| Of Jean Maillard's life, virtually nothing is known. All that survives to prove his existence is his corpus of 156 works, which appeared mainly between 1538 and 1572, and a portrait of him in the Modulorum Ioannis Maillardi...Primum Volumen (Paris, Le Roy & Ballard, 1565). He composed six masses (of which four are parody Masses), an isolated Credo a8, eighty-six motets (and four Magnificats, a Te Deum, and a set of Lamentations), and fifty-eight chansons (including four chansons spirituelles). His works were published chiefly in Paris, but also in Lyons, Geneva, La Rochelle, Antwerp, Wittenberg, Nuremburg, Milan, and Venice. Their main manuscript source is Barcelona 682 (olim 385), probably written down not much earlier then 1572, which contains two of his Masses, two Magnificats, and twenty-five motets; almost all of these works are unica and it is therefore possible that Maillard spent some time in Spain. The dedicatory preface of the second volume of his Modulorum (1565), furthermore, leads one to speculate that Maillard may have been banished from France for a time, perhaps in connection with the Wars of Religion.;Maillard's chansons may be divided into the following types: 1a, the typical sad, amatory, predominantly homophonic "Parisian" chanson (some 21-23 works); 1b, a more polyphonic manifestation of the first type, having more initative polyphony (some 9-15 works); 2a, the narrative, playful, descriptive chanson for which Janequin and Passereau are famous (some 8-12 works); 2b, the dancelike, gay, and tuneful homorhythmic chanson (some 1-3 works), and 3, the motet-like "Netherlandish" chanson (some 4-8 works).;Maillard's style is discussed and compared with that of his contemporaries Gomert, Claudin, Janequin, Clemens, Manchicourt, et al. His sacred style features short phrases, melodies that are often little more than bypassed cadential turns, successive phrases that begin on the same pitch (especially in the bass and superius), and constant stretto and textural diversity in a Gombertian fashion. His word painting is vivid in the manner of the younger Lasso, and he often sacrifices melodic flow for declamatory moments and special expressive effects. Maillard's secular style shares in some of these traits, but his chansons also often resemble those by Claudin de Sermisy in their openings and those by Janequin in the most descriptive examples employing patter. Much of the imitation is only rhythmic, while the loose imitation in the motets is often only of pitch without the associated rhythm.;Masses parodying Maillard works were written by Goudimel and Palestrina. Lesure has found suggestive resemblances between motets by Maillard and the younger Lasso, and Boetticher has discussed possible further links between these composers based upon archival materials, links worthy of the fullest exploration.;Maillard's sacred works are preserved chiefly in the three sources named above and in the earlier J. Maillardi musici excellentissimi...Liber primus (Paris, Le Roy & Ballard, 1555), whereas his chansons are scattered in many anthologies, as shown in the Catalogue Raisonne. His motets fall into five categories: (a) those employing simple CF-techniques, including those employing a cantus-planus technique with "Pfundnoten" (13 works); (b) those using simple paraphrase technique (15 works); (c) those combining these two techniques, usually with the CF in migrating successive fragments (10 works); (d) those giving the CPF special motivic treatments (some 6 works); and (e) freely composed motets (some 42 works). |
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