Luython [Luiton, Luitton, Luthon, Luythonius, Luyton], Carl [Carolus, Charles, Karl]

(b Antwerp, 1557/8; d Prague, Aug 1620). Flemish composer and organist. He spent nearly all his life in the service of the Habsburg imperial chapel in Vienna and Prague. In 1566 he was recruited as a chorister for the court of the Emperor Maximilian II in Vienna; his music teachers there may have been Jacobus Vaet, Alard du Gaucquier and Philippe de Monte, while he must have studied the organ either with the first court organist Wilhelmus Formellis or with one of the sub-organists, Wilhelm von Mülin or Paul van Winde.

On leaving the chapel on 30 July 1571 after his voice changed, Luython was given the usual honorarium of 50 guilders. He travelled to Italy to work and further his education, as had other imperial court singers such as Jacob Regnart. On 18 May 1576 he returned to the employ of the imperial court as a ‘chamber musician’ (probably as organist rather than singer) with a salary of 10 guilders a month. He was one of the first members of the newly founded Kammermusik, a parallel establishment to the court chapel and the military band.

In 1577 Luython was retained as a chamber organist in the newly established court of Maximilian's successor Rudolf II, which was transferred to Prague. Between 25 February 1580 and 28 February 1581 he augmented his meagre salary with that of a junior official in the imperial wardrobe (unndergwardaroba). When the first court organist Formellis died on 4 January 1582, Luython was retroactively appointed third court organist as from 1 January 1577, with a monthly salary of 25 guilders. Later in 1582 he accompanied Rudolf to the Diet at Augsburg as second court organist, and at that time he published in Venice his first and only book of madrigals, dedicated to the Augsburg magnate Johann Fugger. This excursion began the rise of Luython's reputation.

Luython collaborated with the organ builder Albrecht Rudner on the reconstruction of the organ in Prague Cathedral. The two disagreed on several matters, and in court records between April 1581 and 22 December 1590 Luthon's objections are spelt out in great detail. His first collection of motets, Popularis anni jubilus, was published in Prague in 1587, with a dedication to Rudolf II's brother Archduke Ernst on the occasion of his consecration as bishop. On 1 April the same year Luython was granted a minor coat of arms (Wappen mit Lehenart) in recognition of his services as court organist. He probably served in effect as first court organist from 1594, when Paul van Winde left for the Netherlands; he was officially appointed to the post when van Winde died in 1596.

When Monte died on 4 July 1603, Luython succeeded him as court composer, with an increase in salary of 10 guilders a month. He published in Prague another volume of motets in 1603, a book of Lamentations in 1604, and a collection of masses in 1609 (twice reprinted in Frankfurt). The dedication of the masses to Rudolf II brought Luython a gift of 500 guilders. On 16 May 1611 he was awarded a yearly pension of 200 guilders in recognition of 35 years of loyal service to the imperial court. But like many of Rudolf's employees, Luython had trouble collecting what was owed him; his salary had been 1600 guilders in arrears in 1591, and during Rudolf's lifetime he was hard pressed to collect his pension. After Rudolf's death in 1612, his brother and successor Matthias disbanded the court chapel and disclaimed responsibility for debts to its members. Luython, who had never married or taken holy orders, died a pauper in 1620, leaving 2400 guilders in arrears of salary and pension to his brother Claude and sisters Clara and Sibella; his will was never executed.

Praetorius gave a description of a remarkable harpsichord owned by Luython; he called it ‘clavicimbalum universale seu perfectum’. The instrument had a four-octave enharmonic keyboard on which all five of the regular raised keys in each octave were split, and raised keys tuned as E and B were inserted between E and F and between B and C; it could play in the chromatic and enharmonic genera as well as the diatonic. The sliding keyboard could be set at any of the seven enharmonic steps spanning a major 3rd. Poverty forced Luython to sell his harpsichord for 100 guilders in 1613.

Luython's vocal music largely reflects the influence of Monte. Ten of the 11 madrigals in his first book set poems by Petrarch, but the sixth, Sacro monte mio dolce, is a homage to Monte whose text may have been written by Luython. The four parody masses of the nine in his first book are all based on motets and madrigals by Monte. Another mass, the seven-voice Missa super basim ‘Caesar vive’, reinforces the volume's dedication to Rudolf II; its cantus firmus is a short melody composed for the purpose. The remaining four masses are all entitled Missa quadlibetica, a term used also by Vaet and Regnart. They share a rapid, mostly syllabic declamation of the words and a notable degree of thematic unity within each setting. The ‘Osanna’ section of the Sanctus is always elided with the ‘Pleni sunt caeli’, and the Agnus Dei is given a single rather than a threefold setting. The thematic concentration suggests that the ‘quodlibet’ masses may be parodies of existing compositions, but no models have been identified. While the three- and four-voice examples are simpler in texture and structure, the six-voice Missa quodlibetica is contrapuntally complex and expansive in form. Luython's Missa ‘Tytire tu patule’, not included in the printed volume, is probably one of the masses dedicated to Maximilian II mentioned in documents of 1575 and 1576.

Luython was less conservative in his composition for instruments, which reflects the ideas of forward-lookiing contemporaries; he is perhaps best remembered for the handful of keyboard pieces in which he anticipated later fugal procedures. His Fuga suavissima has been compared to similar pieces by Sweelinck and Frescobaldi; it is divided into three sections and based on three subjects. All his other instrumental works are of the ricercare type.

WORKS

sacred vocal

secular vocal

instrumental

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PraetoriusSM

L. de Burbure: Charles Luython (1550–1620), compositeur de musique de la Cour impériale, 1550–1620: sa vie et ses ouvrages (Brussels, 1880)

A.G. Ritter: Zur Geschichte des Orgelspiels, vornehmlich des deutschen, im 14. bis zum Anfange des 18. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1884/R)

A. Koczirz: ‘Zur Geschichte des Luython’schen Klavizimbels’, SIMG, ix (1907–8), 565–70

P. Wagner: Geschichte der Messe, i (Leipzig, 1913/R), 230–38

A. Smijers: Karl Luython als Motetten-Komponist (Amsterdam, 1923)

A. Smijers: ‘Die kaiserliche Hof-Musikkapelle in Wien von 1543–1619’, SMw, vi (1919), 139–86; vii (1920), 102–42; viii (1921), 176–206; ix (1922), 43–81

G. van Doorslaer: ‘La chapelle musicale de l'empereur Rudolphe II, en 1594 sous la direction de Philippe de Monte’, AcM, v (1933), 148–61

A. Einstein: ‘Italienische Musik und italienische Musiker am Kaiserhof und an den erzherzoglichen Höfen in Innsbruck und Graz’, SMw, xxi (1934), 3–52

H. Osthoff: Die Niederländer und das deutsche Lied, 1400–1640 (Berlin, 1938/R)

C. Sass: Charles Luython: ses madrigaux et oeuvres instrumentales (diss., U. of Leuven, 1958)

H. Leuchtmann: Orlando di Lasso: sein Leben, i (Wiesbaden, 1976)

W. Pass: Musik und Musiker am Hof Maximilians II. (Tutzing, 1980)

C.P. Comberiati: Late Renaissance Music at the Habsburg Court (New York, 1987)

C.P. Comberiati: ‘Carlo Luython at the Court of Emperor Rudolf II: Biography and his Polyphonic Settings of the Mass Ordinary’, Music from the Middle Ages through the Twentieth Century: Essays in Honor of Gwynn S. McPeek, ed. C.P. Comberiati and M. Steel (New York, 1988), 130–46

CARMELO PETER COMBERIATI