Barbingant Explained

Barbingant (maybe Pierre; fl. c. 1460) was a French composer to whom is attributed the earliest known surviving parody mass, a three-voice mass based on the virelai "Terriblement suis fortunée".^{[1] [2]} Barbignant's chanson "Au travail suis" was the base of a parody mass by Ockeghem. His works are included in the Opera Omnia of the slightly later composer Jacob Barbireau, choirmaster at Antwerp, but the two composers are separated in musicology after 1960.^[3]

Notes and References

1. Reinhard Strohm The Rise of European Music, 1380-1500 0521619343 2005 p 431 "The next step is documented in the Mass 'Terriblement' by the enigmatic Barbingant.179 This three-pan work clearly reproduces the style, texture and even form of its secular model, and it uses more than one of its voices at a time, occasionally all three. … The model is an anonymous setting of the bergerette layee, 'Terriblement suis fortunée' (a complaint of a betrayed woman). At the time the song was composed (before c.1456), the bergerette form was a new fashion, apparently centred on French royal circles …
2. Fondements théoriques et exploitations du principe 2840500299 -1994 Page 74 "La messe Virgo parens Christi de Barbireau et la messe Terriblement suis fortunée de Barbingant, qui ne présentent qu'une utilisation fragmentaire du timbre"
3. Charles W. Fox, 'Barbireau and Barbingant: a review', JAMS 13 (1960)