Firminus Caron

Firminus Caron (fl. 1460 – 1475) was a French composer, and probably singer, of the Renaissance. While highly successful as a composer and influential, especially on the development of imitative counterpoint, and while numerous compositions of his survive, he is almost unique in there being an almost complete absence of direct biographical information about him. Most of what is known about his life and career is inferred.

Life

He may have come from Amiens, based on the commonness of the name "Firmin" there, as well as the presence of a Firminus Caron in the Amiens cathedral choir in 1422 (conjectured to be the composer's father, unless he was extraordinarly long-lived for the time). Some writers of the time, including Johannes Tinctoris, praised Caron. Most of Caron's music survives in Italian manuscripts, leading to the hypothesis that he may have spent some time in Italy, a common destination for composers from northern Europe: however many compositions by French composers made their way to Italian manuscripts without being carried there by their composers, so this is not certain.

In 1472 and 1473, Caron is mentioned by Loyset Compère alongside Guillaume Dufay, and stylistic similarities between the two composers suggests a relation. In addition, one of Caron's masses appears in a Cambrai manuscript dated to 1472 or 1473, the year before Dufay's death there. Caron may have been in Cambrai in the early 1470s and known Dufay, but even that is not certain. References to Caron in writings by music theorists appear as late as 1556, in the writings of German Heinrich Finck, indicating the spread and duration of his reputation. Johannes Tinctoris, whose writings are a rich source on 15th century composers and music theory, extravagantly praises Caron's music, but also mentions that he was poorly educated.

Music and influence

Caron left both sacred and secular music, including five masses and numerous secular songs.

One of the earliest masses based on the famous tune "L'homme armé" is by Caron, and survives in an early 1460s Vatican manuscript along with "L'homme armé" masses by several other composers. In Caron's setting the tune is transposed to Dorian mode and elaborated considerably; the upper voices often sing in two-part imitation.

Most of his secular songs were in French, and for three voices, and most survive from Italian manuscripts. Most are rondeaux, and most are in duple meter. One of his songs, "Helas que pourra devenir", was extraordinarly famous, and was the second-most-widely distributed song in manuscript sources of the third quarter of the 15th century ("De tous biens plaine", by Hayne van Ghizeghem, was the first). It is unusual among songs of the time in using very close imitation, and it seems to have initiated a trend. David Fallows, writing in the New Grove, hypothesises that it may have originated as an instrumental fantasy.

References and further reading

* David Fallows: "Firminus Caron", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed July 2-4, 2006), [http://www.grovemusic.com (subscription access)]
* Gustave Reese, "Music in the Renaissance". New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. ISBN 0-393-09530-4