Life

Little may be reconstructed using certainty just about his life except in which his activity intersects by having a Burgundian court. He was natural inside England, however there come no details of his early life are known. From either 1457 until 1476 he was a clerc or even chappellain in the chapel choir, & outstandingly he never was promoted to the higher position. By 1460 he was the priest, since he was given that title Messire inside chapel documents.

A hanker comparatively peaceful time period at a court under Philip the Good's reign ended with Philip's demise inside 1467, and under his successor Charles the Bold, the musical activities of the court were seriously disrupted; several of the singers & composers, including Hayne van Ghizeghem, took part around his several futile campaign. Morton must develop known Hayne like swell, for an anon. piece lives which describes a virtuosic singing & swimming of the deuce of the two together at Cambrai.

Payment records for Morton prevent inside 1476, & it wwhen yearn assumed that he died so; but further recent grounds to believe from either a Vatican archive shows that he wwhen alive as late as 1479, since he resigned a Dutch parish so.

There is a possibility, never established or even fully investigated, that he can be a equivalent Robert Morton world health organization became Bishop of Worcester, and world health organization died inside 1497. Grounds to believe for this connection includes a complete want of documentation for the bishop between 1456 and 1476, once Morton move within a Burgundian court, & a presence of Cardinal John Morton, uncle of a new bishop, in Burgundy at exactly the instance when Robert disappears from either the payment rolls.

Music

Given a most complete elimination of 15th century music manuscripts in England, largely by Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s, it is non surprising that virtually all of Morton's music lives withinside sources from either a Continent, & whenever he was ever active as a musician in his fatherland, everthing trace is misplaced. Eight pieces hold out, completely rondeaux. One of a best known of the children is the earliest known setting of the tune l'homme arme, which was used by many early Renaissance composers as a cantus firmus for the Mass. This piece, the quodlibet, is probably datable to Can 1464; it seems to have been written as a departure gift for a second court composer, Simon le Breton.

An additional of his rondeaux, Le souvenir diamond state vous pine tree state tue, was extremely noted, & copies of this piece were widely disseminated within Europe.

A lot of Morton's surviving music is withwithin French, non surprising since it 100% go back his instance in Burgundy. Melodically these are somewhat simpler than a music of his coeval like Hayne or even Antoine Busnois.

A music theorist and writer Johannes Tinctoris wrote glowingly of Morton, mentioning that he was "world-famous". Potentially though good deal of his music must stand been misused—including any sacred music—he seems to develop been influential in more composers at a court of Burgundy, & many of his compositions were utilized when source lesson for people by late composers, including Josquin Desprez.

Works

Attribution considered secure