Jean (Jehan) Titelouze (c. 1562/63 – 24 October 1633) was a French Catholic priest, composer, poet and organist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. He was a canon and organist at Rouen Cathedral. His style was firmly rooted in the Renaissance vocal tradition and as such, was far removed from the distinctly French style of organ music that developed during the mid-17th century. However, his hymns and Magnificat settings are the earliest known published French organ collections, and he is regarded as the first composer of the French organ school.
Life
In a 1930 study, Amédée Gastoué suggested that the surname Titelouze may be of English or Irish origin (more specifically, derived from "Title-House"), but recently this supposition has been disproven, and "Titelouze" is now linked to "de Toulouse". Titelouze was born in Saint-Omer in 1562/3 (his exact date of birth is unknown) and educated there; by 1585, he entered the priesthood and served as organist of the Saint-Omer Cathedral. He moved to Rouen later that year and in 1588, succeeded François Josseline as organist of the Rouen Cathedral. His work was not limited to Rouen: he also acted as organ consultant and helped with the installation and repair of important instruments in various cities.
In 1600, Titelouze invited the famous Franco-Flemish organ builder Crespin Carlier to Rouen to work on the cathedral organ. The result of this collaboration was referred to by contemporary critics as the best organ in France. This instrument and Carlier's later work in France defined the French classical organ. Titelouze occasionally collaborated with Carlier on various instruments. In 1604, Titelouze became a French citizen (at the time, Saint-Omer, where Titelouze was born, was part of the Spanish Netherlands). In 1610, he was appointed one of the Rouen Cathedral's canons. In 1613, he won his first award from Rouen's literary society, the Académie des Palinods, for his poems.
The year 1623 saw publication of Titelouze's Hymnes de l'Eglise, a collection of organ settings of various plainchant hymns to be used during the liturgy. The same year, due to health problems, Titelouze partially retired from his organist position (although he kept the post until his death). In 1626, he published a second organ collection, Le Magnificat, that contained eight Magnificat settings. In 1630, he received another award from the Académie des Palinods and was made "Prince des Palinods". He died three years later.
Titelouze was a friend of Marin Mersenne, an important French music theorist, mathematician, philosopher and theologian. Seven letters survive from their correspondence, dated from 1622 to 1633. Titelouze gave Mersenne advice on L'Harmonie Universelle, published from 1634 to 1637. Although the strict polyphonic style of Titelouze's music soon disappeared from French organ music, his influence was still felt for some time after his death. As an example, the Parisian composer and organist Nicolas Gigault included a fugue à la maniere de Titelouze (literally "in Titelouze's style") in his 1685 Livre de musique pour l'orgue. Some three hundred years later, the composer inspired one of Marcel Dupré's organ works, Le Tombeau de Titelouze, op. 38 (1942).
Works
Titelouze's surviving output comprises two collections of organ pieces. These are the first published collections of organ music in 17th century France. The first, Hymnes de l'Église pour toucher sur l'orgue, avec les fugues et recherches sur leur plain-chant (1623, 2nd edition in 1624), contains 12 hymns: Ad coenam (4 versets) Veni Creator (4 versets) Pange lingua (3 versets) Ut queant laxis (3 versets) Ave maris stella (4 versets) Conditor alme siderum (3 versets) A solis ortus (3 versets) Exsultet coelum (3 versets) Annue Christe (3 versets) Sanctorum meritis (3 versets) Iste confessor (3 versets) Urbs Jerusalem (3 versets)