Biography
Serving the French royal court in successive posts from 1588 until the close of his life, this early-seventeenth-century French composer first attracted notice as a chorister attached to Cardinal de Guise, Louis II of Lorraine. Guedron’s reputation rested chiefly on his skill at vocal instruction and on the airs and ballets he supplied for court use. His settings typically built toward expressive peaks and earned praise for the clarity with which they conveyed the sense of verse by various poets. Several of the songs reflected the Italian musical currents then in vogue. The airs themselves combined polyphonic texture with careful attention to textual nuance. Though he occasionally essayed mensural notation and handled it with assurance, Guedron more commonly let the natural speech rhythms of the words guide his declamation.