Religious Music in France, Germany, and England  

If the 16th century also bears witness to the politico-religious conflicts that tore Europe apart following Luther’s Reformation, sacred music evolved alongside these upheavals—between works written under Roman Catholic authority and those emerging from the Reformed world, Lutheran or Calvinist. A profound shift that brings to a close this four-part series on the Musical Europe of the Renaissance, by Belgian musicologist and Ricercar label director Jérôme Lejeune.

Religious Music in France 

Compared to Italy, where chapels appeared in every major city, the centralization of the French state around its capital made Paris the principal musical centre. Even though some composers came from provincial towns, “going up to Paris” was practically the only path to recognition. Becoming a court musician was the pinnacle of a career. When it comes to sacred music in France, it must be said that the flourishing of secular genres somewhat overshadowed religious music—and, above all, our knowledge of it today. For all these composers, Josquin Desprez remained an inescapable model. Also born in northern France, Jean Mouton (c. 1459–1522) is without question the most important French composer among Josquin’s contemporaries; on several occasions, his work is tied to court service, for which he composed occasional motets—works that earned him admiration from everyone connected to the court, both French and Italian. Like his famous contemporary, he composed a significant number of sacred pieces, including some fifteen masses and over a hundred motets. 

By contrast, for composers of the following generation—many of them well-known in the field of the chanson—sacred music appears to have held far less interest. This is true of Clément Janequin (c. 1485–1558), Pierre Sandrin (c. 1561), Pierre Certon (d. 1572), and even Claudin de Sermisy (c. 1495–1562), who, despite being active in the royal chapel, left us only seven masses and about thirty motets.

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