Anthoine de Bertrand (ca. 1530-1540-ca. 1580-1582); FRA   

Bertrand was a French composer who served in Fontanges, Auvergne, and Toulouse and later in life converted to the Jesuit tradition. (It was thought that he died the life of a martyr having been assassinated by Protestants who objected to his sacred music.) A large corpus of Bertrand's compositions are extant and indicate the extent of his production. A number of volumes of chansons were attributed to Bertrnd as well as sacred sonnets and spirituals. The compositions vary between double and triple meters but the former was used most often. He did not like to use unusual intervals; accordingly, there are few chromatic examples in the horizontal lines of his music. Bertrand did seem to enjoy non-standard melodic sequences in his lines but did not use difficult jumps between notes.

© Keith Johnson, Rovi

Below are works by A.Bertrand that every music lover should explore: