Lambert Chaumont

Few documents concern him. He appears in January 1649 as a lay brother at the Carmelite house in Liège, where he was still to be found in October 1651. An entry in the monastery’s accounts lists him among the nine brothers who had completed their novitiate at Reims; the Musicologie.org notice dates this entry 8 May 1651, the English Wikipedia article 8 May 1659. He was ordained priest; of the following fifteen years, the English article says, nothing is known.

On 10 February 1674 he was appointed rector of the small parish of Saint-Martin at Huy, a town between Namur and Liège; the French article gives 1672. On 7 September 1688 he became parish priest of the neighbouring church of Saint-Germain and prior of the Carmelites of Huy, posts he held until his death at Huy on 23 April 1712. He also published, in 1709 according to the English article, a devotional work; the French article mentions a book on the plague.

In music Chaumont is said to have been self-taught, which did not prevent him, according to the French article, from playing the organ with talent. His collection, presented as his second opus, appeared in 1695, at Huy according to most accounts, at Liège from the press of Danielis according to Musicologie.org and one of the BnF records; a single copy is known, in the library of the Liège Conservatoire. The title announces, after the pieces, a “short treatise on accompaniment”, “a general rule for playing counterpoint” and “the method of tuning the harpsichord”. Chaumont was interested in temperament to the point of devising, the French article says, a tuning with six pure major thirds.

The hundred and eleven pieces form eight suites of twelve to fifteen pieces, one for each church tone. Each ends, unusually, with one or two dances, mostly allemandes, but also two chaconnes, in the second and sixth suites, and a gigue in the first. The collection appeared in the same decade as those of François Couperin and Nicolas de Grigny.

Although he spent nearly all his life in Liège and Huy, his style is entirely French, and the Musicologie.org notice places him in the tradition of 17th-century French musicians, with a strongly contrapuntal manner. Fugues, trios and other contrapuntal pieces are given prominence. Modern commentators have often praised him: Roger Bragard for the richness, melodic purity and sound technique of the pieces, José Quitin for their seriousness, sense of form and serene elegance of counterpoint; Willi Apel, more reserved, singled out his récits, in which the melody grows from a single motif that returns at the start of each phrase and is continued differently each time. The collection was republished by Jean Ferrard around 1971, and by Charles Hens and Roger Bragard in the Monumenta leodiensium musicorum.