Peeter Cornet
Peeter Cornet (1575?-1633, or Pieter[1]) was a Flemish organist and composer.
Life
Peeter Cornet was a member of a highly active Cornet family, who were also musicians active in Brussels.
His date of birth is unknown, but theorized to be around 1575.
In 1603, he was paid as an organist at St. Nicholas, Brussels. In 1615, he was hired as an advisor to St. Rombout, Mechelen, as they sold their organ.
On April 17, 1611, Cornet relenquished a canonry in Soignies to marry Marie Cuypers.
On March 27, 1633, Peeter Cornet passed away. He was burried on March 30 at savel kerck, Brussels.
The existence of B-Lu Ms. 153, a manuscript dating to 1617 from prominent composers from the south Netherlands but no works by Cornet, suggests that Peeter Cornet may have composed his pieces after this date.[2]
Analysis
Dirksen and Ferrard state that unlike his contemporaries like Sweelinck (who produced more vocal music than keyboard music), Peeter Cornet seems to stand apart as a "keyboard specialist", and there is no evidence that he produced vocal music.[3]
This sharp delimitation left an unmistakable stamp on the style of Cornet's music, which is characterized by great freedom and improvisatory manner throughout. A comparison with Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621), Cornet's great adversary in the North, is illuminating. Sweelinck started to write keyboard music only after he had become a complete master of late-Renaissance vocal polyphony. His principal aim in the novel field of keyboard composition was to create something equal to this, thus developing an idiomatic type of keyboard polyphony in which strict voice leading, absense of voice-crossings and close integration of figration and counterpoint are the main hallmarks. ... All these traits are conspicuously missing from Cornet's music. Though his principal technique is also imitative counterpoint, his music is clearly the manifestation of an improvising organist and, if the source situration is anything to go by, he seems to have came only late in life to committing music to paper.[4]
Works
| Source | Title | Incipit | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PL-Kj Mus.ms. 40316 f.25r-26r | Toccada del 9 Tono di M: pietro Cornet | |||
| PL-Kj Mus.ms. 40316 f.20v-22v | Fantasia del primo Tono di maestro pietro Cornet | |||
| PL-Kj Mus.ms. 40316 f.22v-25r | Fantasia del 2. Tuono di M Pietro Cornet | |||
| PL-Kj Mus.ms. 40316 f.16v-17r | Fantasia del 5.o Tuono di mro Petro Cornet Organista della S.ma Infanta sopra ut, re, me, fa, sol, la | |||
| PL-Kj Mus.ms. 40316 f.65r-65v | Fantasia 8. Toni del Sig.r Pietro Cornet mandatomi alli 3o 7tembre 1625 | |||
| D-B Ms. Lynar A 1 p.313-315 | Fantasia / pieter Cornet |
|||
| GB-Och Mus.ms. 89 p.335-340 | Fantasia. P. Cornet: | |||
| PL-Kj Mus.ms. 40316 f.17v-19v | Fantasia 9 Toni di M: petro Cornet. | |||
| GB-Och Mus.ms. 89 p.326-334 | Regina caeli: | end: P.C. |
||
| PL-Kj Mus.ms. 40316 f.28r-30r | Salve [regina] di Maestro petro Cornet | |||
| D-B Ms. Lynar A 1 p.310-312 | Tantum Ergo / De: pieter Cornet |
|||
| PL-Kj Mus.ms. 40316 f.61r-62v | Courante dal S. Pietro Cornet Organista de la S.ma Infanta in Brusselles. Mandetomi da luy a di 6. 9uebre 1624. | |||
| PL-Kj Mus.ms. 40316 f.62v | 2.a Corranta dal Sig.r Pietro Cornet | |||
| Anonymously transmitted works | ||||
| GB-Lbl Add.ms. 23623 f.113r-122r | Fantasia, / Sexti toni, / A.4. / Du / Jan Bull: / Doct: |
|||
| GB-Och Mus.ms. 89 p.341-345 | [Te Deum] | |||
| PL-Kj Mus.ms. 40316 f.19v-20r | Aria del gran Duca | |||
The anonymous pieces were included by Pieter Dirksen on the following principles[5]:
- The setting of the Ballo del granduca is included as the attribution is stylistically not implausible (especially considering characteristic free metre appearance in this piece).
- The fragmented versets on the Te Deum is attributed on stylistic grounds.
- The attribution of the fantasia in GB-Lbl Add.ms. 23623 f.113r-122r to Peeter Cornet was suggested by Thurston Dart and Walker Cunningham based on a few stylistic features such as a more straightforward imitative and figural style.
An untitled fantasia which appears in GB-Och Mus.ms. 89 p.322-325 is almost surely not by Cornet, even though the beginning 30 bars is identical with the Fantasia primi toni in PL-Kj Mus.ms. 40316 f.20v-22v.
References
Dirksen, Pieter and Ferrard, Jean (editor). Peeter Cornet: Complete Keyboard Music. Monumenta Musica Neerlandica 17. Utrecht: Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 2001.
