Surname
Bonnet
Given Name
Pierre
Role
Musician
Active period
1585 - 1600
Workplace
Chauvigny
Institution
Chapelle marquisale de Montemart
Chapelle royale de France
Cour du baron de Villequier et vicomte de La Guerche
Biography
NGD: Bonnet, Pierre (b ?Limousin; fl 1585–1600). French composer. He composed his first book of airs (Paris, 1585) while in the service of Georges de Villequier, gouverneur et lieutenant general of the Haute and Basse Marche, at Chauvigny in Poitou. Printed after the dedication (to his employer) are two poems in Bonnet’s praise, one by Jean Dorat and the other by J. Megnier, who wrote:
… Bonnet, qui de son art heureux
La passion, l’esprit & le coeur genereux
Esmeut, charme et ravit doucement par l’oreille.
The collection contains 20 pieces for four voices, 16 for five, two for six and one for eight, mostly composed in the new homophonic style. Settings of amorous courtly verse by Desportes, Bertaut, Baïf and others found in earlier settings by Guillaume Tessier, Salmon and La Grotte alternate with more rustic villanelles in a dance-like vein; the collection ends with a noël for an angel solo and shepherds' chorus. An enlarged edition dated 1588 referred to Bonnet as ‘Chantre de la Royne mère du Roy’ (i.e. Catherine de’ Medici).
A second collection, Airs et villanelles for four and five voices, was dedicated to a new patron – Gaspard de Rochechouart, Marquis de Montemart. Its music reflects the new monodic trend with some interesting dialogues, in two of which a solo soprano alternates with a four-voice chorus (Le poète et les muses and the more melismatic Sonnet en dialogue sur la mort d’une demoiselle, ‘where the upper voice represents the lady and the answering chorus Charon’). There are written-out diminutions in the upper voice at some of the cadences, and, more unusually in this new declamatory style, dissonance is here and there treated with considerable freedom, notably with regard to accented passing notes and appoggiaturas, as in ex.1a and b.
WORKS
Premier livre d’airs, 4–6vv (Paris, 1585, 3/1588)
Airs et villanelles, 4, 5vv (Paris, 1600, 2/1610): 10 ed. in FCVR, v (1926/R); 1 ed. in Lesure, Anthologie de la chanson parisienne (Monaco, 1953); 1 ed. in Durosoir
10 sacred contrafacta, 16159; 1 in 16199; 3 in 16219
BIBLIOGRAPHY
T. Gérold: L’art du chant en France au XVIIe siècle (Strasbourg, 1921/R), 54ff
F. Lesure and G. Thibault: Bibliographie des éditions d’Adrian le Roy et Robert Ballard (1551–1598) (Paris, 1955); suppl., RdM, xl (1957), 166–72
G. Durosoir: L'Air de cour en France (1571–1655) (Liège, 1991)
FRANK DOBBINS
… Bonnet, qui de son art heureux
La passion, l’esprit & le coeur genereux
Esmeut, charme et ravit doucement par l’oreille.
The collection contains 20 pieces for four voices, 16 for five, two for six and one for eight, mostly composed in the new homophonic style. Settings of amorous courtly verse by Desportes, Bertaut, Baïf and others found in earlier settings by Guillaume Tessier, Salmon and La Grotte alternate with more rustic villanelles in a dance-like vein; the collection ends with a noël for an angel solo and shepherds' chorus. An enlarged edition dated 1588 referred to Bonnet as ‘Chantre de la Royne mère du Roy’ (i.e. Catherine de’ Medici).
A second collection, Airs et villanelles for four and five voices, was dedicated to a new patron – Gaspard de Rochechouart, Marquis de Montemart. Its music reflects the new monodic trend with some interesting dialogues, in two of which a solo soprano alternates with a four-voice chorus (Le poète et les muses and the more melismatic Sonnet en dialogue sur la mort d’une demoiselle, ‘where the upper voice represents the lady and the answering chorus Charon’). There are written-out diminutions in the upper voice at some of the cadences, and, more unusually in this new declamatory style, dissonance is here and there treated with considerable freedom, notably with regard to accented passing notes and appoggiaturas, as in ex.1a and b.
WORKS
Premier livre d’airs, 4–6vv (Paris, 1585, 3/1588)
Airs et villanelles, 4, 5vv (Paris, 1600, 2/1610): 10 ed. in FCVR, v (1926/R); 1 ed. in Lesure, Anthologie de la chanson parisienne (Monaco, 1953); 1 ed. in Durosoir
10 sacred contrafacta, 16159; 1 in 16199; 3 in 16219
BIBLIOGRAPHY
T. Gérold: L’art du chant en France au XVIIe siècle (Strasbourg, 1921/R), 54ff
F. Lesure and G. Thibault: Bibliographie des éditions d’Adrian le Roy et Robert Ballard (1551–1598) (Paris, 1955); suppl., RdM, xl (1957), 166–72
G. Durosoir: L'Air de cour en France (1571–1655) (Liège, 1991)
FRANK DOBBINS