Josquin des Prez

The Portrait of the Composer and Music Theorist. A new pictorial Theme in Italy in the 15th century.
We do not know of an artist or work of art that can be surely associated with Josquin des Prez. Starting from the portrait of a musician by Leonardo da Vinci, the article is concerned with portraits of composers and music theorists. In contrast to musician and singers, who were often represented in the Middle Ages, these are a new pictorial theme in 15th century Italy, which develops in parallel with the appreciation of the composer.

Although the city of Úbeda (Jaén, Spain) never had a duke or a count, it did have a figure of enormous political power and influence in Francisco de los Cobos y Molina (c.1477-1547). Born in Úbeda, in 1516 Cobos became secretary to the Emperor Charles V and took responsibility for the imperial finances, positions which made him into one of the most powerful people in Spain of that period despite his birth into the gentility in a small town far from court. This study aims to supplement the small amount of information around Cobos’ musical patronage in his home town through analysis of the musico-liturgical regulations and musical repertories related to the Sacra Capilla [Holy Chapel] of El Salvador, founded by Cobos as chapel-burial place.

Contrapuntal passages in Franco-Flemish music around 1500 that suggest the use of forbidden intervals such as augmented unisons, diminished octaves and fifths, are not uncommon.  These intervals are forbidden primarily by our preconceptions of how this music should sound, and secondarily by the application of a rule of counterpoint, mi contra fa, which is widely thought to be a performer's rule, a "rule of Musica ficta".  This paper concentrates on the type of evidence that suggests that such forbidden intervals were actually heard during the 15th and 16th centuries.  There is manuscript evidence implying that the harmonic result of Franco-flemish polyphony, false consonances in particular, sometimes stimulated revisions from those listeners with a pen in hand, whether they were singers, scribes, or editors in a fuller sense.  Linear situations would stimulate the addition of accidentals by performers, harmonic events might cause their erasure, and the transmission of polyphonic notation often caused the regularization of complex signature configurations and therefore the loss of information, which would in turn cause performers to respond with accidental additions or erasures.  The results of this investigation not only tell us something about what musicians would hear and respond to in the course of their singing, but also provide a sense of the relationship between the written and sounding expressions of music.

15th- and 16th-century mensural notation raises many debates and questions among musicologists and modern performers. The contradictory teachings found in the vast body of theory from the Renaissance can be addressed through a better understanding of the treaties’ roles as well as the highlighting of the mechanisms that turn a descriptive system in a set of prescriptive and self-referential rules disconnected from musical practice: the cult of authority, a wish for symmetry and a taste for completeness. Meanwhile, the exploration of the links between tactus and counterpoint makes it possible to define the active time window in which the management of dissonances becomes a dynamic process. The sliding cursor where the Notenbild is scrolled allows for an internal examination of the music that clarifies most of the ambiguities regarding choice of tempo while avoiding the pitfalls of theoretical contradictions.

French abstract :
La notation mensuraliste des XVe et XVIe siècles suscite débats et interrogations parmi les musicologues et les interprètes modernes. Face aux enseignements contradictoires du vaste corpus théorique de la Renaissance, il convient de mieux saisir le rôle de ces traités, mais également de mettre en évidence les mécanismes qui transforment un système descriptif en un ensemble de règles prescriptives auto-référentes déconnectées de la pratique musicale : culte de l’autorité, volonté de symétrie et goût pour la complétude. En parallèle, l’exploration des liens entre tactus et contrepoint permet de qualifier la fenêtre temporelle active à l’intérieur de laquelle la gestion des dissonances devient un processus dynamique. Ce curseur dans lequel défile le Notenbild rend possible un examen interne de la musique qui lève la plupart des ambiguïtés relatives au choix du tempo, tout en évitant l’écueil des contradictions théoriques.

First given as a paper at The Idea of the Renaissance in Our Time, National Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Duke University, USA, 11 April 1991, and subsequently at the Twenty-second Annual Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Music, Glasgow, UK, 11 July 1994.

This article examines the Florentine context of a group of three interrelated madrigals. Shared melodic material between settings of Orpheus’ lament, Qual sarà mai, by Verdelot, Layolle, and Costanzo Festa suggest a shared context—perhaps a commission or competition—in homage to Poliziano’s original play and its first singing Orpheus, Baccio Ugolini. All three works not only set the same ottava from Poliziano’s play, but engage in a number of stylistic and structural devices that evoke the genre of the strambotto, at the same time absorbing and transforming those elements within the newer polyphonic language of the emerging madrigal. These works also reveal an emerging language of lament, which may be related to Isaac’s Quis dabit for the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici; striking similarities to Mille regrets (formerly attributed to Josquin) prompt a re-examination of the context for this work, as well.

El 26 de agosto de 1492 se celebró la coronación de Rodrigo de Borja como el papa Alejandro VI. Para la ceremonia, Marbriano de Orto compuso el motete Salve Regis Mater Sanctissima / Hic est sacerdos, que se conserva copiado – aunque anónimo – dos veces en un mismo manuscrito en el Vaticano. Uno de los principales compositores de la capilla papal, compañero en ella de Josquin Desprez, Marbriano de Orto, fue testigo de la llegada del papa español, y de la oleada de nuevos músicos de tierras hispanas que por primera vez conformarían una auténtica “nación española” entre los cantores papales, algo que no había sucedido en el pontificado anterior de Alonso de Borja (Calixto III). Con esta comunicación presentamos un estudio del citado motete para la coronación de Alejandro VI, en relación con la música y los compositores de la capilla papal del momento, se profundiza en la autoría de la pieza, y se reflexiona sobre los cambios estilísticos que diferenciarán el estilo de Orto o de Josquin del de las figuras españolas que tanto peso tendrán en los años posteriores al papado de Alejandro VI.
On August 26, 1492, the coronation of Rodrigo de Borja as Pope Alejandro VI was celebrated. For the ceremony, Marbriano de Orto composed the motet Salve Regis Mater Sanctissima / Hic est sacerdos, which is preserved copied - although anonymously - twice in the same manuscript in the Vatican. One of the main composers of the papal chapel, and companion there of Josquin Desprez, Marbriano de Orto, witnessed the arrival of the Spanish pope, and the wave of new musicians from Hispanic lands that for the first time would form an authentic "Spanish nation" among the papal cantors, something that had not happened in the previous pontificate of Alonso de Borja (Calixto III). This paper presents a study of the aforementioned motet for the coronation of Alexander VI, the relationship with music and composers of the papal chapel at the time, deepens the authorship of the piece, and reflects on the stylistic changes that will differentiate the style of Orto or Josquin from the Spanish musicians who had such notorious weight in the years after the papacy of Alexander VI.

Durham University, Centre for Death and Life Studies, 13 November 2021, Symposium: Music, Monuments, and Memory. Paper scheduled to be read at the Annual Meeting of the American Musicological Society, Boston, 31 October--3 November 2019 Boston, MA, but not presented owing to international travel disruptions.

“The mountains are in labor, but a ridiculous mouse will be born!” Thus invoking Horace, the Swiss humanist Heinrich Glarean launches a pre-emptive strike against would-be critics of the exordium of Josquin’s monumental _Planxit autem David_. Long regarded as one of the composer’s most stunning masterpieces, the motet now teeters on the brink of canonic disattribution thanks to skeptical readings of Glarean’s disclaimer in his _Dodecachordon_ of 1547. No one has yet considered that issues other than authorship might lie at the root of special pleading for an elegy treating the love of David and Jonathan, a complex and controversial topic deemed homoerotic since the beginning of Christianity.

Somewhat curiously for a polyphonic lament with approximate date, _Planxit autem David_ has resisted hermeneutical mining that would link it with a historical personage and/or elegiac occasion. It is widely presumed to have no liturgical connection beyond several recurrences of the Lamentation tone. Its earliest appearance in Petrucci’s _Motetti C_ of 1504 followed Josquin’s year-long sojourn (April 1503—April 1504) in Ferrara as master of the musical chapel of Ercole d’Este, and its first manuscript source stems from Florence under the Medici restoration about a decade later.

Building on groundwork of Todd Borgerding, my paper maps the rhetoric of aesthetic excess that characterizes Glarean’s opprobrium of Josquin’s love of musical ostentation and novelty, and the use of the adjective “lasciviens,” a word freighted with homoerotic meaning in medieval theoretical discourse. I probe the history of the biblical David and Jonathan story with respect to scholarly interpretations of its original Hebrew text, as well as its treatment in subsequent medieval and renaissance biblical exegesis, philosophy, and the visual arts. I draw attention to overlooked chant sources and an associated liturgical occasion for the text. Finally, I contextualize the composition of the motet with respect to coeval artistic representations of the subject of David in Renaissance Florence, thereby raising the possibility of an unforeseen connection with the creation and public display in that city, from 1501–1504, of Michelangelo’s monumental marble sculpture, _David_.

Web application about the musical work "Il Grillo" by Josquin Desprez. Also available in English (https://cubiculum-musicae.univ-tours.fr/grillon/en/#/) and in Nederlands (https://cubiculum-musicae.univ-tours.fr/grillon/nl/#/).
General information about the Cubiculum musicae project here: https://cubiculum-musicae.univ-tours.fr/presentation/?page_id=22

Several music theorists at the end of the fifteenth century and early sixteenth century had different attitudes to enigmatic canons. Few canons by theorists survive, but their discussions of known (and sometimes lost) works are revealing. Florentius de Faxolis, in his treatise dedicated to Cardinal Ascanio Sforza and completed before August 1492, lists twelve categories of enigmatic canons, but without naming a single piece. Likely candidates have been found for most. One type appears to explain a melody derived from a text, i.e. a soggetto cavato. Before 1492 the only plausible candidates are Josquin’s Missa Hercules dux Ferrariae and his Missa La sol fa re mi. It is argued that the former is more likely, and that it does not date from Josquin’s service in Ferrara, but may have been written in October 1486 as a gift from Ascanio Sforza, who at that point was having an unnamed composer finish a mass to be sent to Ercole.

The article aims to test if the problematic nature of tonal types recently developped about late Renaissance polyphony (i.e. the different grade of resistence a tonal type shows as far as modal representation is concerned) is applicable also to early Renaissance music. To grasp this, the article analyses some of Josquin’s late motets triyng to evaluate (1) to what extent the presence of a pre-existing chant affects the modal contour of a polyphonic composition, and (2) if also in Josquin’s music there are tonal types that behave more problematicly than others. At the end, the analysis led to the consideration that the question whether Josquin thought in modal terms is really a misleading one. Other, more relevant questions concerning the relationships between modality and Josquin’s polyphony should in fact be posed. The first and foremost of these questions is if a modally oriented analytical approach to this music may be considered as legitimate. The authors’ opinion is that a modal approach can indeed account for several important features of Josquin’s motets, both from an analytical as well as from a hermeneutical point of view. Nor are the numerous audacities displayed by his motets a good reason to dismiss such an approach: on the contrary, only a strong sense of ‘tonal’ coherence like that intrinsic to the modal concept can favour a full perception of all deviations from the norms, and their communicative power. At the same time, a full historic legitimacy for the modal approach can be invoked, since prime theorists as Aron, Glarean and Zarlino seem to have forged their theories precisely in order to explain at their best Josquin’s music and that of his contemporaries – or to say the same thing other way round, it was Josquin’s tonal-organising usage that gave birth to Renaissance modal theory, and not that theory that preposterously ‘re-read’ Josquin’s music in terms of modality. Renaissance modal theory, in sum, far from being a normative constraint for composers and/or being foreign to their musical invention, should still be taken as a serious attempt to interpret and appreciate that music.

Durante uma investigação recente que culminou na publicação do capítulo “Relações estruturais entre texto e música em processos imitativos no moteto a quatro vozes” (Nogueira; M., Pereira, F.; Iafelice, C., 2021), observou-se a ocorrência inusitada de sílabas “ut sol” ao longo da parte final do moteto “Isti sunt”, de Palestrina. As notas musicais derivadas destas sílabas geravam relações melódicas de quinta justa ascendente, iniciando-se em g ou em c, de forma sistemática, revelando uma possível inter-relação texto-melodia via codificação por hexacordes. No presente trabalho, tais relações são exploradas a partir de peças selecionadas por prospecção quanto à ocorrência do motto silábico “ut sol”, revelando a predileção de Palestrina por este recurso, possivelmente introduzido por Josquin Desprez em um de seus motetos “Illibata dei virgo nutrix” ou “Virgo prudentissima”. Também inusitada foi a constatação de relações “ut sol” em posições hexacordais “re la”, demonstrando uma flexibilidade para adequação a modos dórico/hipodórico transpostos per bemolle, por diversos compositores. O escopo deste trabalho não permitiu abarcar estudos de transmissão de fontes primárias contendo as obras aqui selecionadas, tal que este expediente será efetuado em uma futura ‘parte 2’, visando estreitar possíveis influências desta técnica entre tais compositores.
Palavras-chave: motto silábico; hexacordes; Josquin; Palestrina; modos.

Ut Josquin Palestrina? Part 1. The melodic conversion of the syllabic motto ‘ut sol’ by hexachords in motets with or without transposition per bemolle

During a recent investigation that culminated in the published chapter “Structural relationships between text and music in imitative processes in the four-voice motet” (Nogueira; M., Pereira, F.; Iafelice, C., 2021), it was observed the unusual occurrence of “ut sol” syllables along the final part of Palestrina's motet “Isti sunt”. The musical notes derived from these syllables generated melodic relations of ascending perfect fifth, starting in g or c, in a systematic way, revealing a possible text-melody interrelation via hexachord encoding. In the present work, such relationships are explored in pieces selected by prospecting for the occurrence of the syllabic motto “ut sol”, revealing Palestrina's predilection for this resource, possibly introduced by Josquin Desprez in one of his motets “Illibata dei virgo nutrix ” or “Virgo prudentissima”. Also unusual was the finding of “ut sol” relations in “re la” hexachord positions, demonstrating flexibility for adaptation to the doric/hypodoric modes transposed per bemolle, by several composers. The scope of this work did not allow to include studies of transmission of primary sources containing the works selected here, such that this expedient will be carried out in a future ‘part 2’, aiming to narrow down possible influences of this technique among such composers.

This paper presents a corpus study that identifies the number of statistically distinct modes used in sacred and secular genres from 1400–1750. Corpora used for the study include Masses, motets, and secular songs from the Franco-Flemish School, works by Palestrina, secular Italian songs with alfabeto guitar tablature from the early seventeenth century, and works by J.S. Bach. A k-means cluster analyses of key profiles determine the number of distinguishable modes in each corpus. The results of this study show that the number of modes present in a corpus depend not only on date of publication but also on the genre of a composition.

espanolEn el ano 2015 se conmemora el quinto centenario de la fundacion en Jaen de una importante cofradia adscrita a la iglesia parroquial de San Andres y conocida con el nombre de Santa Capilla. Lo que diferencia a esta hermandad de otras creadas en la Espana de la epoca es la presencia, estatutariamente establecida, de una capilla de musica con el proposito de enaltecer sus celebraciones religiosas. El presente articulo ofrece un estudio panoramico sobre la Santa Capilla como institucion musical durante el siglo XVI, basandose en nuevos hallazgos archivisticos. El trabajo incluye un analisis de los modelos de mecenazgo que pudo tener en mente su fundador, el protonotario apostolico Gutierre Gonzalez Doncel; una revision critica de las actividades musicales de cantores, instrumentistas y maestros de capilla al servicio de la cofradia; algunas hipotesis sobre el repertorio musical empleado; y un estudio especifico, acompanado de la edicion critica, de dos singulares juegos de verso...

In occasione del quinto centenario della morte di Josquin des Prez (ca. 1450-1521) e della nascita di Philippe de Monte (1521-1603) la Fondazione Guido d’Arezzo, il Centro Studi Guidoniani e la rivista Polifonie organizzano il convegno di studi Cantare la polifonia: da Josquin a Philippe de Monte, che si terrà ad Arezzo nei giorni 25, 26 e 27 agosto 2021, sia in presenza che online.
Il convegno intende offrire un panorama sintetico dello stato della ricerca su questi due maestri della polifonia cinquecentesca, sui generi e sottogeneri musicali del tempo, sui rapporti fra musica vocale e strumentale, e su vari altri aspetti compositivi, notazionali e di prassi esecutiva di interesse attuale in ambito musicologico.

On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Josquin des Prez’s death (ca. 1450-1521) and of Philippe de Monte’s birth (1521-1603), the Fondazione Guido d'Arezzo, the Centro Studi Guidoniani, and the journal Polifonie will host the conference ‘Singing polyphony: from Josquin to Philippe de Monte’ in Arezzo on 25-26 August, 2021 (to be held both in person and online).
The conference aims at providing an overview of current research on these two masters of Renaissance polyphony, as well as on the musical genres and subgenres of the time, on the relationships between vocal and instrumental music, and on other compositional, notational, and performing aspects that are currently the objects of scholarly investigations.

In 1570, Nicolas du Chemin of Paris published Les Meslanges de Maistre Pierre Certon, which contains a déploration — a poetic lament set to music — on the death of Claudin de Sermisy. Although this piece has been mentioned briefly in discussions of déplorations, it has not been the subject of thorough study because it has never been printed in a modern edition. For this study, the five surviving parts were transcribed and the missing sixth part rewritten; the piece is included with the article. With the work now accessible, the essay examines the relationship of Certon's work to other known déplorations.
One feature of the déploration is emulation of the horned composer, and Certon's déploration makes use of some of Sermisy's compositional practices and material. The architectonic form of the piece is consciously modeled on Josquin des Prez's déploration in honor of Johannes Ockeghem, however. During Certon's lifetime, Josquin was revered as an "ancient" and composers often used musical material and techniques associated with him in their own works, engaging rhetorical strategies of imitate. Fine examples of this kind of emulation could serve to demonstrate a composer's superior skill. There are even indications that Certon was engaged in a kind of competition with Orlande de Lassus, who published a volume entitled Les Mellanges in 1560 and again in 1572.
Certon's use of Josquin's déploration procedures can also be seen as an attempt to place Sermisy and himself in a prestigious line of composers beginning with Ockeghem. Comparison of the two pieces reveals possible performance practices for both.

In occasione del quinto centenario della morte di Josquin des Prez (ca. 1450-1521) e della nascita di Philippe de Monte (1521-1603) la Fondazione Guido d’Arezzo, il Centro Studi Guidoniani e la rivista Polifonie organizzano il convegno di studi Cantare la polifonia: da Josquin a Philippe de Monte, che si terrà ad Arezzo nei giorni 25, 26 e 27 agosto 2021, sia in presenza che online.
Il convegno intende offrire un panorama sintetico dello stato della ricerca su questi due maestri della polifonia cinquecentesca, sui generi e sottogeneri musicali del tempo, sui rapporti fra musica vocale e strumentale, e su vari altri aspetti compositivi, notazionali e di prassi esecutiva di interesse attuale in ambito musicologico.

On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Josquin des Prez’s death (ca. 1450-1521) and of Philippe de Monte’s birth (1521-1603), the Fondazione Guido d'Arezzo, the Centro Studi Guidoniani, and the journal Polifonie will host the conference ‘Singing polyphony: from Josquin to Philippe de Monte’ in Arezzo on 25-26 August, 2021 (to be held both in person and online).
The conference aims at providing an overview of current research on these two masters of Renaissance polyphony, as well as on the musical genres and subgenres of the time, on the relationships between vocal and instrumental music, and on other compositional, notational, and performing aspects that are currently the objects of scholarly investigations.

Denne artikel belyser genren Imitations-Magnificat med udgangspunkt i en analyse af Orlando di Lassos "Magnificat Praeter rerum seriem" i historisk/analytisk kontekst med dennes bagvedliggende motet Praeter rerum seriem af Josquien Desprez og komparativt til den mellemliggende imitations-messe "Missa Praeter rerum seriem" af Cipriano di Rore, begge disse værker er også analyseret i artiklen.

Die Verhandlungen auf dem Freiburger Reichstag im Sommer 1498 drehten sich nicht nur um den Gemeinen Pfennig, einer allgemeinen Steuer für das Reich 1 , sondern auch um die europäischen Verwicklungen, in die Kaiser Maximilian I. in jenen Jahren verstrickt war. So erklärte er am 26. Juni auf dem Reichstag, daß er gegen Frankreich und gegen seinen neuen König Ludwig XII. "zum Krieg entschlossen" sei 2. In dieser Auseinandersetzung ging es neben dem Herzogtum Burgund um Nord-Italien, vor allem um das Herzogtum Mailand. Während all dieser Diskussionen um innen-und außenpolitische Vorgänge unterzeichnete Maximilian am 20. Juli 1498 in Freiburg ein Dokument, das im allgemeinen als "Gründungsurkunde der kaiserlichen Hofmusikkapelle" 3 bezeichnet wird. So fern diese organisatorische Maßnahme von allen politischen Verwicklungen zu liegen scheint, paßt sie doch durchaus in den allgemeinen politischen Zusammenhang. Maximilian selbst verweist im Text dieser Urkunde darauf, daß er seinem Kapellmeister Georg Slatkonia verordnet habe, "auf Brabantisch zu discantieren" 4. Er soll also nach Art der Flamen oder Niederländer 5 , die schon seit längerem die führenden Komponisten Europas stellten, mehrstimmig im kunstvollen kontrapunktischen Satz singen lassen. Nun ist in diesem Dokument sicher keine Gründungsurkunde im engeren Sinne zu sehen, gab es doch seit langem Hofkapellen in Wien, Augsburg und Innsbruck. Es handelte sich vielmehr um eine Neuorganisation, durch die eine Hofkapelle eingerichtet wurde, die zwar dem Wiener Hof zugewiesen wurde, den Kaiser aber vor allem auf seinen vielen Reisen zu begleiten hatte. Die Innsbrucker Hofkapelle, die er 1490 von seinem Onkel Sigismund in Tirol übernommen hatte, war zunächst eine "rein kirchlich-liturgische Körperschaft, die ausschließlich dem Gottesdienst zu dienen hat" 6. Die neue Kapelle dagegen galt von Anfang an als ein fester Bestandteil politischer

Some individual motet cycles, especially among the motetti missales, have hitherto received much scholarly attention. Yet due to their limited transmission, numerous questions related to the general use and function of motet cycles remain unanswered. In order to improve our understanding of this phenomenon, I will approach the repertoire primarily from the point of view of the texts. The mapping and analysis of textual characteristics (including liturgical association and contemporary usage) will shed new light on the diversity, function, and significance of motet cycles and will open a discussion for a renewed overall assessment of the extant repertoire.