Loyset Compère

Of the same generation as Josquin des Prez, he was one of the most significant composers of motets and chansons of that era, and one of the first musicians to bring the light Italianate Renaissance style to France.

In the 1470s Compère worked as a singer in Milan at the chapel of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza, during the time that composers such as Johannes Martini and Gaspar van Weerbeke were also singing there.

Occasionally he seems to have given himself a formidable technical challenge and set out to solve it, such as writing quodlibets (an example is Au travail suis, which combines no less than six different tunes written to the same text by different composers).

Compère wrote several works in a unique form, sometimes called a free motet, which combines some of the light elegance of the Italian popular song of the time with the contrapuntal technique of the Netherlanders.

Some mix texts from different sources, for instance a rather paradoxical Sile fragor which combines a supplication to the Virgin Mary with a drinking song dedicated to Bacchus.

Compère also wrote several settings of the Magnificat (the hymn of praise to the Virgin Mary, from the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke), as well as numerous short motets.

Hodie nobis de Virgine (Introit); Beata Dei Genitrix Maria (Gloria); Hodie nobis Christus natus est (Credo); Genuit puerpera Regem (Offertory); Verbum caro factum est (Sanctus); Memento, salutis auctor (Elevation); Quem vidistis, pastores (Agnus dei); O admirabile commercium (Deo Gratias).

Manuscript of Omnium bonorum plena , a motet by Compère, and possibly his earliest surviving work; the exact date is uncertain, but it was possibly written for the dedication of Cambrai Cathedral on 2 July 1472.