Name held by at least three musicians in 15th-century France.
DAVID FALLOWS
(d Cambrai, 12 Nov 1473). French composer. He was a singer at the Burgundian court chapel by January 1431 (when he was named in a motet by Binchois) and remained there until 1464. In the 1460s he was listed as a member of the confraternity of St Jacques-sur-Coudenberghe at Brussels as ‘her Simon Britonis mynsheeren zanghere’. He retired to Cambrai Cathedral, where he had been a canon since 10 October 1435 ‘vigore nominationis ducis Burgundiae’ (F-CA 1046, f.70a). He was buried there in the chapel of St Stephen, as was Dufay a year later. Several of his possessions passed into the hands of Dufay, who described Simon in his will as ‘dominus meus et confrater’.
The three-voice rondeau Nul ne s'y frotte (ed. K. Jeppesen, Der kopenhagener Chansonnier, Copenhagen, 1927, 2/1965) is ascribed in I-PEc G20 to ‘Magister Symon’; identification with the Simon at the Burgundian court is suggested by the title which is also the motto of Antoine, the senior bastard son of Philip the Good. The Flemish song Vie sach oit (ed. in Lenaerts), ascribed in I-Fn 176 to ‘Simonet’, is in a remarkably similar style. Robert Morton's lighthearted quodlibet Il sera pour vous/L'homme armé refers to him as ‘Maistre Symon’ and as ‘Symonet le Breton’; it may well have been written at Simon's retirement from the Burgundian court chapel at the end of May 1464. He might conceivably also be the author of no.98 of Cent nouvelles nouvelles, which is ascribed in the first printed edition to ‘Le breton’, though the earlier Glasgow manuscript ascribes it to ‘L'acteur’.
(fl 1482–3). Recorded at 's-Hertogenbosch as ‘onsen bovensenger’ ten years after the death of his namesake at the Burgundian court, he is a possible though unlikely contestant for some of the documents or pieces mentioned under (1) Simon le Breton.
(fl c1450–60). French or ?English composer of a four-voice mass cycle (without Kyrie) in I-TRmp 88, ff.304v–311 (nos.428–31). Based on the isomelically treated antiphon O admirabile [beati Gregorii] (see PalMus, xii, 1922/R, p.219), the cycle has matching head-motifs, extensive duo sections and the Wechselklänge that Besseler described as characteristic of English music. So there is some dispute as to whether ‘Insula’ in this case means Lille, as one would expect, or England (see MGG1, Gülke). However, if the name can be interpreted that freely it is possible that Simon de Insula is to be identified with (1) Simon le Breton who, as a chaplain to the Burgundian court, spent much of his working life in Lille; but the musical style of the mass cycle contradicts such an identification.
MGG1 (P. Gülke)
A. Pinchart: Archives des arts, sciences et lettres, ii (Ghent, 1863)
F.X. Haberl: ‘Wilhelm du Fay’, VMw, i (1885), 397–530
A. Smijers: De illustre Lieve Vrouwe broederschap te 's-Hertogenbosch, i: Rekeningen van 1330 tot 1500 (Amsterdam, 1932)
R.B. Lenaerts: Het Nederlands polifonies lied in de zestiende eeuw (Mechelen and Amsterdam, 1933)
J. Marix: Histoire de la musique et des musiciens de la cour de Bourgogne sous le règne de Philippe le Bon (1420–1467) (Strasbourg, 1939/R)
H. Besseler: Bourdon und Fauxbourdon (Leipzig, 1950, rev., enlarged 2/1974 by P. Gülke)
C. Wright: ‘Dufay at Cambrai: Discoveries and Revisions’, JAMS, xxviii (1975), 175–229, esp. 196