Jean Lhéritier
Jean Lhéritier - French Renaissance composer
Person from France
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About Jean Lhéritier
Jean L'Héritier (Lhéritier, Lirithier, Heritier and other spellings also exist) (c. 1480 – after 1551) was a French composer of the Renaissance. He was mainly famous as a composer of motets, and is representative of the generation of composers active in the early to middle 16th century who anticipated the style of Palestrina. L'Héritier mainly wrote motets, of which there are records of 48, not all of which survive. Some of them have been attributed to other composers, including Adrian Willaert, Jean Mouton, and Philippe Verdelot. Stylistically they are transitional between the styles of Josquin and Palestrina. The later works contain more evenly spaced imitation, and more equality of voices, and more smoothness of counterpoint than the earlier works. Often L'Héritier varied polyphonic with homophonic passages, a technique for achieving variety which was common among many Franco-Flemish composers of the time. Most of the motets are based on standard liturgical material: psalms, devotional hymns, responsories, and so forth. Most are in a single section, with the remainder being in two parts. Occasionally L'Héritier wrote for many independent parts: for example, Locutus est Dominus is for nine voices (four to six was the norm). Another motet, Nigra sum, was familiar to Palestrina, who used it as source material for his Missa nigra sum of 1590. Only two secular songs by L'Héritier have survived, including one based on an extremely erotic secular poem (Cum rides mihi basium negasti). L'Héritier was one of the leading figures in disseminating the Franco-Flemish style in Italy in the early 16th century, along with Willaert. Since L'Héritier was mainly a composer of sacred music, and worked in Rome, leaving numerous compositions in the Vatican archive, he may have been one of the most influential northern musicians on the development of the later Palestrina style. In addition, since his work appears in numerous manuscripts of the 16th century—at least 66, as well as 45 printed collections—and in areas as far apart as Spain, Austria, Bohemia, and Poland, in addition to France and Italy—his influence seems to have been considerable.
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