While known only for a few songs then, Guillaume Costeley publishes in 1570, at the parisian publisher Le Roy et Ballard an important collection of 104 various vocal works, 4 and 5 parts
motets
as well as 4, 5 and 6 parts songs.The musical forms are very varied to renew the interest of these "mixtures" but also to gain recognition for his talent as a composer in both old and new genres.
On Pierre de Ronsard's poem
Las, je n'eusse jamais pensé, Guillaume Costeley adopts a more air-like style. The vertical polyphonic setting lends itself well to the prosodic research of the composer, who also dabbled in a few pieces "measured in the antique manner".
The central part of the discourse is lightened by the relative independence of the voices in the passage where only three remain. Unlike the
chansons of Clément Janequin or Claudin de Sermisy, this is first and foremost a poetic text spoken aloud with the support of music, only present to better convey the text, or more precisely the declamatory intentions of the singer...
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