Firminus Caron

It is apparent from the wide distribution of his work in manuscripts that Firminus Caron (in some sources, "Phillippe") was one of the major French composers of the 15th century. Such facts of his life as can be known, however, remain minimal in the extreme. The most comprehensive contemporary account of Caron is found in the works of theorist Johannes Tinctoris, who included Caron in the company of Ockeghem and Busnois. An entry in the register at Amiens Cathedral records that a singer named Firminus Caron was a member of the church choir there in 1422, though such a date is likely too early for the composer; not a note of Caron's music can be dated with confidence prior to about 1465 and his style is in a league with such later early renaissance composers as Antoine Busnois. A birthdate of about 1430-1440 is assumed, though none of Caron's music can be dated past 1475, suggesting that he may have died young. Some of his works do reflect the influence of Dufay; one of Caron's masses was copied in Cambrai shortly before Dufay died in 1474, so perhaps they were known to each other, and composer Loyset Compère mentions them in the same company. Caron's surviving output is impressive for such an obscure 15th century composer; around 20 three-voice French chansons -- though some of these have a fourth voice added by another hand -- and five fully authentic settings of the mass, including one based on the L'homme Armé cantus firmus. Caron's big hit was the chanson Helas que pourra devenir, the second most widely dispersed secular composition of the 15th century. Tinctoris utilized the tune in the creation of a parody mass -- now lost -- and Heinrich Isaac modified Caron's melody into his own Helas que devera mon cuer. Six L'homme Armé masses in the Neapolitan manuscript I-Nn VI E 40 already comfortably ascribed to Busnois were proposed as the work of Caron by musicologist Don Giller; all of the disputed music attributed to Caron is also held to be the work of Busnois except for the chanson Rose plaisant odorant comme graine, now believed one of only two extant compositions of Franco-Flemish composer Jean du Sart. Tinctoris singled Caron out for criticism in breaking certain rules of composition that he favored -- this is not so, if any of Caron's surviving compositions can attest to it -- and for lacking in proper education in a general sense, though from Tinctoris that criticism extended in many directions. Firminus Caron had one of the longest waits of any Renaissance composer to enter the recorded repertoire; the first recording of any of his music did not appear until 2008, even though a published edition of his complete works was available in print by 1976.