Pierre de La Rue
Flemish Died 20 Nov 1518Pierre de La Rue (c. 1452 – November 20, 1518), called Piersson, was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of the Renaissance. A member of the same generation as Josquin des Prez, and a long associate of the Habsburg-Burgundian musical chapel, he ranks with Agricola, Brumel, Compère, Isaac, Obrecht, and Weerbeke as one of the most famous and influential composers in the Netherlands polyphonic style in the decades around 1500.
He was probably born at Tournai, in modern Belgium, and likely educated at the Notre-Dame Cathedral there, which had a substantial musical establishment. He may have been the son of Jean de la Rue, a master enlumineur of the town of Tournai.
While no records remain of his childhood, a Peter vander Straten (the Flemish equivalent of his name) is mentioned in the archives of the cathedral of Ste. Gudule in Brussels in 1469-1470, as an adult (tenor) singer; this is considered very likely to have been him. In 1471 he was in Ghent at the Jacobskerk as a part-time singer, paid from the cathedral's miscellaneous fund, suggesting he was brought in for special performances of polyphony. Subsequently he was employed in Nieuwpoort in 1472, at the church of Onze-Lieve-Vrouw, probably initially as a temporary arrangement, but by the end of the year the church authorities hired him on a more permanent basis. He was no longer employed there by 1477/8 for his name had vanished from the account-book.
His whereabouts during the 1480s are only vaguely known, although there is a record that he worked at a place called "St Ode" (date and city not known), and also possibly at the cathedral at Cambrai. Previous biographies of La Rue place him in Siena, Italy between 1483 and 1485; however it has been determined that the "La Rue" in the records there was a different singer. Pierre de La Rue probably never went to Italy, making him one of the few prominent Franco-Flemish composers of this generation never to travel there.
In 1489 he was paid by the Confraternity of the Illustre Lieve Vrouwe in 's-Hertogenbosch, again as "Peter vander Straten", and the document indicates that he had come from Cologne, so he evidently had spent some time in Germany as a tenor singer. He remained at the Confraternity in 's-Hertogenbosch until 1492, at which time he simultaneously became a full member of the Confraternity, and joined the Grande chapelle of Holy Roman Emperor Maxmilian. He was to remain in the employ of the Habsburgs, and the Grande chapelle, for the rest of his life
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