Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

50 REGNART
EEGONDl
Collection of thirty-nine Motets, o 4-6, composed
by his four brothers Francis, Jacob, Faschasius,
and Charles Regnart. The work appropriately
bears on its title-page the motto, ' Ecce quam
bonum et quam jucundum fratres habitare in
unum,' Psal. 132. The full title is 'Novae
Cantiones Saorae, 4, 5, et 6 vocum turn instrumentorum
cuivis generi tum vivae voci
aptissimae, authoribus Francisco, Jacobo, Pascasio,
Carolo Begnart, fratribus germanis ' (another
incidental mistake of Eitner is that of
taking the word 'germanis' as indicative of
nationality, and explaining it on the ground
that Flanders was then part of Germany, while
all that the word really implies is tiiat the
brothers were fuU bro&Srs). Of the four
brothers only two attained any real position or
eminence as composers, Francis and Jacob. The
other two are only represented by three motets
a piece in this Collection, and of their careers
nothing is known with any certainty. Of
Francis, Angustin tells us that he had pursued
his studies at the University of Douai and the
Cathedral of Tournai. Besides the twenty-four
motets in the Collection above mentioned,
Francis Regnart is chiefly known by a book of
fifty Chansons a 4-5, 'Poesies de Ronsard et
autres,' originally published at Douai by Jean
Bogaerd in 1575, and afterwards at Paris by
Le Roy and Ballard in 1579. These Chansons
have now been republished in modern score by
H. Expert in his collection 'Les Maitres
Musicians de la renaissance Fran^aise.' F^tis
mentions a book of Missae tres a 4-5, by
Francis Regnart, published by Plantin in 1582,
but there is no trace of such a publication in
Goovaert's Bibliographic, and Eitner knows
nothing of it.
Of the life and works of Jacob Regnart
we have fuller information. He was early
received as an Alumnus of the Imperial Chapel
at Vienna and Prague. In 1564 he is designated
ais tenor singer in the chapel ; and as a
member of the chapel accompanied the Emperor
to the Augsburg Diet of 1566. In 1573 he is
mentioned as musical preceptor to the boys of
the choir, and before 1579 became the vicecapellmeister.
In 1580 he was offered by the
Elector of Saxony the post of oapellmeister at
Dresden vacant by the death of Scandelli, but
declined. In 1582, however, he left the
imperial service to enter that of the Archduke
Ferdinand at Innsbruck, where he remained as
capellmeister till 1595. He then returned to
Prague, where he died in 1600. Shortly before
his death, in the dedication of a book of Masses
to the Emperor, Rudolf II., which, however,
was not published till afterwards, he recommended
to the care of the Emperor his wife
and six children. The widow, a daughter of
Hans Visoher, the famous bass singer in the
Electoral Chapel at Munich under Orlando
Lassus, returned to Munich, where she occupied
herself in preparing for publication in 1602-3
three volumes of her husband's Masses, containing
altogether 29 a 5, 6, 8, and 10, also a
book of Sacrae Cantiones, a 4-12, 35 Nos.
The other sacred works of Regnart which appeared
during his lifetime were a book of
Sacrae Cantiones, a 5-6, 1575, and one a 4,
1577 ; also one entitled MariaZe, 1588, Marian
Motets composed by way of thanksgiving for
recovery from severe illness. He was, however,
even more widely known by his secular works,
which consist of (1) two books of Canzone
Italiane, a 5 (1574-81), (2) two books entitled
Threni Amorum, German secular songs, as 5
(1595), and (3) several collections, a 3, 4, 5,
entitled ' Kurtzweilige teutsche Lieder nach Art
der Neapolitanen oder welschen Villanellen'
(1576-91). Of the latter, the collection of
67 a 3 was republished by Eitner in modem
score in 1895. They are written in the simple
melodious Italian canzonet style, without any
artificiality of counterpoint. In some introductory
lines of verse the composer apologises
for his frequent intentional employment of
consecutive fifths in the harmony as being in
accordance with the simple popular character he
wished to give these songs. The melody of
one of them, 'Venus du und dein Kind,' has
become, with a slight alteration in the first line,
the chorale tune well-known later, Auf meinen
'
lieben Gott.' Two of Regnart's other songs,
a 5, which have something more of imitative
counterpoint, have been reprinted in Commer's
selection of 'Geistliche und weltliohe Lieder
aus der xvi-xvii Jahrh.' None of his Latin
motets have been reprinted, with the exception
of one which found admission into the Emmgelical
Gotha Gantional of 1655, whence it has
been reproduced in Schoberlein's ScJiatz. His
Masses, several of them based on the themes of
German popular songs, must have been popular
in their day, judging from the MS. copies of
them enumerated in Eitner m surviving in
various church archives. A Passion according
to St. Matthew, a 8, by Regnart survives only
in MS., of which some account is given in
Eade, Die aeltere Passionskompositionen, pp.
60-62. J. E. M.
REGONDI, GiTJLlo, of doubtful parentage,
bom at Geneva in 1822. His reputed father
was a teacher in the Gymnasium of Milan. The
child appears to have been an infant phenomenon
on the guitar, and to have been sacrificed
by his father, who took him to every court of
Europe, excepting Madrid, before he was nine
years old. They arrived in England in June
1831 ;
and Giulio seems never to have left the
United Kingdom again except for
two concert
tours in Germany, one with Lidel, the violoncellist,
in 1841, the other with Mme. Dulcken
in 1846. On the former of these tours he played
both the guitar and the melophone (whatever
that may have been), and evoked enthusiastic