Hayne van Ghizeghem

Born circa 1445 in Belgium, Hayne van Ghizeghem was a Renaissance composer properly referred to as Hayne (born in Ghizeghem). Until later scholarship he had been confused with his brother, Henricus de Ghizeghem, employed at the Cambrai Cathedral in 1453. Accounts otherwise find Hayne to be a soldier under Count Charles in 1465 who also assigned him to a music teacher. Count Charles rose up in the world when he became Duke of Burgundy to become more famously known as Charles the Bold. It was under the auspices of Charles' father, Philip the Good, that the musical Renaissance had begun its bloom in Burgundy. Hayne became a singer and valet for Charles in 1467. At least one contemporary later applauded his abilities with a lute. Hayne apparently served Charles in both military and musical capacities, once erroneously thought to have been killed in battle at the Siege of Beauvais in 1472. Later scholarship suggests that he continued with Charles until the latter's death at the Battle of Nancy in 1477, then served the French Court under Louis XI, succeeded by Charles VIII in 1483.

There are only perhaps twenty works attributable to the spectral figure that is Hayne, of which only eleven are fairly certain. Like other composers and poets of his time he practiced the rondeau which all of his works are. The rondeau had been a common form used by troubadours for well above a century by Hayne's time. It was among forms addressed by Guillaume de Machaut born about a century and a half before Hayne. Hayne's works are collected into 'Corpus mensurabilis musicae' (CMM) as No. 74. Of the three samples below, 'De tous biens plaine est ma maistresse' is fairly certainly his, the other two more dubious due partially that their only sources are Italian rather than French.

Likely otherwise occupied during his career, Hayne was a lesser composer of no great distinction with the exception of 'De tous biens plaine' in particular, a greatly popular chanson versions of which followed by a nigh endless list of composers. It had to have been written no later than 1472 since Loyset Compère imitated its tenor part to write the motet, 'Omnium bonorum plena', probably composed that year. 'De tous biens plaine' has been transcribed into above thirty codices including the Copenhagen Chansonnier (DK-Kk) compiled from 1469 to 1480. It saw print in Ottaviano Petrucci's 'Canti A' of the 'Harmonice Musices Odhecaton' (ODH / 'One Hundred Harmonic Songs') begun in 1501. The invention of the printing press about 1440 in Mainz, Germany, by Johannes Gutenberg was no small contribution to the literature of the Renaissance, but the 'Odhecaton' (ODH) is the first book of polyphonic scores printed via movable type, a major event during the musical Renaissance at the root of sheet music.

'De tous biens plaine est ma maistresse'   Rondeau by Hayne van Ghizeghem

'My lady is plentiful of all good things'   Composed no later than 1472

Electronic arrangement by Early Music MIDI

'Gentilz Galans' is a chanson of questionable authorship. If Charles the Bold had any one thing on his mind as Duke of Burgundy it was to expand his realms by any means. Many estates he simply bought. Others he endeavored to gain via battles which made him a less than popular personality in Europe, troublesome in particular to France, Austria and Switzerland. He ought to have stuck with real estate because winning battles wasn't his forté, including the one at Nancy in which he was killed in 1477 at age 43, having been a duke ten years. Prior to that, however, he endeavored an unsuccessful siege of Neuss begun on 29 July 1474 and lasting eleven months to 27 June 1475. 'Gentil Galans' is suspected of having been written during that time. The only codices in which this work appears are Italian, the LI-Bc Q.17 perhaps compiled in Florence sometime in the 1490s, and the Medici Chansonnier (Codex Medici / MS Capp. Giulia XIII 27) of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (V-CVbav). The latter was made for Giuliano de' Medici, Duke of Nemours, in 1492-94.

Charles the Bold’s Camp During the Siege of Neuss in 1475

Dutch artist Adriaen Van den Houte 1476

Source: Museum Hof van Busleyden

'Gentil Galans'   Rondeau by Hayne van Ghizeghem

'Gentle Gallant'   Composed perhaps 1475

Asteria: Soprano: Sylvia Rhyne   Tenor & lute: Eric Redlinger

'A l'audience aul amans qui vives en souffrance' is another work credited to Hayne with some registered dubiety, one cause for which is that all of Hayne's works were written for three voices excepting 'A l'audience' for four voices. In 'Early Music History' Iain Fenlon raises the possibility that the fourth voice might have been added by one anonymous. 'A l'audience' is found in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale (I-Fn) MS Banco Rari 229 put together in Florence circa 1491-1493. Petrucci included it in his 'Canti A' of the 'Odhecaton' (ODH) begun in 1501.

'A l'audience aul amans qui vives en souffrance'   Rondeau by Hayne van Ghizeghem

'At the hearing of a lover who lives in pain'

Early Music Consort of London directed by David Munrow

Album: 'The Art of The Netherlands'    Seraphim SIC-6104 in the US 1976

Hayne is thought to have lived to as late as 1497, the year Guillaume Cretin honored him with his 'Deploration'. It isn't identified whether Hayne was yet at the French Royal Court when he died, which would have been Charles VIII.