Antoine de Villers

Antoine de Villers was a French composer active around the mid-sixteenth century. His name survives in the sources, but no precise dates for his life are known.

His music appears mainly in collections of chansons printed in Paris by Le Roy & Ballard between 1553 and 1556, which places his output within the tradition of the French polyphonic chanson of the period.

Eighteen chansons are attributed to him in these collections. The four-voice chansons, published in the fifth book of Le Roy & Ballard, set texts of a popular character and are predominantly syllabic, with many short note values, including groups of semiquavers (sixteenth notes), which was still uncommon in the chanson of the time. To these are added thirteen pieces for two voices, mostly arrangements of four-voice models by composers of the previous generation, although they also include reductions of two of his own chansons. He is further credited with one sacred piece, a contrafactum of a secular chanson. The attribution of Au feu d'amour, published in 1547 under the name 'De Villa', is probable but not certain.

His legacy is modest but significant as evidence of the practice of the Parisian chanson in the mid-century. Doubt remains about a possible kinship with François de Villers, a children's master in Amiens.