Arnold de Lantins

Arnold de Lantins flourished in the early mid-fifteenth century. He was widely held in high esteem as is demonstrated by the fact that his compositions were widely distributed (particularly his Marian motet "Tota pulchra"); compositions survive for the most part from northern Italian manuscripts. De Lantins began his musical career as a singer in the papal choir of Eugene IV in 1431. He was a fellow member with Dufay and Malbecque. Innovatively de Lantins' full cyclic mass achieves an unprecedented unity through the use if uniform musical and liturgical devices. Characteristics of his music include octave leaps in the cadences and a penchant for the fauxbourdon style. He would open his compositions with a short musical motif or motto in one or all the voices and link the mass pairs (Gloria-Credo) with these motifs. De Lantins' Marian motets were characteristically set with simple rhythms, three voices, melodic contents in the superious voice, and primarily syllabic settings. Several of the chansons opened with a descending step-by-step progression through the octave in the discantus. ~ Keith Johnson