Variant Name
Bonardo
Bonart, Laurent
Bonnard, Laurent
Role
Composer
Active period
1547 - 1554
Workplace
Amiens
Biography
Priest and maître des enfants at Amiens cathedral since 4 October 1547. He remained in this position until 1553 at least, after which time there are no clues as to his biography. As yet, it is unclear if Bonard is linked to the instrumentalist family of the same name working in Paris during the early seventeenth century or to the Italians Francesco and Iseppo Bonardo, whose music was published primarily by Scotto between 1564 and 1586. Apart from the extremely simple Au jour, au jour, with a guitar reduction by its printer Adrian Le Roy, all extant chansons were printed by Nicolas du Chemin. They show a preference for clearly articulated structures (especially AABA) repeating the last phrase, and for a quasi-homophonic style embellished to various degrees with some minor melismas. The exception is J’ay tant souffert: setting the shortest text, it is through-composed and reserves homophony to stress the word Hélas.
Bibliography
Aurigny, Gilles d’, Le Tuteur d’amour, auquel est comprise la fortune de l’Innocent en amours, composé par Gilles d’Aurigny, dict le Pamphille. Ensemble un livre où sont épistres, élégies, complainctes, épitaphes, chantz royaulx, ballades et rondeaux. Avec un aultre livre d’épigrammes (Paris: Girault, Françoys, 1546).
Cavicchi, Camilla, Marie-Alexis Colin, and Philippe Vendrix, eds., ‘Laurent Bonard’, in La musique en Picardie du XIVe au XVIIe siècle, Épitome musical (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), p. 109, 112, 314, 364.
Dobbins, Frank, ‘Bonard [Bonnard, Bonart], Laurent’, ed. by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2001), 848.
Durand, G., ‘La musique de la cathédrale d’Amiens avant la Révolution’, in La vie musicale dans les provinces françaises (Genève, 1972), 1-131 (spécif. 36, 71, 83-84).
Lesure, François, and Geneviève Thibault, Bibliographie des éditions d’Adrian Le Roy et Robert Ballard (1551-1598) (Paris: Société française de musicologie : Heugel, 1955).
Lesure, François, ‘Some Minor French Composers of the Sixteenth Century’, in Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music. A Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese, ed. by Jan La Rue, Hans Lenneberg, Victor Fell Yellin, and Martin Bernstein (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 538–44.
Miller, Leta Ellen Zuckerman, ‘The Chansons of French Provincial Composers, 1530–1550: A Study of Stylistic Trends’ (unpublished Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1978).