Surname
Bourgeois
Given Name
Loys
Variant Name
Louis
Date of death
1559
Role
Composer
Master of choirboys
Music theorist
Musician
Singer
Active period
1539 - 1559
Workplace
Genève
Institution
Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Genève
Biography
Voir Dictionnaire
FreedmanDC
Bourgeois. Loys Bourgeois (c. 1510 to 1559) French composer and theorist. He was the first editor of the Calvinist Psalter, which set the new French translations of Marot and Bèze. He subsequently published four-voice harmonizations of these melodies in various styles. He also wrote a musical primer, Le Droict chemin de musique (1550) aimed at young musicians. His four chansons, written in the secular idiom of the day, were issued by Moderne and Du Chemin. “Ce moys de may” (not in Du Chemin) is a setting of a complete rondeau cinquain. Frank Dobbins, “Bourgeois, Loys,” New Grove 2, IV, 113-15.
In April 1550 the council rewarded Bourgeois for a ‘certaine feuille pour apprendre à chanter’, and in May Calvin authorized him to print a short music treatise at his own expense. On 5 September 1550 he was granted two months’ leave, but he was back in Geneva by the following January, requesting remuneration for ‘improving the psalm tunes’: these improvements may have been reflected in the 83 psalms translated by Marot (49) and Bèze (34) printed with melodies in Geneva by Jean Crespin in 1551 and reissued every year until 1554. At all events on 3 December 1551 Bourgeois was imprisoned for having, without a licence, ‘changed the tunes of some printed psalms’, an action troubling those who had learnt the old tunes that had already been printed. He was released the following day after Calvin's personal intercession, but the controversy continued: the council complained further that the faithful were disorientated by the new melodies, and ordered Crespin to burn the prefatory epistle to the reader in which Bourgeois claimed that not to sing was commination. In July 1552 a minister from Lausanne warned the Geneva council that his town might not accept Bourgeois' changes to the tunes of the old psalms by Marot or his settings of the more recent psalm translations of Bèze. The frustrated composer had also suffered from financial difficulties through the reductions in salaries from May 1551 paid to Genevan functionaries, and after being granted three months' leave in August 1552, to visit Lyons and Paris to publish his psalm settings, he did not return but requested a further eight-week extension. The council refused and terminated his employment. In May 1553 Bourgeois’ wife was paid five florins to join her husband in Lyons where, the following year, Beringen printed a revised and augmented edition of Bourgeois' first book of four-voice psalms. Around the same time the composer wrote a scathing attack on the ignorance of the publisher and musician Simon Gorlier, invoking the names of Layolle, Jambe de Fer, Roussel and other maîtres de chapelle to support his contention that it was advantageous to a good musician to study mathematics. In 1557 he was described as ‘maître musicien’ living in Lyons, but by May 1560 he had moved to Paris and his daughter Suzanne was baptized in the Catholic church of St Côme. Two months earlier Nicolas Du Chemin had printed Si je vivois deux cens mille ans (RISM 15603a), the first secular chanson by Bourgeois to appear in over 20 years.
UN Loys Burgensis CHANTRE DE LA CHAMBRE D'HENRI II DE 1547 À 1557, MORT LE 26 AVRIL 1558 NE SEMBLE PAS POUVOIR LUI ÊTRE IDENTIFIÉ.
FreedmanDC
Bourgeois. Loys Bourgeois (c. 1510 to 1559) French composer and theorist. He was the first editor of the Calvinist Psalter, which set the new French translations of Marot and Bèze. He subsequently published four-voice harmonizations of these melodies in various styles. He also wrote a musical primer, Le Droict chemin de musique (1550) aimed at young musicians. His four chansons, written in the secular idiom of the day, were issued by Moderne and Du Chemin. “Ce moys de may” (not in Du Chemin) is a setting of a complete rondeau cinquain. Frank Dobbins, “Bourgeois, Loys,” New Grove 2, IV, 113-15.
In April 1550 the council rewarded Bourgeois for a ‘certaine feuille pour apprendre à chanter’, and in May Calvin authorized him to print a short music treatise at his own expense. On 5 September 1550 he was granted two months’ leave, but he was back in Geneva by the following January, requesting remuneration for ‘improving the psalm tunes’: these improvements may have been reflected in the 83 psalms translated by Marot (49) and Bèze (34) printed with melodies in Geneva by Jean Crespin in 1551 and reissued every year until 1554. At all events on 3 December 1551 Bourgeois was imprisoned for having, without a licence, ‘changed the tunes of some printed psalms’, an action troubling those who had learnt the old tunes that had already been printed. He was released the following day after Calvin's personal intercession, but the controversy continued: the council complained further that the faithful were disorientated by the new melodies, and ordered Crespin to burn the prefatory epistle to the reader in which Bourgeois claimed that not to sing was commination. In July 1552 a minister from Lausanne warned the Geneva council that his town might not accept Bourgeois' changes to the tunes of the old psalms by Marot or his settings of the more recent psalm translations of Bèze. The frustrated composer had also suffered from financial difficulties through the reductions in salaries from May 1551 paid to Genevan functionaries, and after being granted three months' leave in August 1552, to visit Lyons and Paris to publish his psalm settings, he did not return but requested a further eight-week extension. The council refused and terminated his employment. In May 1553 Bourgeois’ wife was paid five florins to join her husband in Lyons where, the following year, Beringen printed a revised and augmented edition of Bourgeois' first book of four-voice psalms. Around the same time the composer wrote a scathing attack on the ignorance of the publisher and musician Simon Gorlier, invoking the names of Layolle, Jambe de Fer, Roussel and other maîtres de chapelle to support his contention that it was advantageous to a good musician to study mathematics. In 1557 he was described as ‘maître musicien’ living in Lyons, but by May 1560 he had moved to Paris and his daughter Suzanne was baptized in the Catholic church of St Côme. Two months earlier Nicolas Du Chemin had printed Si je vivois deux cens mille ans (RISM 15603a), the first secular chanson by Bourgeois to appear in over 20 years.
UN Loys Burgensis CHANTRE DE LA CHAMBRE D'HENRI II DE 1547 À 1557, MORT LE 26 AVRIL 1558 NE SEMBLE PAS POUVOIR LUI ÊTRE IDENTIFIÉ.