel were also included in 'Canti B' of 1502 and 'Canti C' of 1504. In 1503 Petrucci devoted an entire book to Brumel per '5 Masses'. Though 'Mater Patris et filia' ('Mother of your father and daughter') addresses both Mary and Christ it wasn't intended for liturgical usage by the Church.

'Mater Patris et filia' Motet a 3 by Antoine Brumel

1501 [All Music] Published in the 'Odhecaton' 1501

Performance by the Suspicious Cheese Lords

It was sometime 1508-09 while Brumel was employed at the court of Alfonso I d'Este in Ferrara that he wrote the music for the Christmas motet, 'Nato Canunt Omnia'. The Catholic Christmas motet addressed the nativity of Jesus born of a virgin and was the sober precursor to the joyous Christmas carol that would develop upon Protestant celebrations of Christmas and, later, secular composers who found other things to celebrate on Christmas than the birth of Jesus, such as jingling bells. Important to note in Brumel's greater world is his contemporaneity with Martin Luther who began the Protestant Reformation in a letter of 31 October 1517 including his 'Ninety-five Theses' to Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz, in which he disputed the practice of Catholic indulgences which were basically a method to tithe one's way to better fate in Purgatory if assist the Church toward greater reward right up front right now, a little like Wimpy glad to pay you for a hamburger next Tuesday. The Church had been in big business for several centuries when Brumel composed 'Nato canunt omnia Domino pie agmina' ('All the host sings piously to the new-born Lord') toward inclusion in the V-CVbav MS Capp. Sist. 46 compiled in Rome for use at the Sistine Chapel.

'Nato canunt omnia Domino pie agmina' Christmas motet a 5 by Antoine Brumel

1508-09 in Ferrara Included in the V-CVbav MS Capp. Sist. 46 compiled c 1508-27

Performance by Blue Heron directed by Scott Metcalfe Cambridge 2008

It isn't known when Brumel authored his most brief motet, 'Sicut lilium inter spinas' ('As the lily among thorns'), which is a setting for 'The Song of Solomon' 2:2 intended for four voices. This was included in the Medici Codex of 1518 compiled as a wedding gift for Lorenzo de' Medici II and Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne. It saw publishing by Antico perhaps twice in 1520 in 'Motetti novi libro secondo' and 'Motetti e canzone libro primo'.

'Sicut lilium inter spinas' Motet a 4 by Antoine Brumel

Included in the Medici Codex of 1518

Performance a 3 by Miriammusic

The third and final Missa to find its way into Antico's 'Liber quindecim missarum electarum' of 1516 was 'Missa de Beata Virgine' which is also considered his last work [Di Cecco] and given a date of at least 1510 at All Music. This work intended for four voices was also transcribed in all five movements (Kyrie through Agnus Dei) into the V-CVbav MS Capp. Sist. 16 compiled in Rome between c 1512 and 1517 for use at the Sistine Chapel.

'Missa de Beata Virgine' Mass a 4 by Antoine Brumel

Included in the V-CVbav MS Capp. Sist. 16 of c 1512-17

Published in 'Liber quindecim missarum' 1516

Performance by the Brabant Ensemble directed by Stephen Rice

Album: 'Missa de Beata Virgine MOTETS' Hyperion CDA68065 2013

Brumel is generally thought to have died in Mantua, Italy, in 1512-13, though it's strongly considered possible that he lived perhaps several years longer.

Sources & References for Antoine Brumel:

(Texts to music usually at CPDL below)

Matthew J. Hall (Brumel’s 'Laudate Dominum de caelis' and the French-Court Motet)

VF History (notes)

Audio of Brumel:

Compositions: Corpus: