Sancta Trinitas - Music

Antoine De Févin C. 1470 – Late 1511 Or Early 1512 Was A French Composer Of The Renaissance. He Was Active At The Same Time As Josquin Desprez And Shares Many Traits With His More Famous Contemporary. Févin Was Most Likely Born In Arras The Son Of An Alderman. His Brother Robert De Févin Was Also A Composer. Most Likely Antoine Left Arras In The Late 1480s Though There Is No Evidence That He Went To Italy The Most Common Destination For Franco-Flemish Composers Of The Time. Sometime During The 1490s It Is Likely He Became A Priest Although There Is No Known Documenation Of That Today And He Also May Have Obtained A Master's Degree At A University Since He Is Commonly Known As Maistre Later In His Life. By 1507 He Was Working As A Singer And Composer For Louis XII Of France Who Praised Him Highly. He Died At Blois. All Of Févin's Surviving Music Is Vocal. He Wrote Masses Motets And Chansons. Stylistically His Music Is Similar To Josquin's In Its Clarity Of Texture And Design And Its Relatively Progressive Nature Févin Evidently Wrote In The Most Current Styles Adopting The Method Of Contrasting Imitative Sections With Homophonic Sections Which Came Into Prominence Around 1490. Unlike Josquin He Was Less Concerned With The Careful Setting Of Text Than With Formal Structure His Setting Of Individual Words Is Occasionally Clumsy Though His Larger-Scale Structures Are Easy To Follow. He Also Particularly Liked The Device Of Using Vocal Duets To Contrast With The Full Sonority Of The Choir. Some Of Févin's Music Uses The Technique Of Free Contrapuntal Fantasy Later Perfected By Josquin Where Strict Imitation Is Absent Fragments Of A Cantus Firmus Pervade The Texture Giving A Feeling Of Overall Unity And Complete Equality Of All The Voices. Of His Music 14 Masses 3 Lamentations 3 Magnificats 14 Motets And 17 Chansons Survive. read less