Clément Marot

Music

In the 16th (and part of the 17th) century Marot was one of the most popular lyricists when music is concerned. The most famous of course are his chansons: 'Languir me fais', 'Tant que vivray', 'Jouyssance vous donneray', just to name the top three. 16th century composers like Claudin de Sermisy, Clément Janequin, Pierre Regnault (or Sandrin), and Pierre Certon are immediately associated with his texts. They were not only his contemporaries but also his closest colleagues at court. It is quite is easy to find texts by Marot set to music (hundreds of compositions, see the database of French Renaissance chansons, Ricercar: http://ricercar.cesr.univ-tours.fr/3-programmes/basechanson [if deadlink= try the old site]). Just try youtube for video performances. Almost at the same level of popularity are the musical settings of his Psalm versifications.

So I have prepared three pages on Marot and music:

•  The secular output: chansons, epigrams, rondeaux, some ballads and even (parts of) elegies and epistles

•  The Psalms and some other religiously inspired texts, in particular his very popular prandial prayers. I publish the texts, with some links to music. For the Psalms, the place to be is this website dedicated to psalms set to music

•  The tiny 'Marot revival' in the 20th century (with one 21st century addition): Ravel, Enescu, Rivier, Françaix.

Here a small playlist.

And here the original 4 partbooks of Tant que vivray (Sermisy) copied from a 17th edition, procured by Dirk Sweelinck (son of...) and published in Amsterdam (het 'Livre septieme' 1644), with below it the modern 4-part score (SATB), so you can sing it yourself.