Probably from Amiens, Arthus Aux-Cousteaux (or sometimes Hautcousteaux, Arthur or Arturo) was born around 1590. He received his musical education at the Basilique de Saint-Quentin under the tutelage of Jean de Bournonville. In 1613, he became an haute-contre singer in the chapel of Louis XIII, a position he left 14 years later to join the choir of Noyon Cathedral. He succeeded his first teacher at Saint-Quentin shortly before the latter’s death, before being appointed, in June 1634, haute-contre clerk at the Sainte-Chapelle in the Palais de Paris. Promoted to Maître de musique in 1642, he retired in 1651 as a canon at Saint-Jacques-de-l’Hôpital, where he remained until his death.

Besides the Magnificats published by the CMBV (Centre de musique baroque de Versailles) and a few masses, Artus Aux-Cousteaux published several collections of polyphonic airs, often in a comic vein.

In a style close to that of Eustache Du Caurroy, Aux-Cousteaux belongs to the lineage of 16th-century polyphonists. The Octo Cantica Divæ Mariæ Virginis Secundum octo modos, published by Ballard, are intended for all choirmasters, in chant books adapted to the practices of the period, where the voices are considered in their contrapuntal rather than harmonic function, offering a wide range of interpretive possibilities. Since only the even-numbered verses were set to music, the publisher suggests alternating them with plainchant taken from the tenor part of the Canticum Virginis Deiparæ of 1655, the prosody of which has been transcribed by Jean-Yves Hameline. One can also alternate with the odd-numbered verses of Jehan Titelouze's Magnificat primi toni, for example.