Guilielmus Messaus
{{Short description|Flemish composer}}
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Guilielmus Messaus (or Messaulx, Missau) (bapt. 2 July 1589 – 8 March 1640) was a Flemish composer who lived in the city of Antwerp.{{Cite encyclopedia |author=Godelieve Spiessens|date=2001 |entry=Messaus [Messaulx, Missau etc.], Guilielmus (van) |encyclopedia=Grove Music Online|publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.18494}}
Life and career
Guilielmus Messaus was born in Antwerp in 1589, and was baptised there on 2 July 1589. Between 1609 and 1610 he was a sacristan of the {{ill|Church of Sint-Joris|nl|Sint-Joriskerk (Antwerpen)}} and in 1613 he became a schoolmaster and sacristan at St Willibrordus, Antwerp. In 1613 or 1614 he married Magdalena de Masereth with whom he had five children. His son Guilielmus was later a tenor for several years at Sint-Joris beginning in the year 1649.
From 1614 to 1618 Messaus was also a teacher at St Walburgis and St Andries, but was dismissed for bad behaviour. From before 1620 he was a singer and a choir-master at St Walburgis, a post he held until his death. In 1620 he was temporarily suspended due to refusing to perform a plainchant mass instead of a polyphonic one for the burial of a child. After the death of his first wife he married Clara Loycx in 1639. He died not long after on 8 March 1640 in Antwerp.
Messaus composed at least 14 masses, 57 motets, Dutch hymns, a canon and 3 secular songs in Dutch. He is now remembered mostly as a very productive musical arranger of cantiones natalitiae (Christmas songs), which were very popular in the Low Countries. He was also an active copyist of motets and harpsichord music.
References
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External links
- {{IMSLP|Messaus, Guillielmus|Guillielmus Messaus}}
- {{ChoralWiki}}
- [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/18494 Biography on Grove Music Online]
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Category:17th-century classical composers
Category:Male classical composers
Category:Musicians from the Spanish Netherlands