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Artist
Johan Albert Ban
3+ albums
dutch17th century
about
Joan Albert Ban, also Joannes Albertus Bannius, Johan Albert Ban and Johan Albert Bannius (Haarlem, about 1597 - there, 1644) was a Dutch Roman Catholic priest, jurist, canon, composer and music theorist. As a composer he was completely self-taught. In 1628 he became canon in Haarlem. He was friends with René Descartes, Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft and Constantijn Huygens, Maria Tesselschade Roemers Visscher and corresponded with Marin Mersenne. For twenty years Ban devoted himself to developing a system in which the text is musically expressed through specific intervals, harmonies and rhythms. This “method” is in keeping with the Italian madrigals of the time. He calls his system musica flexamina or soul-moving song. Ban corresponded about this with Mersenne and with Huygens, who acted as an intermediary. In 1640 Mersenne convinced Ban to apply his views on textual expression in music to a song text he provided, Me veux tu voir mourir, in order to compare Ban's composition with a Frenchman's composition on the same text. The French composer turned out to be the highly regarded Antoine Boësset, and his air de cour appeared to have been written before the composition competition. The French liked Boësset's composition better than Ban's unexpected sounds, which insulted Ban. He wrote to Huygens that the French were rude. Descartes joined the discussion with a letter to Ban, explaining that music is not about laws but about taste and convention (R. Rasch, 2007). Ban applied his s