Guillaume Costeley

Guillaume Costeley

Engraving from Costeley's 'Musique' of 1570

Source: Wikipedia

Born in the province of Auvergne in southern central France in 1530/31, Guillaume Costeley composed very little sacred music, his brief career of fifteen years resulting in some hundred secular chansons. Though Costeley who played and wrote a fantasy for organ isn't known to have composed specifically for harpsichord, I mention it to lend perspective to his period, as the instrument arrived to no small significance during his lifetime. The oldest specimen of a complete harpsichord dates to 1521 in Renaissance Italy about ten years before Costeley's birth. The Flemish harpsichord below is of circa 1600, six years before Costeley's death, and just in time to service baroque compositions.

Flemish Harpsichord   Circa 1600

Source: Wikipedia

Costeley arrived in Paris by 1554 to study music theory and was first published that year by Nicolas Du Chemin. His chanson, 'Le clerc d’un advocat' is thought to have appeared in Du Chemin's 1554 edition of 'Dixiesme livre' of 'Chansons Nouvelles' ('XXVI Chansons Nouvelles' first edition 1552) the same year that 'Flambeau du ciel dont l'ardeur excessive' arrived to Du Chemin's 'Unziesme livre' of 'Chansons Nouvelles' ('XXII Chansons Nouvelles'). Via Sandrin (Pierre Regnault) Costeley became acquainted with the music of Italian composer, Nicola Vicentino, inspiring Costeley's sole microtone composition, 'Seigneur Dieu ta Pitié', written sometime in the latter fifties. (Microtones are smaller than semitones.)

Costeley was making a name for himself by the late fifties when compositions by him were published by Le Roy and Ballard in 1559 including 'Le Prise de Calaise' written to commemorate the capture of Calais from the English which siege occurred January 1 through 8 of 1558. This title is placed in a genre of compositions celebrating military victories beginning with Clément Janequin's 'La guerre' ('La bataille de Marignan') of 1529. Costeley composed another like it, 'Prise du Havre', in 1563 to glorify the recapture of Le Havre from the English which siege occurred 22 May through 31 July of 1563.

Costeley became organist at the royal court of King Charles IX about 1566, as well as music teacher to the ten year-old monarch. In 1570 he published 'Musique de Guillaume Costeley' containing the majority of his surviving oeuvre including 'Le Prise de Calaise' and 'Prise du Havre'. He became an original member of the humanist Académie de Poésie et de Musique the same year, an important salon founded by Jean-Antoine de Baïf under the auspices of Charles IX which interest was to resurrect Grecian studies and styles. Such the intellectual assembly became the first of successive French academies surviving to this day, helping to make Paris the center of music through formal study for centuries to come. France had been the show hog in classical music in general ever since the sacred Notre Dame School of Polyphony and secular troubadours in the 12th century and wasn't to relinquish that overall position any time soon. When speaking of future "rebellious" composers it would often be in reference to bedrock French academics which through the years both employed and disenchanted major composers, exercising heavyweight influence as far away as Russia. As like New York City would become the hotbed of modern music, so in classical it would be Paris. As Parisian academics would set the pace in what was officially good music in Europe, some would, of course, find its authority short of supreme. All titles below were included in 'Musique de Guillaume Costeley' of 1570. Compositions for which dates are unidentified follow alphabetically.

As a secular composer Costeley was largely free of the fray between the Reformation and the Counter-reformation. He was eventually well rewarded for his services to Catholic sympathizer, Charles IX. As there are no records of compositions by him following 1570 he may have largely retired from composing upon moving to Évreux. Charles required his services at organ there only the initial three months of the year, leaving him independent the remainder, which he used at least in part to purchase a wealth of properties. Charles died of tuberculosis in 1574, succeeded by his brother, Henry III. Costeley became a tax assessor in 1581. Henry was assassinated in 1589, succeeded by Henry IV who in 1597 granted Costeley the rather enviable position of Conseiller du Roy (Advisor to the King), which Costeley held until his passing on 28 January 1606. Despite membership in the Académie de Poésie et de Musique, and favors shown him by royalty, Costeley's musical pursuits were mixed with other duties to his patrons, and he had small influence on music to come, soon fading away into obscurity until a revival of interest in the latter 19th century retrieved him to his previous status as a minor composer content to pitch his camp beside a pleasant stream with some shade trees, but making no known musical contributions after 1570 during that period when major late Renaissance composers were duking it out with counterpoint in a battle to result in baroque. Though likely acquainted with baroque arriving during his lifetime, Costeley never visited Italy despite his interest in Italian composing.