Johannes Cesaris

Little is known about his life, excepting the years he was active in Bourges. He was a cleric for the Duke of Berry in Bourges in 1406, and maître des enfants (choirmaster to the boys) at the cathedral there from 1407 to 1409. In 1417 he was probably the organist at Angers cathedral. A Pierre Cesaris, possibly a relative, was active in Bourges until 1443. There is a reference in a contemporary poem, Le champion des dames by Martin le Franc to Johannes Cesaris being a popular composer in Paris in the early part of the century (this is the same manuscript that contains the famous portraits of Guillaume Dufay and Gilles Binchois).

Of his works, one motet, two ballades, and five rondeaux survive, as well as a sixth rondeau which has a contested attribution (it may be by Passet). Stylistically, they span both the manneristic complexities of the ars subtilior, which was the predominant style in Avignon in the 1390s, and the relatively simple song style of the early 15th century as it was developing in the courts of France and Burgundy. His motet A virtutis ignitio/Ergo beata/Benedicta filia, for four voices with three simultaneously sung texts, is isorhythmic in all parts. One of the secular songs, the rondeau A l'aventure va Gauvain, is in a style which suggests the later generation, and may have been written later than 1417; indeed many of his pieces are from manuscripts dated from early to mid-century. One of his pieces, the ballade Le dieus d'amours, was copied into the famous Chantilly Codex, the illuminated manuscript which is the primary source for the Avignon repertory of the ars subtilior. Tapissier is among the musicians mentioned by Martin le Franc in his long poem, Le Champion des dames: • Tapissier, Carmen, Cesaris, • N'a pas longtemps si bien chanterrent • Qu'ilz esbahirent tout Paris • (Tapissier, Carmen, and Cesaris • Not long ago they did sing so well, • That they astonished all of Paris) Cesaris seems to have been mostly forgotten before the 20th-century; in 1866, the musicologist François-Joseph Fétis remarked that the names Tapissier, Carmen and Cesaris were unknown to music scholars.

Johannes Cesaris is recorded with the occupation composer. Classed in the genre classical music. Recorded as a citizen of France.