Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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756 SURIANO SUSPENSION
SURIANO. [See Soriano, ante, p. 623.]
SUSANNA. An oratorio in three parts by
Handel ; the author of the words is not known.
The overture was begun on July 11, 1748, a
month after the completion of 'Solomon,' and
the work was finished on the 24th of the
following month. It was produced during the
season of 1749. G.
8USAT0, Tylman, printer and composer of
music, was born at or near Cologne probably
towards the end of the 15th century. His
name is regularly written by himself in the full
form given above, although the spelling of the
first part of it is extremely irregular, i A
document referred to by F^tis^ describes Susato
as ' son of Tylman. ' It is therefore only through
an inexplicable forgetfulness of diplomatic usage
that Fetis and others ^ have taken Tylman for
a surname.* These writers have also accepted
a conjecture of Dehn ° that ' Susato indicated
'
the place of the composer's birth, namely the
town of Soest (Susatum) ; in one of his books,
however, he expressly describes himself as
'
Agrippinensis,' * which can only refer to
Cologne.' Consequently we have to consider
' Susato ' (or ' de Susato '—as it once occurs,
in a document of 1543 5) as a family name,
'van (or 'von') Soest,' doubtless originally
derived from the Westphalian town. By the
year 1529 Tylman is found settled at Antwerp,
where he maintained himself by transcribing
music for the chapel of the Virgin in the
cathedral ; in 1531 he is mentioned as taking
part, as trumpeter, in the performance of certain
masses there. He was also one of the iive
musicians supported by the city ('stadsspeellieden
'), and as such possessed, according to a
list of 1532, two trumpets, a ' velt-trompet,
and a ' teneur-pipe.' Losing his post on the
arrival of Philip II. in 1549, he appears, for
some unexplained reason, never to have been
again employed by the city. Before this date
however, in 1543, he had found another
occupation as a printer of music. For a
short time ' he worked in company with some
friends; but from 1543 onwards he published
on his own account, bringing out between
that year and 1561 more than fifty volumes
of music, nearly every one of which contains
^ In works witli Latin titles Susato writes lilmseU in a great
majority of cases TUemsnTmi; TietmanTtMa, Tilmtvnmis, Tj/lemannua,
and TUmanmu, occurring but mrely. In Flemish his
favourite form seems to have been Ti^Vman. In French Tylman,
the spelling adapted by F(!tts and Mendel is found most frequently
Thielmam, which is preferred by 31. Goovaerte is less usual ; while
Tilman, the spelling which is adopted by M. Vander Stra«ten and
is now practically the accepted one in the Netherlands, is met with
only twice. .
2 Bioffr. univ. deg JUmic. vlii. 2^6 ; 2nd ed.
3 Thus Mendel and Reissmann, MutikaL Convera.-Lex. x. 356;
Berlin, 1881.
^ Cp, Alphonse Goovaerts, HUtoire et BibliaffrapMe de la TypO'
graphie muttcale dant lea Payl-bas, pp. 26, 27 ; Antwerp, 1880.
n See bis letter in F^tls. l.e.
s Goovaerts, p. 191.
^ At the same time, M, Goovaerts notes (pp. 26, 27), we are not to
confound Susato, aa F^tis and Mendel have done, with a contemporary
Thielman van Ceulen, who was a brewer, and whose father's
name was Adolf.
B Bdmond Vander Straeten, La JHuaique aux Paya-boB avatale
Kiasme, SUcle, y. 258 ; Brussels, 1880.
9 Goovaerte, pp. 18-26.
some compositions of his own.
1564."'
He died before
Susato's first publication is a first book of fourpart
'Chansons '
(1543), and his next is entitled
'
Premier Livre de Chansons k trois Parties,
auquel sont Conteuues Trente Et Une Novvelles
Chansons eonuenables Tant k la Voix comme
aux Instrumentz ' (1544). Eight of these pieces
are by himself.
'The rest of his publications,
so far as they are now extant, include (1) in
French, sixteen books of ' Chansons ' in 3-8
parts ; (2) ' Madrigali e Canzoni francesi a 5
voci ' (1558) ; (3) in Latin three books of
'
Carmina, ' three of Masses, one of Evangelia
'
Dominioarum, ' fifteen of 'Ecclesiastical Cantiones'
or motets (1553-60), 'Motecta quinis
vocibus, auctore Clemente non Papa' (1546),
and five books of ' Cantiones sacrae quae vulgo
Moteta vooant' \sic] (1546). Finally (4) in
Dutch there are his three books of songs, etc.
(1551), entitled Musyck ' boexken, ' and one book
(1561), apparently the second of a series of
'
Souter-Liedekens ' (Psalter-ditties), which are
of peculiar interest. The third of the Musyck
boexken contains some dances by Susato himself,
which are described '' as ' full of cliaracter
and excellently written. The souterliedekens,
which Ambros further ^^ states to be found in
four more Musyck -boexken, are pieces from the
Psalmsaccordingto the rhymed Flemish version,
set without change to the popular song-tunes
of the day ('gemeyne bekende liedekens' '^).
The charm, however, of these compositions lies
less in the airs adapted in them than in the
independence and originality of the part-writing,
an art in which Susato was so proficient tliat
some of his three-part songs are composed in
such a manner as to be suitable, he states,
equally for three and for two voices with
omission of the bass. Susato appears also to
have co-operated with Clemens non Papa in
some of his work, and not to have been merely
his publisher. Still it is as a publisher i* that
Susato has hitherto been almost exclusively
known, the masters whose works he printed
being very numerous, and including such names
as Crequillon, Gombert, Goudimel, O. de Lassus,
P. de Manchicourt, J. Mouton, C. de Rore,
A. Willaert, etc. [See also the Quellen-Lexikon
for other compositions.] R. l. p.
SUSPENSION is the process of arresting the
conjunct motion of one or more parts for a time,
while the rest of the components of the chord
proceed one step onwards, and thereby come to
represent a different root. The part which is
stayed in this manner commonly produces dissonance,
which is relieved by its then passing on
10 Ibid. p. 31.
Ji Vander Straeten, v. 261, who says that these dances have been
repiinted by Eitner in the Mtmatah^fte fur Mueikgefohiehte, Jahrg.
vii. No. 6.
'2 Oetchichza der Mttsik. iii. 313 (Breslau, 1868). These, however,
are not mentioned by M. Goovaerts, whose general accuiucy may
lead one to suspect a mistulie on Ambtos's part.
13 Ambros, iii. 313.
1* His publications are rarely found in England, the British
Museum only possessing one volume of masses.