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Scan 793
Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1928
29 lines. Read by computer on 12 September 2026. Printed page 723. See the scan on archive.org.
1Lord, how are they increased. Durh.; B.M. Add. MSS. 30,478-9 and 29,366-8.
2Lord, I am not highminded. PH. Incomp.
3O Jerusalem. York.
4O Lord, consider. Durh.; B.M. Add. MSS. 30,478-9 and 29,366-8.
5O Lord God of my salvation. PH.; Harl. 7340/44b. Score.
6O Lord my God. Durh.; B.M. Add. MSS. 30,478-9 and 29,366-8.
7Praise the Lord. Durh.; B.M. Add. MSS. 30,478-9 and 29,366-8.
8*Preserve me, O Lord. Durh.; B.M. Add. MSS. 30,478-9, 29,372-7, and 29,366-8; Ch. Ch. 56-60. Bass part wanting.
9*Put me not to rebuke. Durh.; B.M. Add. MSS. 30,478-9, 29,366-8, 37,402-6, and 29,372-7; Ch. Ch. 56-60. Bass part wanting.
10Unto Thee, O Lord. Durh.; B.M. Add. MSS. 30,478-9.
11Why art thou so full. York.
13* Contributed to Thomas Myriell's Collection, 'Tristitiae remedium,' 1616.
15J. M.K.
17WILLAERT, ADRIAN (b. Flanders, c. 1480; d. Venice, Dec. 7, 1562), the founder of the Venetian school of musicians. His birthplace has been generally given as Bruges, a statement which, according to Fétis, rests on the authority of Willaert's own pupil Zarlino; but this reference appears to be an error: while on the other hand we have the express assertion of a contemporary, Jacques de Meyere (1531), that he was born at Roulers, or Rosselaere, near Courtrai.1 Willaert was bred for the law and sent to Paris for the purpose of study; but his energies were soon turned into their natural channel, and he became the pupil 2 either of Jean Mouton or of Josquin des Prés—which, it is not certain—in the theory of music. Three compositions in MS. at Bologna are dated 1518. He returned to Flanders for a while, then went to Venice, Rome and Ferrara. It was during this visit to Rome, when Leo X. was Pope, that Willaert heard a motet of his own ('Verbum dulce et suave') performed as the work of Josquin. As soon, it is added, as the choir learned its real authorship, they refused to sing it again. Willaert's name evidently had not yet become that power which it was soon to be, under the naturalised form of 'Adriano,' among Italian musicians. From Ferrara he went northward, and became cantor to King Lewis of Bohemia and Hungary; and as on Dec. 12, 1527, he was appointed maestro di cappella of St. Mark's at Venice by the doge Andrea Gritti, it is presumed 3 that he returned to Italy at the King's death in the previous year. In 1542 and 1556 he visited his native country. His career at Venice, where he lived until his death, is associated principally with the foundation of the singing-school which was soon to produce a whole dynasty of musicians of the highest eminence in their day. Among the first of these may be named Willaert's own pupils, Zarlino and Cyprian de Rore; the latter was Willaert's successor at St. Mark's.
19Willaert's compositions are very numerous.4 Those published at Venice include five masses, 1536; three collections of motets, 1539-45 and 1561; two of madrigals, 1546 and 1563; a volume of 'Musica nova,' 1559, containing both motets and madrigals; several books of psalms (1550, 1555) and of hymns (1542), Canzone Villanesche, 1545; Fantasie e Ricercari, 1559. Besides these a variety of his works may be found in different musical collections published during his lifetime at Antwerp, Louvain, Nuremberg, Strassburg and other places. (See Q.-L. for lists.) Willaert holds a remarkable position among those Flemish masters whose supremacy in the musical world made the century from 1450 to 1550 distinctively 'the century of the Netherlands.'5 He did not merely take up the tradition of Josquin des Prés; he extended it in many directions. From the two organs and the two choirs of St. Mark's he was led to invent double choruses; and this form of composition he developed to a perfection which left little even for Palestrina to improve upon. His motets for 4, 5 and 6 voices are of the pure Belgian style, and written with singular clearness in the different parts. In one instance he advanced to the conception of an entire narrative, that of the history of Susannah, set for five voices.6 It would be absurd to describe such a work as an oratorio, yet the idea of it is not dissimilar. Indeed, in departing to some extent from the severity of his predecessors and creating for himself a richer style of his own, Willaert ventured to be more distinctively declamatory than any one before him. The complexion, therefore, of his writing, though it might appear 'dry' to Fétis, is markedly more modern than that of his masters. He is also of first-rate importance in the realm of the MADRIGAL (q.v.), and his compositions in this field are probably the best remembered of all he wrote. To contemporaries, however, if we may believe Zarlino, his church music appealed most strongly; his psalms, and in particular a Magnificat for three choirs, being peculiarly admired. A fine portrait of the musician is given by E. van der Straeten, La Musique aux Pays-bas, i. 258.
211 See the opposite views in Fétis, viii. 470 (2nd ed., 1867), and E. van der Straeten, La Musique aux Pays-bas, i. 249-57. Sweertius, Athenae Belgicae, p. 104 (Antwerp, 1628, folio), also describes Willaert as of Bruges. Very possibly the discrepancy is to be explained by supposing Bruges to have been the seat of Willaert's family, and Roulers that of his actual birth.
222 See A. W. Ambros, Geschichte der Musik, iii. 502.
233 Fétis, viii. 471.
244 See the lists in Fétis l.c., and, for those published in the Netherlands, Goovaert's Histoire et bibliographie de la typographie musicale dans les Pays-bas, under the different years.
255 Ambros, i. 3. See this writer's excellent criticism of Willaert, vol. iii. 503-9.
266 Compare Fétis, viii. 471.
28WILLAN, HEALEY (b. Balham, 1880), organist and composer. After holding posts at St. John Baptist, Kensington, and other churches he went to Toronto, as head of the theory classes at the Conservatoire, and organist and choirmaster of St. Paul's. In 1914 he was appointed lecturer and examiner to the University of Toronto, and in 1919 became music director to the Hart House Players Club, in connexion with which he wrote incidental music for performances of classical plays. Since 1920 he has been Vice-Principal of Toronto Conservatoire. He has written much admirable church and organ music, among the latter being
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