Jean Titelouze - Works

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 (1624), contains 12 hymns:

1. Ad coenam (4 versets)
2. Veni Creator (4 versets)
3. Pange lingua (3 versets)
4. Ut queant laxis (3 versets)
5. Ave maris stella (4 versets)
6. Conditor alme siderum (3 versets)
7. A solis ortus (3 versets)
8. Exsultet coelum (3 versets)
9. Annue Christe (3 versets)
10. Sanctorum meritis (3 versets)
11. Iste confessor (3 versets)
12. Urbs Jerusalem (3 versets)

Every hymn begins with a verset with a continuous cantus firmus: the hymn melody is stated in long note values in one of the voices, usually the bass, while the other voices provide contrapuntal accompaniment. Other versets are only occasionally cast in this form. More frequently the 16th century motet practice is used: the hymn melody either migrates from one voice to another, with or without imitative inserts between verses, or is treated imitatively throughout the piece. In three versets (Veni Creator 3, Ave maris stella 3, and Conditor 2) the melody in one voice is accompanied by two voices that form a canon, in two (Ave maris stella 4 and Annue Christe 3) one of the voices provides a pedal point. In most versets, counterpoints to the hymn melody engage in imitation or fore-imitation, and more often than not they are derived from the hymn melody. All of the pieces are in four voices, except the canonic versets, which use only three.

The second collection, Le Magnificat ou Cantique de la Vierge pour toucher sur l'orgue suivant les huit tons de l'Église, published in 1626, contains eight Magnificat settings in all eight church modes. There are seven versets in each setting, presenting the odd-numbered versets of the canticle, with two settings of Deposuit potentes:

1. Magnificat
2. Quia respexit
3. Et misericordia
4. Deposuit potentes, first setting
5. Deposuit potetnes, second setting
6. Suscepit Israel
7. Gloria Patri et Filio

In the preface, Titelouze explains that this structure makes these Magnificat settings usable for the Benedictus. Save for the introductory ones, all of the versets are fugal. Most feature two main points of imitation: the first concludes on the mediant cadence of the mode, and so, Titelouze writes, the organist can shorten any verset during the service by substituting this cadence with one on the final. Most fugue subjects are derived from the chant; there are many double fugues and inversion fugues in the collection. Four-voice polyphony is employed throughout the collection. The music is much more forward-looking than in the Hymnes (see Example 2 for an excerpt from one of the inversion fugues).

Although French organs already had colorful solo stops at the time, Titelouze did not use them. According to the prefaces of both collections, he was concerned with making his pieces easier to play and playable by hands alone. Titelouze goes as far as suggesting, in the preface to Hymnes, to alter the music if it is too difficult to play.