Claudin de Sermisy occupied a position of contemporary importance in French music, serving the successive kings of France and the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris in the first half of the 16th century.
Church Music
Church music by Claudin includes a dozen surviving Mass settings and some 110 motets, a St Matthew Passion, settings of the Magnificat, and a four-voice Lamentations for the Holy Week liturgy.
Secular Vocal Music
Claudin made an equally significant addition to the repertoire of French chansons with some 175 works of this kind.