Pierre Passereau

In 1509 this French chanson composer was singing for the Duke of Angoulme who later became Francois I. Between 1525 and 1530 Passereau was probably a tenor at Cambrai Cathedral though this is not certain. He was important as a contributor to the corpus of chanson literature given the printing by Attaingnant of one volume consisting of works by Janequin and Passereau an unheard of practice in this historical era. Initial printings of his works may have been done at the bequest of Francois. Though historically Passereau's chansons are considered light weight his works were quite popular in their day. It has been conveyed that his "Il est bel et bon" was even sung on the streets of Venice. The popularity of his songs may have been due to their characteristic lively rhythms, common subjects and use of ribald language. Many of his chansons were printed in several editions and transcribed for other instrumetns again attesting to the fact that his chansons were important and popular at least in their day. ~ Keith Johnson, Rovi