Lantins, de.

Several Franco-Flemish composers and musicians of the early 15th century bearing this name may well have been related. All are thought to have come from the diocese of Liège.

(1) Berthold [Bernold] de Lantins alias de Bolsée

(2) Ray. de Lan(tins)

(3) Johannes de Lotinis [Lothin]

(4) Arnold [Arnoldo, Arnoldus] de Lantins [Lantinis, Latinis]

(5) Hugo [Hugho, Ugho, Ugo] de Lantins [Lantinis, Latinis]

HANS SCHOOP/J. MICHAEL ALLSEN

Lantins, de

(1) Berthold [Bernold] de Lantins alias de Bolsée

(d 24 Jan 1413). Cleric and singer. He was canon at St Jean l'Evangeliste in Liège in 1372 and apparently a singer there from 1379 until his death (see Auda).

Lantins, de

(2) Ray. de Lan(tins)

(fl before 1445). Composer. He wrote the Ut queant laxis (two voices with fauxbourdon) in D-Mbs Mus.Ms.3224. The manuscript otherwise contains works of Dunstaple, Du Fay, Christopherus de Feltro and Bartolomeus Brollo, as well as an incomplete copy of the Mass Verbum incarnatum by (4) Arnold de Lantins. He is possibly to be identified with the Reynaldus Tenorista at Treviso Cathedral from 2 February 1438 to 25 December 1439.

Lantins, de

(3) Johannes de Lotinis [Lothin]

(fl c1475–1480). Singer. He came from Dinant and is listed in 1480 among the singers at the royal court of Naples, where he was a colleague of Tinctoris. He was the dedicatee of Tinctoris's Expositio manus (CoussemakerS, iv, 1; c1475), where he is described as a ‘young man’. In De inventione et usu musicae (c1480–87), Tinctoris again mentioned Johannes, in this case in a listing of several of the finest singers of the day, where he is described as a soprano (see Weinmann).

Lantins, de

(4) Arnold [Arnoldo, Arnoldus] de Lantins [Lantinis, Latinis]

(d Rome, before 2 July 1432). Composer. He is listed, together with (5) Hugo de Lantins, as a member of the chapel of Malatesta di Malatestis of Pesaro on 8 June 1423, and both are linked to Du Fay at about the same time by references in Du Fay's song Hé compagnons (see Planchart). Annotations to two of Arnold's songs in GB-Ob 213 (Se ne prenés and Quant je mire) indicate that he was in Venice in March 1428. From November 1431 to June 1432 he was a singer in the chapel of Pope Eugenius IV, together with Du Fay and Malbecque. He death in June or July of 1432 is documented by Malbecque's request for Arnold's benefice at the parish church of Fermes in the diocese of Liège (see Planchart); this negates the contention that his ballade Puisque je sui cyprianés was written in connection with the arrival of Anne de Lusignan on the mainland in 1434. Arnold's works appear primarily in northern Italian manuscripts from the 1420s and 1430s.

The esteem in which Arnold was held around 1430 can be assessed from the extremely wide distribution of his Marian motet Tota pulchra es as also from the equal status with Du Fay, Binchois and Ciconia afforded him in the tenor partbook to GB-Ob 213 in F-Pn n.a.fr.4379 (see Schoop). Further indication of his reputation is the pride of place his work is given at the beginning of I-Bc Q15. This source begins with a composite Marian mass by Arnold and Ciconia: Arnold's introit, Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus are grouped with a Gloria with the Marian trope ‘Spiritus et alme’ and a Credo, both by Ciconia.

Most of Arnold's mass music survives in the earliest layer of I-Bc Q15, suggesting a date in the middle or early 1420s. In his four movements of the composite mass there is a liturgical unity imposed by use of appropriate chants in the tenors of each successive movement (the introit ‘Salve sancta parens’, LU 1263, and the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus of Vatican Mass IX, LU 40); this is reinforced by the use of the trope ‘Marie filius’ in the tenor of the Sanctus. These movements are probably the earliest compositions among the mass music, possibly dating from before Arnold moved to Italy. There are several variants in the Sanctus melody that point to northern French origins (see P.J. Thannabauer, Das einstimmige Sanctus, Munich, 1962). Each of Arnold's Gloria-Credo pairs is united musically by various means – head-motifs, tail-motifs, tonality and mensuration (see Hamm and Widaman) – and the third pair, cited below, is further unified by the use of identical music in the opening sections and at mensuration changes.

The Mass Verbum incarnatum, so named because of the Kyrie trope, appears in the second layer of I-Bc Q15, I-Bu 2216 and GB-Ob 213, and may be somewhat later. All five movements are closely linked by head-motifs and tonality, but a more subtle underlying connection is their shared musical references to the composer's Marian motet O pulcherrima mulierum. These references and the Kyrie and Sanctus tropes suggest that this may have been a votive Mass for Advent (see Strohm, 1990).

Arnold's two Marian motets feature florid melodic writing in the upper voice and relatively simple supporting voices. Tota pulchra es was probably written originally as a three-voice work, but a fourth voice, possibly by Arnold himself, appears in I-Bc Q15 (see Nosow, 1992). The lauda setting In tua memoria is much simpler in style, proceeding in a series of rhythmically simple phrases with largely syllabic texting.

The songs are also written for three voices, with a focus on florid melodic writing above tenor and contratenor. Arnold occasionally used imitation (Ce jour de l'an), but never to the extent seen in contemporary works by Hugo de Lantins. Las pouray je mon martir begins with expressive fermatas above the first few words. Most of the songs set rather conventional courtly love poems in formes fixes, although there are few tantalizing references to specific circumstances: Sans de plaisir refers to May Day, and Puisque je suis cyprianés clearly refers to a specific woman.

WORKS

all 3 voices

Editions: Polyphonia sacra, ed. C. van den Borren (Burnham, Bucks., 1932, 2/1963) [P]Pièces polyphoniques profanes de provenance liégeoise (XVe siècle), ed. C. van den Borren, Flores musicales belgicae, i (Brussels, 1950) [L]

mass ordinary

all ed. in Widaman

smaller sacred pieces

ballades

rondeaux

doubtful works

Lantins, de

(5) Hugo [Hugho, Ugho, Ugo] de Lantins [Lantinis, Latinis]

(fl 1420–30). Composer. His works appear in the same manuscripts as those of (4) Arnold de Lantins. The precise familial relationship between Arnold and Hugo de Lantins remains unclear, although it is likely that they were of the same generation. Like Arnold, Hugo was a member of the Malatesta chapel in 1423, and was an acquaintance of Du Fay at this time (see (4) above). There are also several musical connections between Hugo's works and those of Du Fay (see Allsen, 1992 and Fallows). Other direct documentation of Hugo's activities is lacking, but his surviving works provide evidence of his activities in Italy. His Tra quante regione praises Sparta, the Eastern Roman Empire and Cleofe Malatesta. Both this work and Du Fay's isorhythmic motet Vasilissa ergo gaude seem to have been composed for Cleofe's embarkation for Greece in 1420 to wed Theodore Palaiologos. Mirar non posso refers to the Colonna family of Rome, who were linked by marriage to the Malatestas in the wedding celebrated by Du Fay's Resvelliés vous. The motet Celsa sublimatur/Sabine presul refers specifically to the city of Bari, and probably dates from 1424 or 1425, when Antonio Colonna was briefly viceroy of Apulia. Hugo's Christus vincit celebrates the Venetian Doge Francesco Foscari (1423–57) by setting the laudes regiae sung twice yearly in the Doge's honour. O lux et decus Hispanie reworks the music of Christus vincit, and may have been written around 1430 for Bishop Pietro Emiliani of Vicenza.

The openings of the paired Gloria and Credo are identical in all three voices; both repeat their tenor pattern several times (three in the Gloria and four in the Credo), and both reflect material from the tenor in the other parts (see Gossett). Imitation plays a role in two of Hugo's Glorias. In the Gloria P 17 (with tempus perfectum diminutum and low tessitura in all voices), two of the voices are set in canon throughout. In the Gloria P 15, virtually every successive line of text is set off by a brief point of imitation between cantus and tenor.

Hugo's motets represent a cross-section of all motet styles current in the 1420s. Celsa sublimatur/Sabine presul, which may have served as a model for Du Fay's St Nicholas motet O gemma, lux et speculum, is fully isorhythmic, with two taleae in all voices. Ave gemma claritatis is a response to the Italianate ‘equal discantus’ style of the early 15th century, with its long opening echo imitation and two contrapuntally equal upper voices (see Nosow, 1991). Ave verum corpus, also for four voices, has an extremely florid upper line set above three rhythmically simple lower voices. In Christus vincit and its contrafactum O lux et decus Hispanie, as in the Gloria P 17, Hugo sets off individual lines of text with brief imitations.

Imitation also plays a role in virtually all of Hugo's songs, affording them a more solemn and learned sound than that of Arnold's more lyrical secular music. While most of Hugo's songs use the imitative procedure noted above (for example A ma dame, where each of the rondeau refrain's four lines is marked with imitations between cantus and tenor), he also experimented with various musical effects. In Tra quante regione, he makes striking use of rhythmic sequences similar to those heard in contemporary isorhythmic motets and earlier Italian songs by Ciconia. Plaindre m'estuet poses difficult problems of musica ficta, while Je suy extent features intricate changes of mensuration. The majority of the songs are rondeaux, but Hugo also produced four Italian songs. Like the closely contemporary Italian songs of Du Fay, these works adapt some musical features common to Ciconia and the earlier generation of Italian composers, while taking liberties with established Italian poetic forms (see Pirrotta and StrohmR).

WORKS

3 voices unless otherwise stated

Editions: Polyphonia sacra, ed. C. van den Borren (Burnham, Bucks., 1932, 2/1963) [P]Pièces polyphoniques profanes de provenance liégeoise (XVe siècle), ed. C. van den Borren, Flores musicales belgicae, i (Brussels, 1950) [L]Four Late Isorhythmic Motets, ed. J.M. Allsen (Newton Abbott, 1997) [A]

mass ordinary

motets

rondeaux

ballatas

italian ?rondeau

doubtful works

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG1 (W. Rehm)

PirroHM

StrohmR

J., J.F.R. and C. Stainer: Dufay and his Contemporaries (London, 1898/R)

C. Weinmann: Johannes Tinctoris (1445–1511) und sein unbekannter Traktat ‘De inventione et usu musicae’ (Regensburg, 1917, 2/1961)

A. Auda: La musique et les musiciens de l'ancien pays de Liège (Brussels, 1930)

C. van den Borren: ‘Hugo et Arnold de Lantins’, Annales de la Fédération archéologique et historique de Belgique, xxix (Liège, 1932), 263–72; repr. in RBM, xxi (1967), 29–35

G. d’Alessi: La cappella musicale del duomo di Treviso (1300–1633) (Vedelago, 1954)

R. Bockholdt: Die frühen Messenkompositionen von Guillaume Dufay (Tutzing, 1960)

F.A. Gallo: ‘Musiche veneziane nel MS 2216 della Biblioteca universitaria di Bologna’, Quadrivium, vi (1964), 107–16

C. Hamm: ‘The Reson Mass’, JAMS, xviii (1965), 5–21

P. Gossett: ‘Techniques of Unification in Early Cyclic Masses and Mass Pairs’, JAMS, xix (1966), 205–31

N. Pirrotta: ‘On Text Forms from Ciconia to Dufay’, Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: a Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese, ed. J. LaRue and others (New York, 1966/R), 673–82

F.A. Gallo, ed.: Il codice musicale 2216 della Biblioteca universitaria di Bologna, MLMI, iii/3 (Bologna, 1968–70)

G. Reaney: ‘The Italian Contribution to the Manuscript Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canonici Misc. 213’, L’Ars Nova italiana, [ii]: convegni di studio 1961–1967 del Trecento, ed. F.A. Gallo (Certaldo, 1968), 443–64

H. Schoop: Entstehung und Verwendung der Handschrift Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canonici misc. 213 (Berne, 1971)

G. Chew: ‘The Early Cyclic Mass as an Expression of Royal and Papal Supremacy’, ML, liii (1972), 254–69

D. Fallows: Dufay (London, 1982, 2/1987)

A. Planchart: ‘Du Fay's Benefices and his Relationship to the Court of Burgundy’, EMH, viii (1988), 117–71

J. Widaman: The Mass Settings of Arnold de Lantins: a Case Study in the Transmission of Early Fifteenth-Century Music (diss., Brandeis U., 1988)

R. Strohm: ‘Einheit und Funktion früher Messzyklen’, Festschrift: Rudolf Bockholdt, ed. N. Dubowy and S. Meyer-Eller (Pfaffenhofen, 1990), 141–60

R. Nosow: ‘The Equal-Discantus Motet Style after Ciconia’, MD, xlv (1991), 221–75

R. Nosow: The Florid and Equal-Discantus Motet Styles of Fifteenth-Century Italy (diss., U. of North Carolina, 1992)

J.M. Allsen: Style and Intertextuality in the Isorhythmic Motet 1400–1440 (diss., U. of Wisconsin, Madison, 1992)

J.M. Allsen: ‘Intertextuality and Compositional Process in Two Cantilena-Motets by Hugo de Lantins’, JM, xi (1993), 174–202