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Johannes de Lymburgia: Gaude Felix Pad...

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Biography

Composer Johannes de Lymburgia was born, judging by his name, in the region now known as the Duchy of Limburg. Although his birthdate remains known, Johannes was likely born between 1395 and 1400, making him an exact contemporary of Guillaume Dufay. At this time, Limburg was part of the Duchy of Brabant, but it was ceded to Burgundian control around 1408. Lymburgia seems the most likely candidate for compiling, in the early to mid-1420s, the older layer of the manuscript I-Bc Q15, housed in Bologna. It contains 42 of his compositions and modern scholars have ascribed another five items within this same manuscript to him; so Lymburgia is the second-most represented composer in Q15 other than Guillaume Dufay. From internal evidence gathered from the texts of his compositions, Lymburgia was a resident in Padua and worked in the service of humanist Bishop Pietro Emiliani (or Miani) of Vicenza, whose influence also played a pivotal role in the careers of Dufay and Johannes Ciconia. Though some contemporary records in Padua record references to him under the name, "Johannes de Francia, singer," the only definite reference to Johannes de Lymburgia outside of music manuscripts is to a will that he signed as witness in 1431. Three additional pieces of Lymburgia have been located in other manuscripts, though one is also ascribed to "Dufay" -- experts on Dufay say the work, the motet "Veni, dilecte mi," is likely the work of Lymburgia. The latest known of Lymburgia's pieces is the motet "Tu nephanda prodigi," which, owing to the content of its text, has been placed after 1434. Afterward, Lymburgia disappears from the record; he is assumed to have died around 1440 or before. Lymburgia is one of the most well represented composers of the earliest phase of the Renaissance; among his 49 extant works are a complete setting of the mass, two Gloria-Credo pairs, several other mass movements, and seven settings of the Magnificat. The remaining bulk of his output is invested in occasional pieces and settings for the mass propers; given the sheer size of his output, one would think this early contemporary of Dufay would have been noted in older literature devoted to the Renaissance. However, his works did not appear in print until 1972.