Surname
Courtois
Given Name
Lambert
Role
Chapelmaster
Composer
Employee of a court chapel (musician)
Master of choirboys
Master of Music
Musician
Player of high instruments
Singer
Active period
1542 - 1583
Biography
Voir Dictionnaire
Courtois [Courtoys, Curtois], Lambert
(b France, ?c1520; fl 1542–83). French composer, singer and trombonist working mainly in Italy and Ragusa (now Dubrovnik). His presence in Italy is suggested by the appearance in Italian prints of two motets attributed simply to ‘Courtois’ (RISM 154218 and 15433), which could refer to either Jean or Lambert Courtois, and two madrigals by ‘Lamberto’ (154318). Eitner and Haar have suggested that ‘Lamberto’ is more likely to be Pierre Lambert (Petrus Lambertus) than Courtois. But Courtois was sometimes known simply as ‘Lamberto’ and was also known in Venice under his full name as a composer in the 1540s: in 1550 Doni attributed to ‘Lamberto Curtois’ a printed book of four-voice madrigals (now lost).
In 1550 ‘Lamberto Cortese et compagni cantori’ performed during Easter week for the Arciconfraternita del SS Crocifisso, in S Marcello, Rome. In 1553 Nasco approved the choice of Courtois temporarily to fill his former post with the Verona Accademia Filarmonica, writing to the academicians on 9 February: ‘I am pleased that you have chosen messer Lamberto, as he is a good man and knows music very well. I came to Venice expressly to get him to come in time for the whole Carnival season’. Courtois served for Carnival season only. On 29 May 1553 ‘Lambertus Gallus’ was chosen to join, as a player of the tibicina, the wind ensemble that was part of the music of the princely court in the city-state of Ragusa, which became his home for the next sixteen years. He quickly enlarged his musical reputation there and became maestro di cappella for the court. In a letter of 15 November 1556 the Ragusan Archbishop Lodovico Beccadelli described him as ‘Musico eccellente non solo a Ragusa, ma anche in Italia’. In Ragusa he was active as an instrumentalist (principally on the trombone), as a conductor or leader of ensembles and as a teacher. He rarely travelled outside Ragusa. On 19 April 1570 he began a three-year contract in Udine to act as maestro di cappella in the cathedral, to teach singing to the clerics and to lead the musici concentus. At the end of his three years the chapter gave him a testimonial to his superior qualities and performances. His whereabouts during the next three to four years are unknown, but in 1578 and 1579 he was the maestro di cappella of Treviso Cathedral, and the same in Vicenza in 1582 and 1583.
Apart from the individual motets published in 1542 and 1543, Courtois’ surviving published music includes one work in Il primo libro delle Muse a tre voci (15628), a spiritual madrigal in six parts in Musica spirituale … a cinque voci (15637), and a book of Madrigali a cinque voci (158010, inc.), which includes a madrigal in two parts by his son Henry. The book is dedicated to three gentlemen of Ragusa, young aristocrats who were probably among Courtois’ many students. Courtois also composed an instrumental piece, Petit Jaquet, printed in score in Angelo Gardano’s collection of Musica de diversi autori: La bataglia francese et Canzon delli ucelli Insieme alcuni Canzon Francese (157711). Three madrigals by ‘Lamberto’ are found in anthologies: two in Il secondo libro dei madrigali … misura di breve (1543; ed. in CMM, lxxiii/2, 1978) and one in Il primo libro delle muse a 5 (155527).
A comparison of the three madrigals by ‘Lamberto’ with Courtois’ contribution to the Musica spirituale of 1563 suggests that they are all by the same composer. All show idiosyncrasies of part-writing, including a predilection for parallel 4ths and for certain unusual cadential formulae; melodic writing, which sometimes includes a brief chromatic rise or fall; and a partiality for open 5ths and for simultaneous or successive cross-relations (sometimes unusually jarring), and for occasional irrational dissonances. Courtois’ son Henry (fl 1573–1629) and grandson Lambert (fl 1614–64) were also wind players and composers. Both served as maestro di cappella to the Prince of Ragusa.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BrownI
EinsteinIM
A. Doni: La libraria del Doni Fiorentino (Venice, 1550–51), 65
G. Vale: ‘La cappella musicale del duomo di Udine’, NA, vii (1930), 87–201, esp. 116, 118, 182
G. Turrini: ‘Il maestro fiammingo Giovanni Nasco a Verona (1547–1551)’, NA, xiv (1937), 180–225, esp. 209
G. Turrini: L’Accademia Filarmonica di Verona dalla fondazione (maggio 1543) al 1600 (Verona, 1941), 74
D. Alaleona: Storia dell’ oratorio musicale in Italia (Milan, 1945), 327
G. d’Alessi: La cappella musicale del duomo di Treviso (1300–1633) (Vedelago, 1954), 133–4
G. Mantese: La storia musicale vicentina (Vicenza, 1956), 54–5
J. Haar: ‘Pace non trovo: a Study in Literary and Musical Parody’, MD, xx (1966), 95–149, esp. 111–12
J. Haar: ‘The Libraria of Antonfrancesco Doni’, MD, xxiv (1970), 101–23, esp. 107
M. Demović: Musik und Musiker in der Republik Dubrovnik (Ragusa) vom Anfang des XI. Jahrhunderts bis zur Mitte des XVII. Jahrhunderts (Regensburg, 1981), 162–90, 210–13, 238–43
THOMAS W. BRIDGES
Courtois [Courtoys, Curtois], Lambert
(b France, ?c1520; fl 1542–83). French composer, singer and trombonist working mainly in Italy and Ragusa (now Dubrovnik). His presence in Italy is suggested by the appearance in Italian prints of two motets attributed simply to ‘Courtois’ (RISM 154218 and 15433), which could refer to either Jean or Lambert Courtois, and two madrigals by ‘Lamberto’ (154318). Eitner and Haar have suggested that ‘Lamberto’ is more likely to be Pierre Lambert (Petrus Lambertus) than Courtois. But Courtois was sometimes known simply as ‘Lamberto’ and was also known in Venice under his full name as a composer in the 1540s: in 1550 Doni attributed to ‘Lamberto Curtois’ a printed book of four-voice madrigals (now lost).
In 1550 ‘Lamberto Cortese et compagni cantori’ performed during Easter week for the Arciconfraternita del SS Crocifisso, in S Marcello, Rome. In 1553 Nasco approved the choice of Courtois temporarily to fill his former post with the Verona Accademia Filarmonica, writing to the academicians on 9 February: ‘I am pleased that you have chosen messer Lamberto, as he is a good man and knows music very well. I came to Venice expressly to get him to come in time for the whole Carnival season’. Courtois served for Carnival season only. On 29 May 1553 ‘Lambertus Gallus’ was chosen to join, as a player of the tibicina, the wind ensemble that was part of the music of the princely court in the city-state of Ragusa, which became his home for the next sixteen years. He quickly enlarged his musical reputation there and became maestro di cappella for the court. In a letter of 15 November 1556 the Ragusan Archbishop Lodovico Beccadelli described him as ‘Musico eccellente non solo a Ragusa, ma anche in Italia’. In Ragusa he was active as an instrumentalist (principally on the trombone), as a conductor or leader of ensembles and as a teacher. He rarely travelled outside Ragusa. On 19 April 1570 he began a three-year contract in Udine to act as maestro di cappella in the cathedral, to teach singing to the clerics and to lead the musici concentus. At the end of his three years the chapter gave him a testimonial to his superior qualities and performances. His whereabouts during the next three to four years are unknown, but in 1578 and 1579 he was the maestro di cappella of Treviso Cathedral, and the same in Vicenza in 1582 and 1583.
Apart from the individual motets published in 1542 and 1543, Courtois’ surviving published music includes one work in Il primo libro delle Muse a tre voci (15628), a spiritual madrigal in six parts in Musica spirituale … a cinque voci (15637), and a book of Madrigali a cinque voci (158010, inc.), which includes a madrigal in two parts by his son Henry. The book is dedicated to three gentlemen of Ragusa, young aristocrats who were probably among Courtois’ many students. Courtois also composed an instrumental piece, Petit Jaquet, printed in score in Angelo Gardano’s collection of Musica de diversi autori: La bataglia francese et Canzon delli ucelli Insieme alcuni Canzon Francese (157711). Three madrigals by ‘Lamberto’ are found in anthologies: two in Il secondo libro dei madrigali … misura di breve (1543; ed. in CMM, lxxiii/2, 1978) and one in Il primo libro delle muse a 5 (155527).
A comparison of the three madrigals by ‘Lamberto’ with Courtois’ contribution to the Musica spirituale of 1563 suggests that they are all by the same composer. All show idiosyncrasies of part-writing, including a predilection for parallel 4ths and for certain unusual cadential formulae; melodic writing, which sometimes includes a brief chromatic rise or fall; and a partiality for open 5ths and for simultaneous or successive cross-relations (sometimes unusually jarring), and for occasional irrational dissonances. Courtois’ son Henry (fl 1573–1629) and grandson Lambert (fl 1614–64) were also wind players and composers. Both served as maestro di cappella to the Prince of Ragusa.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BrownI
EinsteinIM
A. Doni: La libraria del Doni Fiorentino (Venice, 1550–51), 65
G. Vale: ‘La cappella musicale del duomo di Udine’, NA, vii (1930), 87–201, esp. 116, 118, 182
G. Turrini: ‘Il maestro fiammingo Giovanni Nasco a Verona (1547–1551)’, NA, xiv (1937), 180–225, esp. 209
G. Turrini: L’Accademia Filarmonica di Verona dalla fondazione (maggio 1543) al 1600 (Verona, 1941), 74
D. Alaleona: Storia dell’ oratorio musicale in Italia (Milan, 1945), 327
G. d’Alessi: La cappella musicale del duomo di Treviso (1300–1633) (Vedelago, 1954), 133–4
G. Mantese: La storia musicale vicentina (Vicenza, 1956), 54–5
J. Haar: ‘Pace non trovo: a Study in Literary and Musical Parody’, MD, xx (1966), 95–149, esp. 111–12
J. Haar: ‘The Libraria of Antonfrancesco Doni’, MD, xxiv (1970), 101–23, esp. 107
M. Demović: Musik und Musiker in der Republik Dubrovnik (Ragusa) vom Anfang des XI. Jahrhunderts bis zur Mitte des XVII. Jahrhunderts (Regensburg, 1981), 162–90, 210–13, 238–43
THOMAS W. BRIDGES