There are more settings of "Susanne un jour" preserved in manuscripts and publications than of any other sixteenth-century secular text in any language. Almost all use the same melody, Didier Lupi Second's Susanne un jour, a chanson spirituelle intended for devotional use amongst Protestants. The settings, however, were mostly aimed at a popular audience. Lassus's 1560 setting was the most famous: reprinted and set for instruments more than any other setting, it also reached the largest audience in the most countries. Other settings in the "Susanne" complex would have played on the listener's or performer's acquaintance with the original model or other settings. Each composer used the "Susanne" model in a different way. To determine how or why an individual piece borrows, settings may be inspected in the following ways: (1) relation to the Lupi model; (2) relation to other pieces in the complex (including borrowing from one setting to another, or the purposeful use of a new technique of setting); (3) position within a "style, period or milieu"; (4) position in the composer's output. "Susanne" settings present the sixteenth-century polyphonic chanson in microcosm.

Works: Orlando de Lassus, Susanne un jour (382, 386, 388-89); Millot, Susanne un jour (387-88, 392); Claude le Jeune, Susanne un jour (389-91); Monte, Susanne un jour (392); Rore, Susanne un jour (393); François Rousell (393-95); Nicholas de la Grotte, Susanne un jour (395-96); Andreas Papius, Susanne un jour (396-97, 405-08).

Index Classifications: 1500s

Contributed by: John F. Anderies