Bartholomeus Le Conte

Bartolomeo Le Conte, also known as Comes, Conte or Il Conte, was a French singer and composer who pursued his career in Italy during the sixteenth century. His documented period of activity spans from 1547 to 1565, and his diocese of origin may have been Limoges or Noyon, although this attribution is not known with certainty.

His first appearance in the historical record is a collection of five-voice motets published in Venice in 1547. Between November 1550 and January 1554 he sang as a tenor in the cathedral of Siena, after which he travelled to Rome, where he briefly served in the Cappella Giulia between March and May 1554. On 9 September 1555 he joined the choir of the papal chapel, and in February 1561 he was among the singers designated for the Council of Trent.

In September 1564 he obtained permission to leave the country and, the following spring, announced that he had accepted a position in the service of a lord from his homeland; his resignation was accepted on 13 April 1565. During a reorganisation of the papal chapel that same year, his voice was called into question and he was labelled a heretic, and he was expelled on 1 October.

His surviving output includes the motets of 1547, a four-voice madrigal, Di ciò, cor mio, and a four-voice motet, Agnus Christus in cruce, which circulated anonymously and later under the name of Comes. To these is added a five-voice madrigal, Mordi, mordi, ben mio, attributed to Bartolomeo Il Conte in a book by Francesco Usper. His music is considered competent rather than original: his vocal lines follow the rhythm of the text fluently and the instrumentation is varied, although his harmonic range is limited and the rhythm of his motets is rather uniform.