Education
Possibly he either studied or had his early career in France, and he maintained some connections there throughout his life.
Possibly he either studied or had his early career in France, and he maintained some connections there throughout his life.
He was one of the earliest composers of the ricercar, the predecessor to the fugue, and he was also a skilled composer of chansons. Buus was probably born in Ghent around 1500, though details of his early life, as is the case with most Renaissance composers, are scanty. In 1538 he published his first chansons, in Lyon by the printer Jacques Moderne.
Three years later he went to Venice and auditioned for the post of second organist at Saint Mark"s, winning the job, and working alongside the existing organist, Frate Giovanni Armonio.
This was during the tenure of Adrian Willaert, who built the musical forces at Saint Mark"s into one of the most impressive in Europe, second only in quality to the papal chapel in Rome. Late in 1550 he went to Vienna to work at the Habsburg court, and he remained there for the rest of his life, ignoring entreaties from Venice to return.
Buus was influential in the development of the instrumental ricercar. He wrote the longest ever composed, one of which has no less than 98 points of imitation.
Another has 358 breves (equivalent to 716 bars of 4/4.
The typical tactus of the time allotted 60 to 80 minims, ie half-notes, to the minute). They are elaborately contrapuntal, making use of all the standard devices of Franco-Flemish polyphony, including augmentation, diminution, inversion, and so forth. The motets are similar in style to those of Nicolas Gombert, with dense textures, pervasive imitation, and free treatment of the source material.