A complete edition of all his works would fill almost sixty volumes. If you can realize the huge task all this must have been, you will not be surprised that his over-tired brain finally gave out and during the last five years of his life he did no more composing. He died in 1594.
Orlandus Lassus was the last and one of the greatest of this Netherland, or Franco-Flemish school, that for two hundred years had led the world of music. Music had changed from a cocoon, gradually developing into a radiant butterfly, or, in our book, we should say that music had left childhood and was becoming a stalwart lad.
Ronsard—French Poet
Before leaving the subject of these northern madrigal writers, we must tell you about the famous French poet, Pierre de Ronsard, who was born just four hundred years ago (1525). He supplied more composers with words for their madrigals than any other poet of his age, and he also sang some of his poems put to music. He said that without music poetry was almost without grace, and that music without the melody of verse was lifeless. Of course, today the poetry and music have become so independent of each other, that many poets object to having verse made a servant of music, and many musicians think that music without words, that is, instrumental music, is the highest type of musical art.
In 1552, Ronsard asked four of the leading composers to set some of his sonnets to music. Jannequin, Pierre Certon, Claude Goudimel and Muret accepted, each composing music for the same ten sonnets. This experiment was so successful, that it was the talk of the entire court, and Ronsard published all the songs in his first volume of poetry. About the time that Shakespeare was born, in England, but long before he had said,
The man that hath no music in his soul
Is fit for treason, stratagem and spoils,
Ronsard wrote a preface to a collection of songs dedicated to King Charles IX, in which he says: “How could one get along with a man who innately hated music? He who does not honor music, is not worthy to see the soft light of the sun.”
Besides the four musicians who set the sonnets, others who used Ronsard poems as texts for songs and madrigals were Philip de Monte (or Mons), G. Costeley, organist to Charles IX, de la Grotte, organist to Henri III, and Orlandus Lassus.