(fl early 15th century). French composer. He was a petit vicaire at Cambrai Cathedral from 1409 to 1411 (Kügle); in 1411 he travelled to Cyprus as a chaplain in the retinue of Charlotte of Bourbon. It is unlikely that he can be identified with the Egidius Flannel alias Lenfant who sang in the papal choir from 1420 to 1441. The style of the eight compositions with manuscript attributions to Velut indicates that they were written during the early years of the 15th century. Jusqu'au jour and Laissiés ester still show traces of the complex cross-rhythms and syncopations that characterized much of French secular music at the end of the 14th century; his rondeau, Je voel servir, however, with its playful use of hemiola, clearly directed harmonies and frequent cadences, reveals an affinity to the chansons of the early period of Du Fay. Despite these apparent differences, it has been proposed that Velut's songs, notwithstanding his clear technical ability, are rather formulaic in character.
Velut's two sacred motets exhibit a diversity of styles; Benedicta viscera/Ave mater gratie/Ora pro nobis Deum alleluya is strictly isorhythmic in all voices and has frequent passages of triadic hocketing, whereas Summe summy/Summa summy displays a lyrical quality which approaches that of a song-motet. His three-voice Gloria and Credo are both in a treble-dominated style, the texts being declaimed syllabically. All of Velut’s works survive in either GB-Ob Can.misc.213 or I-Bc Q15.
It has been tentatively suggested that Velut was the composer of all the secular works in the Cyprus Manuscript (I-Tn J.II.9).
Editions:Early Fifteenth-century Music, ed. G. Reaney, CMM, xi/2 (1959) [R]
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Gloria, 3vv, R 127 |
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Credo, 3vv, R 132 |
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Benedicta viscera/Ave mater gratie/Ora pro nobis Deum alleluya, 4vv, R 137 (3vv in GB-Ob Can.misc.213); ed. C. van den Borren, Polyphonia sacra: a Continental Miscellany of the Fifteenth Century (Burnham, Bucks.,) 1932, 2/1963), 217 |
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Summe summy/Summa summy, 4vv, R 145 |
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Jusqu'au jour d'uy pour aprendre a parler, 3vv, R 125 (ballade) |
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Laissiés ester vostres chans de liesse, 3vv, R 122 (ballade) |
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Un petit oyselet chantant, 3vv, R 119 (ballade) |
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Je voel servir plus c'onques mais, 3vv, R 118; ed. in Stainer, 194 |
J, J.F.R. and C. Stainer: Dufay and his Contemporaries (London, 1898/R)
E. Dannemann: Die spätgotische Musiktradition in Frankreich und Burgund vor dem Auftreten Dufays (Strasbourg, 1936), 27ff, 37f, 59f, 64, 77, 80ff
H. Besseler: Bourdon und Fauxbourdon (Leipzig, 1950, rev. enlarged 2/1974 by P. Gülke)
D. Fallows: Dufay (London, 1982, 2/1987)
R.H. Hoppin: ‘The Cypriot-French Repertory of the Manuscript Torino, Biblioteca Nazionale, J.II.9’, MD, xi (1957), 79–125
K. Kügle: ‘The Repertory of Manuscript Torino, Biblioteca Nazionale J.II.9, and the French Tradition of the 14th and Early 15th Centuries’, The Cypriot-French Repertory of the Manuscript Torino J.II.9: Paphos 1992, 151–81
D. Leech-Wilkinson: ‘The Cyprus Songs’, ibid., 395–431
L.L. Perkins: ‘The Rondeaux and Virelais of the Manuscript Torino J.II.9’, ibid., 433–62
CRAIG WRIGHT/R