Josquin de Prez
His revolutionary ways during the renaissance
Andrew Bartlett
4/13/2012
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Josquin de Prez
Josquin de Prez was a revolutionary composer during the Renaissance (1450-1600). Not
only was he famous during the time he was a live, he was famous after he died and still today in
modern times. Josquin was one of the first Franco-Flemish composers that really began to
change the way music was composed. Franco-Flemish means he was from the Netherlands
region, and reflected somewhat on his approach to polyphonic music. He is often placed as the
great composer between Guillaume Dufay and Palestrina. What sets him apart from his time is
can be found in his many works of secular music, his motets such as Christum Ducem, and his
chansons such as Cueurs desolez. Josquin’s music became widespread thanks to an Italian
printer named Petrucci, however, over time there has been concern as to how many compositions
he actually composed. Nevertheless, Josquin is rightly identified as the essence of Renaissance
by many scholars today.
The biography of Josquin is not very clear due to a lack of significant records. There
have been a lot of presumptions about where he was born and when he was born based on other
documented events in his life, but nothing that is 100% accurate. According to some artifacts
such as his will, it can be determined that he was born a Frenchmen somewhere in the Dukes of
Burgundy. It is estimated that he was born between 1450-1455, and died in 1521 on August 27th.
While there may not be much information on his life, there is certainly plenty of information to
be found about what he contributed to music during the Renaissance and into modern day
(Burkholder, Grout, Palisca-2010: pg. 204).
To understand how Josquin des Prez influenced music in the Renaissance, there must first
be an understanding of what life and music was like before and during that time. Before the
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Renaissance, religious music was still set with a high prestige that separated it from non-secular
types of music. Machaut was the leading composer in the Ars Nova, and paved the way for
polyphonic settings of masses with his Messe de Nostre Dame. The music was mostly treble
dominated, which was very new to the Ars Nova. There was still a large use of parallel 5ths and
octaves for cadences, and music was mostly isorhythmic and not too complex. The tenor line
was used as a stable part, so that the other voices could sing above or below it and have a
reference pitch.
As the Renaissance began to emerge, the idea of humanism became a large part of how
people viewed religious concepts and shifted views to favor Earthly observation instead of God.
This shift in mindset provides a new range of music and new venues for performance. This
applies specifically to those musicians who were on a paid salary in the court chapels of rulers,
aristocrats, and church leaders. This was allowed because the musicians were paid by the rulers
and not by the church, so they could be told to perform both secular entertainment and sacred
functions. This mix of culture in music leads way for new compositions of secular music that
begins to blend with the polyphonic techniques of non-secular music.
The first big shift starts with the tenor acting as the heart of a polyphonic composition.
This is different from the previous idea of the tenor being the voice which other voices could
move around. In his article Music in the Culture of the Renaissance, Lowinsky states that
Josquin was largely responsible for developing the means of using imitative style to create music
(Lowinsky-1954: pg. 531). Imitative style gives the same musical theme to every voice in
succession. This creates a very individualized line for each voice that has no direct ties to
another voice, but at the same time they all have the fundamental musical theme that pulls them
together. According to Bukofzer in Fauxbourdon Revisited, this largely pulls away from the
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Cantus Firmus styles that were previously used to create polyphonic compositions, and leads to a
new style where music wasn’t composed one line at a time starting with the Tenor (Bukofzer1952: pg. 38). Now, music was composed for each line simultaneously. What this brings to new
compositions is a sense of perfection and unity between all the parts in a polyphonic composition
that didn’t exist before.
One example of this imitative style is in Jean Mouton’s composition of “Illuminare,
illuminare Jherusalem”. Jean Mouton was another Renaissance composer that had taken many
of Josquin’s styles and used them in his motets and other pieces. From the score book Si placet
parts for motets by Josquin and his contemporaries, there is a modernized version of Jean’s
score and in measures 108 – 118 are some examples of imitative style: see appendix one
(Josquin, Schlagel-1521: pg. 118). Before it is explained where the imitation is, it is essential to
understand what “Si placet” means. There are two parts that are labeled with [si placet] and this
is because they were added over time to the original composition. They do not detract from the
original in any way, but rather they compliment it, because it shows interest in the original
composition and composers were still willing to analyze and work to make a great composition
even better. In Jean’s composition, it is still fairly evident that imitation is in use because the
entrances are very similar to each other. The text at the identified measures is “Et nos vernimus
adorare Dominum” which translates to “And we have come to adore the Lord”. The order of the
melodic lines begin with the Discantus secundus [si placet], then in the Discantus primus,
Contratenor, Tenor secundus [si placet], Bassus, and finally Tenor primus all successively. The
beginning melody is a whole note, followed by two half notes, a dotted half note, and a quarter
note that leads up to another whole note (refer to attached music). With the si placet parts, there
is a slight variation with the second half note being dotted instead of a regular half note. Every
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part has this similar melodic pattern at different entrance times and even on different pitches. It
is very interesting to see this technique used by another composer during the same time as
Josquin, but that is just a way of showing how Josquin was popular during his time, and not just
after he died and became a historical figure.
Josquin’s motets are often considered to be the best of his works. With the diversity in
texts, there was the ability to have more freedom with the music than there was to be had in the
Masses. Most of the motets during this time were written for four voices, however, Josquin
didn’t let the idea of composing for three and up to six voices over encumber him. A good
example is in Josquin’s Miserere, which is a psalm motet written for five voices that was printed
by Petrucci in 1519 (Josquin, Damrosch-1898 pg. 9,23,35). The motet is based on a simple
canto fermo that is repeated one degree lower each time it appears in the first and third sections.
In the second section it is repeated one degree higher: see appendix two. The publisher of the
music Johannes Ott questioned if people would be able to identify this pattern just by listening to
it because there was nothing that pointed it out or accented it. Aside from Johannes Ott’s
concerns, this type of compositional technique helps to separate Josquin from his anonymous
contributors. Perkins wrote in Josquin’s Qui habitat and the Psalm Motets that Josquin has a
very unique compositional procedure that can be found in his motets (Perkins-2009). Perkins
states in his book is that Josquin uses a “skillful and ingenious use of a variety of iterative
procedures, including internal repetitions” to set his compositions apart from his other
contemporaries. By looking at reliable motets, such as Josquin’s Miserere, theorists and
analysts can compare different works to determine if it is a mere imitation of Josquin’s style, or
if it is indeed Josquin’s brilliance.
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Chansons were no exception when it comes to Josquin having an impact on the
compositional style. There is a varied idea of how many chansons he composed vs. how many
chansons were attributed to him, but the range is approximately 50-70 in total. Josquin’s new
style started with his break away from the formes fixes, which is the repetitive patterns that are
often found in rondeaus, virelais, and ballades. While he still set some of his chansons in the
formes fixes he mostly composed freely as he would if he were composing a motet. In Cueurs
desolez, one of Josquin’s five voice chansons, the voice singing the theme “Plorans ploravit in
nocte” has a very distinct dramatic and sad/lamenting sound to it (Flamenca-2000). Josquin’s
chansons are his only works that include this feature and he makes it very apparent to the
listeners. Some of the ways he can make his works so filled with emotions is by texturizing the
text and what he composes. For example, when there is a sad or lamenting sound, the music is
slower, and there might be a solo voice or two singing homophonically. If the music is bright
and uplifting, then all the voices will be singing with ornate polyphonic chords that portray a
sense of happiness in the music (Burkholder, Palisca-2010: pg. 208-230). This largely
characterizes French music and chansons by Josquin’s standards, and separates it from the style
of the old Burgundian types of Chanson.
So how did Josquin’s music become so popular all across Europe during his own
lifetime? It was the invention of movable type and Ottaviano Petrucci that made this possible.
In Mouser’s article Petrucci and his shadow: a case study of reception history, there are several
descriptions of how Petrucci was able to make quality print and was able to disseminate it across
Europe. Petrucci’s method of printing quality was unmatched by other printers of the time,
because he used a triple press system where he first stamped the staves, then the music, and then
the words. Petrucci was not only a quality printer, he also had a keen judgment of whose music
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he should put into his books. Mouser points out in the study that over time, other publications of
music books came out, and a large portion of them contained the same selection of music as
Petrucci’s books (Mouser-2004: pg. 19-52). That is to say, Petrucci chose songs that became
popular and continued to be performed and printed even after his death. Josquin was very
fortunate in the fact that Petrucci decided to publish a great deal of Josquin’s work. According to
Boorman’s book Ottaviano Petrucci: A Catalogue Raisonne, in 1514 Petrucci published
Josquin’s book of masses,
which happens to be one of the first books that was published with only one composer’s
music inside (Boorman-2006). Petrucci was essential to boosting Josquin’s status as a brilliant
composer during the Renaissance. Josquin was in fact so popular, that people were attributing
their own compositions to Josquin’s name and getting them published in other books. This was
done to help boost sales of a book, but in the long run of history it has caused some confusion as
to what Josquin has actually composed, and what has been falsely attributed to him. Books such
as Petrucci’s Canti B and other reliable books help to shed light on Josquin’s compositional
styles to compare with other works of music in hopes of weeding out the songs that weren’t
actually composed by him (Petrucci, Hewitt, Lowinsky-1967).
The Renaissance was blessed with Josquin de Prez, and so are we now in a modern day
sense. It was Josquin who helped revolutionize the way music was composed and performed
then and now. His motet Miserere and Mouton’s Illuminare, illuminare Jherusalem are only two
examples that were shown that contained Josquin’s imitative techniques and his brilliance for
making his compositions his own in very unique ways. He was able to add emotions into music
that were hard to find elsewhere such as in his chanson Cueurs desolez. Josquin was recognized
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and famous during his own lifetime through the efforts of Petrucci, and he is famous today
because of his many works that persist through time.
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Citations
Boorman, S. (2006). Ottaviano Petrucci: A Catalogue Raisonne. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Bukofzer, M.F. (1952) Fauxbourdon Revisited. The Musical Quarterly. Xxxviii, p. 38.
Burkholder, J, Palisca, C. (2010). Norton anthology of western music (6th edition). New York
London: W. W. Norton & Company.
Burkholder, J, Grout, D, Palisca, C. (2010). A history of western music (8th edition). New York
London: W.W. Norton & Company.
Flamenca, C. (2000) Cueurs desolez. Oh Flanders Free: Flemish Renaissance music [cd]. Naxos
Josquin des pres, Frank Damrosch (1898). G. Schirmers collection of oratorios and
cantatas. Miserere mei Deus. New York: G. Schirmer.
Josquin des prez, Schlagel S.P. (1521) Si placet parts for motets by Josquin and his
contemporaries/edited by Stephanie P. Schlagel. Wisconsin, Middleton: A-R
Editions.
Lowinsky, E.E. (1954) Music in the culture of the renaissance. Journal of the History of Ideas,
xv, p. 531.
Mouser, M.J. (2004). Petrucci and his Shadow: A Case Study of Reception History. Fontes Artis
Musicae, 51(1), 19-52.
Perkins, L.L. (2009). Josquin’s Qui habitat and the Psalm Motets. Journal of musicology.
Petrucci, O., Hewitt, H., & Lowinsky, E.E. (1967). Canti B Numero Cinquanta Venice, 1502.
Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.