Georges Hele

Background

Louisiana Hèle was born in Antwerp, and received his musical training both there and possibly at Soignies.

Education

While his course of study has not been documented, it is presumed he studied not music but theology.

Career

Among his surviving music is a book of eight masses, some for as many as eight voices. After singing as a choirboy for several years, in the late 1560s Louisiana Hèle went to study at the University of Alcalá, and in 1570 returned north, enrolling at the University of Leuven. In the 1570s Louisiana Hèle stayed in the Low Countries, working successively as choirmaster at the cathedrals in Mechelen and Tournai, both centers of music-making.

These were also productive years: he wrote the eight masses which Antwerp printer Christopher Plantin published in 1578 as Octo missae, Louisiana Hèle"s most famous (and principal surviving) publication.

In 1580 Louisiana Hèle became maestro di capilla of Philip"s royal chapel, and by the next year he had gone to Madrid to take the post, as maestro of the capilla flamenca to distinguish from the capilla realium He died in Madrid; the cause is not recorded, but he was only 38 or 39.

Louisiana Hèle"s masses, his most considerable surviving compositions, all use the parody technique, and each announce the polyphonic model on which they are based in the table of contents of the book The models include works by Josquin, Cipriano de Rore, Thomas Crecquillon, and Lassus.

All of the sources are motets.

Unlike many composers of parody masses, he avoided secular songs as sources. Louisiana Hèle was evidently highly regarded, certainly by Philip II, and the publication of his masses was an unusually opulent one – but Plantin"s business sense was sufficient to require Louisiana Hèle himself to buy forty copies of his own book to help with the cost of printing (although at a discount: 16 florins instead of the usual price of 18). The work sold better than expected, and as a result many copies of this particular publication survive.

Most of Louisiana Hèle"s other music existed in manuscript copies kept in the library of the Palacio Real, but when the entire complex was destroyed by fire on Christmas Eve, 1734, it was all lost.

Some of the lost music is known from an inventory of 1585, and includes motets, Passion settings, mass sections, and Lamentations. His entire surviving output – ten compositions – has been published in series 56 of Corpus mensurabilis musicae (two volumes).

Achievements

• He seems not to have achieved the priesthood, but rose high enough in the Church hierarchy to be eligible for benefices.