Lupus Hellinck

Lupus Hellinck Also Wulfaert 1493 Or 1494 – C. January 14 1541 Was A Flemish Composer Of The Renaissance. He Was A Prominent Composer Of Masses As Well As German Chorales And Motets. Although He Was A Roman Catholic All Of His Life His Music Shows Evidence Of Sympathy For The Protestant Reformation And Three Of His Motets—including A Famous Setting Of In Te Domine Speravi—were Probably Inspired By The Prison Writings Of The Martyred Reformer Girolamo Savonarola. Hellinck Was Probably Born In Axel. Little Else Is Known About Him Until He Appears As A Choirboy In Bruges At St. Donatian On March 24 1506. He Left In 1511 To Go To School Returning To St. Donatian In 1513 As A Cleric Where He Stayed Until 1515. Until Recently Nothing Was Known Of His Activities For The Next Four Years But In 1989 Some Records From The Vatican Archives Were Published That Showed That He Spent This Time In Rome. One Of These Documents Dated April 1518 Gave His Age As 24 Which Gives A Birth Date Of 1493 Or 1494. During This Time He Was A Member Of The Household Of Pope Leo X And Around 1518 He Was Ordained As A Priest. 1 A Further Confusion Not Definitively Solved Is That Music Theorist And Writer Vincenzo Galilei Father Of The Astronomer Included A "Lupus" From Northern Europe In A List Of Distinguished Musicians In The 1513 Court Of Leo X However Vincenzo Was Writing Several Decades Later. 2 By June 1518 Hellinck Was Probably In Ferrara In The Employ Of Sigismondo D'Este That This Was The Same "Lupus" Has Been Disputed But Scholarly Consensus Is Emerging That Both Composers Named Lupus Were The Same 3 About A Year Later He Returned To The Low Countries And By October 1519 Was Back In Bruges Where He Was Again Employed At St. Donatian. In 1521 He Became A Succentor At The Nearby Church Of Our Lady And He Returned Again To St. Donatian In 1523 To Serve In The Same Position There. Hellinck Seems To Have Remained In Bruges For The Rest Of His Life. One Event Which Is Recorded Gives An Indication Of His Attitude Towards The Protestant Reformation His Participation In 1539 In A Dramatic Competition At Ghent In A Production Of A Play Which Was Later Placed By The Catholic Church On The Index Of Banned Books. 4 Along With His Widely-Distributed Setting Of In Te Domine Speravi And His Two Settings Of The Miserere Psalm 6 And Psalm 50 Respectively All Of Which Have Been Seen As Tributes To The Executed Reformer Savonarola This Indicates His Sympathy If Not His Active Participation In The Movement For Ecclesiastical Reform. read less