Philippe Rogier
Encyclopedia
Philippe Rogier was a Franco-Flemish
Franco-Flemish School
In music, the Franco-Flemish School or more precisely the Netherlandish School refers, somewhat imprecisely, to the style of polyphonic vocal music composition in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries, and to the composers who wrote it...

 composer of the Renaissance
Renaissance music
Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

, active at the Habsburg court of Philip II
Philip II of Spain
Philip II was King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and, while married to Mary I, King of England and Ireland. He was lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories such as duke or count....

 in Spain. He was one of the last members of the Franco-Flemish school, in the closing days of the Renaissance period in music history, and was a prolific composer; however most of his music was lost in the destruction by fire of the library of John IV
John IV of Portugal
|-|John IV was the King of Portugal and the Algarves from 1640 to his death. He was the grandson of Catherine, Duchess of Braganza, who had in 1580 claimed the Portuguese crown and sparked the struggle for the throne of Portugal. John was nicknamed John the Restorer...

 during the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.

Life

He was born in Arras
Arras
Arras is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France. The historic centre of the Artois region, its local speech is characterized as a Picard dialect...

, in present-day France, around 1561. Presumably he received his early training there or nearby, and his talent was sufficient for him to be brought in 1572 to Spain to sing in the choir of Philip II in Madrid. Boys were often recruited from the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

 to become singers in the imperial chapel; the numerous cathedral schools in the towns of northern France and the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 provided a rich environment from which the Habsburg
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg , also found as Hapsburg, and also known as House of Austria is one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian Empire and...

s could cherry-pick the best musicians. Rogier became assistant director of the capilla flamenca
Flemish chapel (capilla flamenca)
The Flemish chapel was one of two choirs employed by Philip II of Spain, the other being the Spanish chapel .- La Grande Chapelle :...

in 1584, chaplain
Chaplain
Traditionally, a chaplain is a minister in a specialized setting such as a priest, pastor, rabbi, or imam or lay representative of a religion attached to a secular institution such as a hospital, prison, military unit, police department, university, or private chapel...

 by 1586, and director of music at the court of Philip in 1586 on the death of the previous director, George de La Hèle
George de La Hèle
George de La Hèle was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance, mainly active in the Habsburg chapels of Spain and the Low Countries. Among his surviving music is a book of eight masses, some for as many as eight voices...

. Sometime before 1595 he also become a priest.

Rogier accumulated honors as well, in the form of benefice
Benefice
A benefice is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The term is now almost obsolete.-Church of England:...

s and prebends; he also received a rich pension from the Bishop of Léon. He died in 1596 in Madrid, asking in his will that his assistant and fellow northerner, Géry de Ghersem
Géry de Ghersem
Géry de Ghersem was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance, active both in Spain at the court of Philip II and Philip III, and in his native Netherlands...

, see to the publication of five of his masses. By the time he published them, the dedicatee Philip II had himself died, so he dedicated them to Philip III
Philip III of Spain
Philip III , also known as Philip the Pious, was the King of Spain and King of Portugal and the Algarves, where he ruled as Philip II , from 1598 until his death...

 instead. Ghersem also added one of his own masses to the collection – the only one of his numerous works to survive to the present day complete.

Music and influence

More of Rogier's music remains than that of his compatriot Géry de Ghersem
Géry de Ghersem
Géry de Ghersem was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance, active both in Spain at the court of Philip II and Philip III, and in his native Netherlands...

. While most was destroyed in 1755 when the enormous library of John IV burned during the Lisbon earthquake, some had successfully been disseminated through publication or manuscript transmission; some of his work appears in manuscript in places as distant as Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 (some manuscript psalm settings survive in the archives of Puebla Cathedral
Puebla Cathedral
Puebla Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral in the city of Puebla, in Puebla, Mexico. It is a colonial cathedral, and is the see of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Puebla de los Angeles. The cathedral's bishop is Víctor Sánchez Espinosa...

).

Rogier wrote both sacred and secular music, but as expected for a composer active in the royal chapel of a deeply religious monarch during the Counter-Reformation
Counter-Reformation
The Counter-Reformation was the period of Catholic revival beginning with the Council of Trent and ending at the close of the Thirty Years' War, 1648 as a response to the Protestant Reformation.The Counter-Reformation was a comprehensive effort, composed of four major elements:#Ecclesiastical or...

, the majority of it is sacred. Two instrumental pieces, possibly arrangements of vocal works, have survived as well. Of the 243 compositions listed in John IV's library catalogue (compiled in Lisbon in 1649), 36 motet
Motet
In classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...

s, 7 mass
Mass (music)
The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the invariable portions of the Eucharistic liturgy to music...

es, 4 chanson
Chanson
A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...

s, 4 psalm verse settings, and two presumably instrumental compositions (since they are textless, and appear in collections for instrumental performance) have survived.

His published masses are for from four to six voices; one in manuscript exists in two versions, with one for eight and the other for twelve independent voice parts. Stylistically they recall music written fifty years before, particularly the elaborate polyphonic style of Nicolas Gombert
Nicolas Gombert
Nicolas Gombert was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most famous and influential composers between Josquin des Prez and Palestrina, and best represents the fully developed, complex polyphonic style of this period in music history.-Life:Details of his early life are...

, another member of the Habsburg chapel. Rogier's motets are also in the Franco-Flemish style of mid-century. His secular music, on the other hand, shows some progressive features that anticipate the Spanish music of the early 17th century, for example with their frequent use of syncopation
Syncopation
In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...

.

Rogier was long a highly-regarded composer, as shown by a laudatory reference in a poem, Laurel de Apolo by Lope de Vega
Lope de Vega
Félix Arturo Lope de Vega y Carpio was a Spanish playwright and poet. He was one of the key figures in the Spanish Golden Century Baroque literature...

, written in 1630 – more than three decades after his death. His music was published in places as distant as Madrid, Antwerp, and Naples.

External links

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