Jacques Buus (also Jakob Buus, Jachet de Buus) (late August, 1565) was a Franco-Flemish composer and

organist An organist is a musician who plays any type of organ. An organist may play solo organ works, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers or instrumental soloists. In addition, an organist may accompany congregational ...

of the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

, and an early member of the Venetian School. He was one of the earliest composers of the

ricercar A ricercar ( , ) or ricercare ( , ) is a type of late Renaissance and mostly early Baroque instrumental composition. The term ''ricercar'' derives from the Italian verb which means 'to search out; to seek'; many ricercars serve a preludial funct ...

, the predecessor to the

fugue In music, a fugue () is a contrapuntal compositional technique in two or more voices, built on a subject (a musical theme) that is introduced at the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and which recurs frequently in the co ...

, and he was also a skilled composer of

chanson A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic so ...

Life

Buus was probably born in

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded i ...

around 1500, though details of his early life, as is the case with most Renaissance composers, are scanty. Possibly he either studied or had his early career in France, and he maintained some connections there throughout his life. In 1538, he published his first chansons, in

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of ...

by the printer Jacques Moderne. Three years later, he went to

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

and auditioned for the post of second organist at St. Mark's, winning the job and working alongside the existing organist, . This was during the tenure of Adrian Willaert, who built the musical forces at St. Mark's into one of the most impressive in Europe, second only in quality to the papal chapel in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. Buus stayed at St. Mark's until 1550, when he departed for France, ostensibly because he was unable to pay his debts; however it has been suggested that he left because he had become a

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

. In 1543, he had dedicated a volume of chansons to the

Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John C ...

Duchess of

Ferrara Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...

and, in 1550, he sent a book of Protestant to the Protestant Archduke Ferdinand II in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. Late in 1550, he went to Vienna to work at the

Habsburg The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...

court and he remained there for the rest of his life, ignoring entreaties from Venice to return.

Music and influence

Buus was influential in the development of the instrumental

; he wrote the longest ever composed, one of which has no less than 98 points of imitation. Another has 358 breves (equivalent to 716 bars of 4/4; at the typical '' tactus'' of the time60 to 80 minims, i.e. half-notes, to the minutethe piece would take 15-20 minutes to play). They are elaborately

contrapuntal In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tradi ...

, making use of all the standard devices of Franco-Flemish

polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, ...

, including augmentation, diminution, inversion, and so forth. He also wrote sacred vocal music, including

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Ma ...

s and ''chansons spirituelles'', a specifically Protestant form, although these were not for performance in

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Venice. The motets are similar in style to those of Nicolas Gombert, with dense textures, pervasive imitation, and free treatment of the source material.

References and further reading

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External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Buus, Jacques 1500s births 1565 deaths 16th-century Franco-Flemish composers Musicians from Ghent Musicians of the Habsburg Netherlands Renaissance composers Venetian School (music) composers