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UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

Date:______

I, ______, hereby submit this work as part of the requirements for the degree of: in:

It is entitled:

This work and its defense approved by:

Chair: ______

Musical Rhetoric in the Multi-Voice Chansons of Josquin des Prez and His

Contemporaries (c. 1500-c. 1520)

A dissertation submitted to the

Graduate School

of the University of Cincinnati

In partial fulfillment of the

requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

In the Division of Composition, Musicology and Theory

of the College-Conservatory of Music

VASSILIKI KOUTSOBINA

B.S., Chemistry

University of Athens, Greece, April 1989

M.M., Music History and Literature

The Hartt School, University of Hartford, Connecticut, May 1994

Committee Chair: Dr. Stephanie P. Schlagel

2008

ABSTRACT

The first quarter of the sixteenth century witnessed tightening connections between rhetoric, poetry, and music. In theoretical writings, composers of this period are evaluated according to their ability to reflect successfully the emotions and meaning of the text set in musical terms. The same period also witnessed the rise of the five- and six-voice chanson, whose most important exponents are Josquin des Prez, Pierre de La Rue, and Jean Mouton. The new expanded textures posed several compositional challenges but also offered greater opportunities for text expression. Rhetorical analysis is particularly suitable for this repertory as it is justified by the composers’ contacts with humanistic ideals and the newer text-expressive approach.

Especially Josquin’s exposure to humanism must have been extensive during his long-lasting residence in Italy, before returning to Northern France, where he most likely composed his multi- voice chansons. The present dissertation explores the musico-rhetorical resources that demonstrate how composers read and interpreted contemporary poetic texts in conjunction with their efforts to accommodate larger textures in the secular domain. “Musical rhetoric” is thus understood as the totality of musical gestures that aim to secure a successful delivery of musical speech.

Musico-rhetorical analysis of the repertory demonstrates that composers of the time read more in the poetry they set than the rhyme scheme and the syntax of the verses. They responded, albeit by various and subtle musical means, to the semantic implications of the text, its bawdy, serious, or mixed register, to the changes from indirect speech to personal declaration or third- person address, to the sonorous quality of the verse and its projection through the expanded polyphonic fabric, and to the resonances of the text with other texts or musical settings.

iii Especially in chansons in the courtly register, composers frequently employed gestures derived form classical rhetoric either to alert the listener to a specific textual point or to weave meaningful connections that project the larger argument of the text. The expanded texture functioned as a multi-layered canvas on which multiple readings of the text were juxtaposed in intricate relationships.

iv v

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

No dissertation is prepared single-handedly and I have been especially fortunate in the support I received from my professors, colleagues, and friends. My deepest thanks go foremost to my advisor, Stephanie P. Schlagel, for her swift and thorough readings, her astute observations, and her patient guidance in sharpening my research skills, critical thinking, and writing style. I cannot but express my deepest gratitude while during the same period she was so willing to read my drafts for conference papers and the numerous versions of my first published article. My most sincere appreciation goes to Professor Miguel Roig-Francoli, whose theory seminar provided the impetus for undertaking this project. I thank him deeply for his encouragement and support to pursue this research and for the valuable advice he provided on my many analytical questions regarding the thorny issue of Renaissance modality. My gratitude also goes to Professor Edward Nowacki for his confidence in my abilities and encouragement throughout my studies at the University of Cincinnati, his thought-provoking contributions during the Colloquium, as well as the lucid English translations of Latin passages he was always so eager to provide. I must also thank Professor Lowanne Jones, Head of the Department of

Romance Languages and Literatures, for her helpful suggestions on translating and interpreting the frequently ambiguous Middle French lyrics of my repertory.

Studying with Professors Stephen Cahn, bruce mcclung, Mary Sue Morrow, Karin

Pendle, Hilary Poriss, and Robert Zierolf enabled me to develop as an independent scholar and build my confidence for undertaking this dissertation and sharing my findings with the scholarly community. I would like especially to thank Professor Cahn for the inspiring conversations he shared with me. I am also indebted to Honey Meconi for reading and commenting on my first

vi paper to be presented at an international conference and the subsequent follow-up she offered whenever I asked.

The University of Cincinnati Summer Graduate Student Research Award and

Distinguished Dissertation Fellowship made it possible for me to continue and expand my research, and my appreciation extends to the nomination committees for reading through and evaluating my proposals. I am also thankful to the excellent resources and the helpful staff of the

College-Conservatory of Music Library, particularly the Head Librarian Mark Palkovic, whose office door was always open for reference inquiries.

I was fortunate to enjoy the friendship of my colleague Jewel Smith, College-

Conservatory of Music doctoral graduate, who was always alerting, preparing, and encouraging me for the next daunting step. My most sincere thanks go to my friends Thomas LeClair and

Anna Aliki Antoniou, as well as Stefanos Manganaris and Theodosia Kalfas for opening their homes to me during my visits in Cincinnati at the final stages of the dissertation process. Special thanks are due to my cordial friends Will and Jane Hillenbrand for their good cheer, faith, and support, and to my numerous friends from Terrace Park who were always showing interest in and enthusiasm for my project. I am grateful to my parents, Thomas and Helen, for all that they have done for me. To my family, Argy, Stergios, and little Thomas, goes my deepest gratitude for sharing this lifetime experience with me.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………...iii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………………..vi

LIST OF TABLES AND MUSICAL EXAMPLES……………………………………………....x

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………………...1

Chapter

I. RHETORIC AND HUMANISM DURING THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES: THE IMPACT OF THE “WORD”…………………………………..22

The foundations of rhetoric Classical learning in the Renaissance Humanism and rhetoric north of the Alps Rhetoric and music

II. LYRIC AND CHANSON VERSE IN THE LATE FIFTEENTH AND EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURIES………………………………………………………….54

French poetry in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries Chanson verse and the multi-voice song repertory

III. JOSQUIN’S MULTI-VOICE CHANSONS ON A MELODY OF HIS OWN INVENTION…………………………………………………………………………95

IV. JOSQUIN’S MULTI-VOICE CHANSONS ON A CANTUS PRIUS FACTUS…...207

V. ASPECTS OF INTERTEXTUALITY IN JOSQUIN’S MULTI-VOICE CHANSONS………………………………………………………………………..287

VI. PIERRE DE LA RUE’S MULTI-VOICE CHANSONS…………………………...349

VII. MULTI-VOICE CHANSONS BY JEAN MOUTON AND OTHER CONTEMPORARY COMPOSERS………………………………………………..416

Multi-voice chansons by Jean Mouton Multi-voice chansons by other contemporary composers

CONCLUSIONS……………………………………………………………………………….502

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BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………………510

Appendix

1. INVENTORY OF MULTI-VOICE CHANSONS FROM THE 1490s TO C. 1520…...531

2. CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT SOURCES AND PRINTED EDITIONS OF MULTI-VOICE CHANSONS………………………………………………………….537

TABLES

Table Page

1.1 Rhetorical figures and tropes in Rhetorica ad Herennium and Institutio oratoria that can have possible applications in music………………………………...... 52

3.1 Multi-voice chansons by Josquin according to the type of pre-compositional material……………………………………………………………………………...... 96

3.2 Chansons based on Josquin’s own melodies (Group 1)……………………………….97

4.1 Chansons on a known cantus prius factus (Group 2) showing the provenance of the borrowed material………………………………………………………………...208

5.1 Motivic content of the individual phrases in “La tricotée est par matin levée” and Je me complains de mon amy (in the canonic voices)………………………………..308

5.2a Comparison of the Susato 154515 phrase structure of the canonic melodies in Josquin’s N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir with Le Brung’s Si vous n’avez aultre desir…………………………………………………………………………....343

5.2b Comparison of the Mellange15722 phrase structure of the canonic melodies in Josquin’s N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir with Le Brung’s Si vous n’avez aultre desir……………………………………………………………………………343

6.1 Multi-voice chansons attributed to Pierre de La Rue in contemporary sources……...350

6.2 Multi-voice chansons conjecturally attributed to Pierre de La Rue…………………..350

7.1 Multi-voice chansons by Mouton, divided according to the nature of the poetry……418

7.2 Multi-voice chansons of the first quarter of the sixteenth century by composers other than Josquin, La Rue, and Mouton……………………………………………..466

MUSICAL EXAMPLES

Example Page

3.1 Josquin, Cueur langoreulx………………………………………………………...... 113

3.2 Josquin, Douleur me bat……………………………………………………………...123

3.3 Josquin, VienNB Mus. 18746, Douleur me bat, Contratenor, mm. 38-53….………..130

3.4 Josquin, Plusieurs regretz………………………………………………………….....135

3.5 Josquin, Incessament livré suis……………………………………………………….144

3.6 Josquin, Regretz sans fin, section B.………………………………………………….153

3.7 Josquin, Plaine de dueil…………….………………………………………………...159

3.8 Josquin, Parfons regretz……………….…………………………………………...... 168

3.9 Josquin, Du mien amant………………………………….…………………………...177

3.10 Josquin, Pour souhaitter……………………………………………………………...187

3.11 Canonic melodies of Josquin's own invention (Group 1 chansons), including the non-canonic Je ne me puis tenir d'aimer……………………………………………..193

4.1 Josquin, Faulte d'argent………………………………………………………………219

4.2 Josquin, Allégez moy………………………………………………………………….227

4.3 Ockeghem, S'elle m'amera/Petite camusette…………………………………………237

4.4 Josquin, Petite camusette……………………………………………………………..239

4.5 Josquin, Se congié prens……………………………………………………………...247

4.6 Josquin, Tenez moy en vos bras. Superius/Tenor phrase structure…………………...259

4.7 Josquin, Tenez moy en voz bras………………………………………………………263

4.8 Josquin, Je ne me puis tenir d'aimer………………………………………………….274

xi 5.1 Josquin, Douleur me bat, mm. 34-40…………………………………………………295

5.2 Josquin, Plusieurs regretz, mm. 31-43……………………………………………….300

5.3 Josquin, Douleur me bat, mm. 3-15…………………………………………………..301

5.4a Josquin, Plusieurs regretz, Tenor, mm. 43-49………………………………………..302

5.4b Josquin, Nymphes, nappés, mm. 35-49……………………………………………….303

5.5 Tenor of Belle tenés moy la promesse/La tricotée est par matin levée/La tricotée (after Brown 1963)………………...………………………………………………….306

5.6 Josquin, Je me complains de mon amy (after Susato 154515)………………………...309

5.7a Josquin, Je me complains, mm. 19-22………………………………………………..315

5.7b Josquin, Je me complains, mm. 41-51………………………………………………..315

5.7c Josquin, Je me complains, mm. 51-57………………………………………………..315

5.8a Josquin, Fortuna dun gran tempo, mm. 1-10………………………………………...319

5.8b De Vigne, Franc coeur qu'as tu/Fortuna dun gran tempo, mm. 10-14……………...320

5.8c Anon., Le serviteur infortuné, mm. 32-34……………………………………………320

5.9 Josquin, Pour souhaitter, mm. 1-9…………………………………………………...322

5.10a Josquin, Vous l'arez, Tenor, ll. 1 and 3……………………………………………….325

5.10b Josquin, Vous l'arez, mm. 1-9……………….………………………………………..327

5.11 Josquin, Vous ne l'aurez pas………………………………………………………….328

5.12 Josquin, Vous l'arez, mm. 33-43……………………………………………………...334

5.13 Josquin, N'esse pas ung grant desplaisir……………………………………………..337

5.14 Phrase structure of canon in N'esse pas ung grant desplaisir, according to Susato (S) and the Mellange (M)……………………………………………………..345

5.15 Phrase structure of canon in Si vous n'avez aultre desir……………………………...346

xii 6.1 La Rue, D'ung aultre aymer, Superius and Tenor (after VienNB Mus. 18746)……...358

6.2 La Rue, Fors seullement (after Picker 1981)…………………………………………362

6.3 La Rue, Cent mille regretz (after Smijers)……………………………………………370

6.4 La Rue, Incessament mon povre cueur, Quinta (after Smijers)………………………378

6.5 La Rue (?), Cueurs desolez/Dies illa (after Picker 1965)…………………………….381

6.6 La Rue (?), Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit (after Smijers)………………………...389

6.7 Deuil et ennuy, mm. 12-35 (after Picker 1965)………………………………………401

6.8 Quant il advient (after Picker 1965)………………………………………………….405

6.9 Je ne dis mot (after Picker 1965)……………………………………………………..411

7.1 Mouton, Du bon du coeur, Superius (after Jacobs 1982)…………………………….423

7.2 Mouton, Vray Dieu d'amours (after Jacobs 1982)……………………………………426

7.3 Mouton, Vray Dieu, qu'amoureux (after Jacobs 1982)……………………………….432

7.4 Mouton, Le berger et la bergère (after Jacobs 1982)………………………………...443

7.5 Mouton, Ce que mon coeur pense (after Jacobs 1982)……………………………….450

7.6 Mouton, La rousée du mois de may (after Jacobs 1982)……………………………..458

7.7 Anon., Je suis d'Alemagne/Joliettement (after Brown 1983)………………………...469

7.8a De Vigne, Franc coeur qu'as tu/Fortuna dun gran tempo, Superius and Tenor (after Hewitt 1967)……………………………………………………………………472

7.8b De Vigne, Franc coeur qu'as tu/Fortuna dun gran tempo, mm. 1-14………………..473

7.9 Prioris, Par vous je suis (after Keahey and Douglas 1985)…………………………..479

7.10 Le Brung, N'avez point veu mal assenée (after Bernstein 1990)……………………..487

7.11 Richafort, D'amour je suis desheritée (after Elzinga 1999)………………………….496

xiii

INTRODUCTION

By the opening decades of the sixteenth century, humanism had become a predominant mode of thought throughout Europe, albeit with varying degrees of intensity and with markedly different profiles depending on the region. The humanistic concern with rhetoric, its applications, and effects had a profound impact on all aspects of literature as well as on the other arts. French poetic theory at the turn of the sixteenth century, in particular, greatly emphasizes the relationship between rhetoric, poetry, and music. In musical theoretical treatises of the second half of the fifteenth century, theorists frequently refer to the tightening of connections between the text and its musical setting, often applying rhetorical nomenclature to describe such relations.

In the writings of the following century one composer is repeatedly singled-out for the great care with which he set his texts: Josquin des Prez (c. 1450/55-1521).

German interest in history and in Josquin’s music, in particular, greatly contributed to keeping the composer’s name alive throughout the sixteenth century. Publications of Josquin’s motets in German anthologies, such as the Liber selectarum cantionum (1520) and the Novum et insigne opus musicum (1537-38), fuelled a posthumous interest in the composer’s works and made readily available his motet repertory, subsequently studied and commented upon by mid- sixteenth century theorists.1 The main feature of Josquin’s music that implicitly emerges as the focus of the paratextual matter of the above two publications (preface, dedicatory letters, and epilogue), and which justifies the centrality of his works therein, is the composer’s superb

1 Liber selectarum cantionum quas vulgo mutetas appellant (Augsburg: Grimm & Wyrsung, 1520) [RISM 15204]; Novum et insigne opus musicum (Nürnberg: Formschneider, 1537-38) [RISM 15371].

1 capability in successfully conveying the meaning and emotion of the text.2 Later oltremontani

theorists, such as Adrianus Petit Coclico and Hermann Finck, explicitly acknowledge Josquin’s

pivotal role in establishing word-note relationships.3 In his Dodecachordon, the Swiss humanist

and music theorist Glarean compares Josquin to Virgil in his ability to express effectively human

emotions.4

In addition to the above criticisms, which mainly concern his sacred music, Josquin’s

name also came to be associated with a major innovation taking place in the realm of secular music: the expansion of texture from the customary three and four voices to five- and six-part structures. Sacred compositions for more than four voices had already appeared among

Ockeghem’s contemporaries but the expansion of texture in secular music only emerges c. 1500.

Although Josquin may not have been the first composer to contribute a five-voice chanson, he eventually became tightly associated with secular songs for larger textures.5 Among his most

important contemporaries only Pierre de La Rue (c. 1452-1518) and Jean Mouton (before 1459-

1522) have composed a substantial number of such chansons, yet Josquin’s output largely

outnumbers them. Thirty-five chansons for extended textures will be included in the New

2 For a thorough discussion of the reception history of Josquin’s music in the sixteenth century and the mid- century renewed interest in the composer initiated in Germany see Stephanie P. Schlagel, “Josquin des Prez and His Motets: A Case Study in Sixteenth-Century Reception History” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1996) and idem, “The Liber selectarum cantionum and the ‘German Josquin Renaissance,’ ” Journal of Musicology 19, no. 4 (2002): 564-615. 3 Adrianus Petit Coclico, Compendium musices (Nürnberg: Berg & Neuber, 1552); facs. (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1954); trans. Albert Seay, Colorado College Music Press Translations, vol. 5 (Colorado Springs: Colorado College, 1973); Hermann Finck, Practica musica (Wittenberg: Rhaw, 1556); facs. (Hildesheim: Olms, 1971). 4 Heinrich Glarean, Dodecachordon (Basle: Petri, 1547); facs. (New York: Broude Brothers, 1967), 367- 368; trans. Clement A. Miller, Musicological Studies and Documents, vol. 6 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1965), 264-65. 5 For a discussion of contemporary associations between Josquin and composition for larger textures see Kate van Orden, “Chansons from un siècle plus heureux,” in International Conference: New Directions in Josquin Scholarship, Princeton University, 29-31 October 1999, 336-337.

2 Josquin Edition, whereas La Rue is credited only with five and Mouton with six.6 Within the

approximately ninety multi-voice chansons surviving from the first quarter of the sixteenth

century, Josquin’s output accounts for more than one third of the entire repertory (for a complete

list of five- and six-voice chansons from the first quarter of the sixteenth century see Appendix

1).7

Within the genre of the chanson, therefore, the subgenre of multi-voice song emerges

during a period of continuing change dominated by humanistic notions of parity between the text

and its musical setting. Its most important exponent, Josquin des Prez, has been highly praised

for his effective union of words and music. Josquin’s exposure to humanistic thought most

certainly took place during his long-lasting residence in Italy between 1484 and 1504, that is,

before his return to Condé-sur-l’Escaut, where he most likely composed his multi-voice songs.8

While neither La Rue nor Mouton are known to have resided in Italy, it is safe to assume that they received an education informed by humanistic ideas: La Rue was educated in a maîtrise and

Mouton was ordained a priest by 1483.9 The multi-voice chanson of the first quarter of the

sixteenth century, that is, of the period that spans the first appearance of this subgenre to the

death of its most important exponents (c. 1500-c. 1520) constitutes, therefore, an appealing and

distinct repertory to study from a rhetorical perspective and account for comprehensively.

6 Josquin’s five- and six-voice chansons will appear in vols. 29 and 30 of the New Josquin Edition, respectively. For their contents see Willem Elders, ed., Proceedings of the International Josquin Symposium Utrecht 1986 (Utrecht: Vereniging voor Nederlandse Musiekgeschiedenis, 1991), 216. 7 Lawrence F. Bernstein has coined the term “multi-voice chanson” for settings of French poetry that extend beyond the common four-voice texture. See his “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” in The Josquin Companion, ed. Richard Sherr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 393-422. 8 Josquin was employed in Italian courts almost without interruption from 1484 to 1504. Paul A. Merkley and Lora L. M. Merkley, Music and Patronage in the Sforza Court, Studi sulla storia della musica in Lombardia: Collana di testi musicologici, vol. 3 (Turnhout, Netherlands: Brepols, in association with the Pietro Antonio Locatelli Foundation, 1999). Josquin’s whereabouts between 1496 and 1503 are still mostly unknown. 9 Mouton traveled to Italy in 1515 as part of François I’s retinue. Lewis Lockwood, “Jean Mouton and Jean Michel: New Evidence on French Music and Musicians in Italy, 1505-1520,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 32, no. 2 (1979): 212-213.

3 Starting from the premise that chanson settings realize readings of poetic texts in musical form, this dissertation provides an analysis and interpretation of the music on the basis of internal musical evidence, classical rhetorical principles, contemporary poetic practices, and modern literary theory. The aim of the project is to overview the musico-rhetorical resources that demonstrate how composers read and interpreted contemporary poetic texts in conjunction with their efforts to accommodate larger textures in the secular domain. “Musical rhetoric” can be understood then as the totality of musical gestures that aim to secure a successful delivery of musical speech. Within this expanded view of musical rhetoric, I assess the expressive means idiosyncratic to music, as well as how the principles and figures of classical oratory found a place in the expressive apparatus of secular vocal composition of the period.

In addition to the expansion of texture, secular music for francophone audiences at the turn of the sixteenth century undergoes important changes on several other levels: the formes fixes give way to a variety of free forms; courtly imagery coexists with the popular register; melodic writing becomes predominantly syllabic; and imitation is increasingly applied as a structural device. For all such changes we can speculate a humanistic influence, at least to a certain extent. First, with the humanistic emphasis on the written word, the shift from the formes fixes to freer forms may be said to signal a rhetorical approach to chanson composition in the sense of an oration that unfolds through time without verbatim repetition of already exposed material. Second, the increasing infiltration of themes of a popular register and their accompanying vocabulary into a domain that has been for centuries embedded in the courtly love tradition could be partly traced to the emphasis on the vernacular advocated by the humanists.

Third, scholars have already attributed the change from melismatic to predominantly syllabic writing at the end of the fifteenth century to the humanistic concern with the text, to which the

4 music had to fit accordingly. In order for the meaning of the text to be properly understood, melodies had to follow the rhythmic pace of the poetic verse, in a note-to-syllable general framework. At the same time, the rise of vernacular song, with its inherently syllabic melodies, may have equally contributed to the shift towards syllabic declamation. The rise of the vernacular lyric and the syllabic treatment of the melodies may thus be viewed as interrelated phenomena, commonly traced to humanistic ideas.10

None of the above issues has received as much attention in musicological literature as the

Renaissance concept of imitatio and its applications to music.11 Imitation, the explicit or concealed reference to earlier texts, is one of the major concerns of humanistic literature.12 The term enters musical theoretical discussion during the closing decades of the fifteenth century in the work of Bartolomeo Ramos de Pareja. In his Practica Musica, Ramos applies the verbal form of the noun, “to imitate,” as a purely technical term to describe the replication (exact or approximate) of one voice by another: “But the best method of organizing is when the organum

10 I do not imply that vernacular song was syllabic due to humanistic ideas, but that the turn of compositional writing to predominantly syllabic declamation could have been equally influenced by both the vernacular lyric, which possibly rose in prominence due to humanism, and humanistic ideas about the text and its understanding. 11 The rhetorically-oriented educational curriculum of the time has guided modern scholars to explain the increase of polyphonic borrowing in the fifteenth century as a musical response to classical theories of imitation. However, musicologists are not always in agreement as to whether we can trace such change to the rhetorical concept of imitation, or which compositional periods and techniques best qualify for such an interpretation. The notion that borrowing practices such as “parody” constitute musical expressions of the rhetorical imitatio entered musicological discussion with Lewis Lockwood’s, “On ‘Parody’ as Term and Concept in Sixteenth-Century Music,” in Aspects of Medieval and Renaissance Music: A Birthday Offering to Gustave Reese, ed. Jan La Rue (New York: W. W. Norton, 1966), 560-575. Subsequent studies elaborating Lockwood’s views include Howard M. Brown, “Emulation, Competition, and Homage: Imitation and Theories of Imitation in the Renaissance,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 35, no. 1 (1982): 1-48; Leeman L. Perkins, “The L’Homme Armé Masses of Busnoys and Ockeghem: A Comparison,” Journal of Musicology 3, no. 4 (1984): 363-396; and J. Peter Burkholder, “Johannes Martini and the Imitation Mass of the Late Fifteenth Century,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 38, no. 3 (1985): 470-523. At the other end of the spectrum, Honey Meconi is skeptical about such wholesale interpretations of musical borrowing. Honey Meconi, “Does Imitatio Exist?” Journal of Musicology 12, no. 2 (1994): 152-178. 12 For different contemporary views regarding the rhetorical imitatio consult G. W. Pigman, “Versions of Imitation in the Renaissance,” Renaissance Quarterly 33, no. 1 (1980): 1-32.

5 imitates the tenor in ascending and descending . . . Practical musicians call this process fuga.”13

Although in this context imitation has a rather restricted sense, its connection to the classical

notion of modeling upon someone or something else is retained. In fact, in the writings of the

late sixteenth-century theorist Pietro Pontio, the two versions of musical imitation—successive

entries of a melody in different voices and a composition modeled on another—are conflated.14

Furthermore, the means of structural organization through imitation proposed by Ramos above

may again be related to the humanistic emphasis on the text, since imitative points mainly occur

at the beginning of textual phrases or at important poetic junctures; the delineation of the verses

through points of imitation reflects the poetic structure and thus contributes to a better projection

of the text across the music.

The prominence of rhetorical ideals during the first quarter of the sixteenth century in

conjunction with the above-mentioned changes taking place in the domain of secular music, and

which are possibly partly traceable to humanistic influences, invite the analysis of the multi-

voice song repertory from a rhetorical perspective.

Methodology

Our understanding and appreciation of late medieval repertories has greatly benefited

from rhetorical analysis. The path-breaking study applying this brand of analysis, Patrick

Macey’s dissertation “Josquin’s Miserere mei Deus: Context, Structure, and Influence,” is

focusing on Josquin’s motet.15 Macey convincingly demonstrated that rhetorical thought is at the

heart of Miserere mei, Deus both at the large structural level and in the surface details. His model

13 “Est tamen modus organizandi optimus quando organum imitatur tenorem in ascensu aut descensu . . . quem modum practici fugam appelant . . . ” Bartolomeo Ramos de Pareja, Musica practica (Bologna: Baltasar de Hiriberia, 1482); facs. (Bologna: Forni, n.d.), 55; trans. Clement A. Miller, Musicological Studies and Documents, vol. 44 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1993), 122-123. 14 Pietro Pontio, Dialogo (Parma: E. Viothi, 1595), 106. 15 Patrick Macey, “Josquin’s Miserere mei Deus: Context, Structure, and Influence” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1985).

6 of musico-rhetorical analysis for assessing Josquin’s compositional strategies relied on the

principles and figures of the classical orators, as well as those described by seventeenth- and

eighteenth-century music theorists. In his more recent essay “Josquin and Musical Rhetoric,”

however, Macey restricted the use of rhetorical figures to those derived from classical oratory

only.16 The latter approach has the advantage of eschewing the fundamental question and

problem of this kind of analysis: whether or not retrospectively applying figures described by

music theorists at least a hundred years after the composition of a musical work is a legitimate and useful way to analyze it or not. As Brian Vickers demonstrated, music theorists of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries often assigned different meanings to the same rhetorical

figure, thereby making it impossible to talk about a generally agreed upon system.17 To rely,

therefore, upon the figures of the classical orators ensures a more consistent and reliable

framework for rhetorical analysis. In addition, Vickers expressed skepticism about applying a

linguistic system (rhetoric) to a non-linguistic one (music). His main criticism is that, in doing

so, musicians and critics unavoidably transform the nature of the figures of speech from semantic

to structural. He, therefore, advises caution in distinguishing between what is purely musical

from what can be derived from rhetoric.18

Lawrence Bernstein has applied a different brand of rhetorical analysis in his study of

Josquin’s stylistic approach specific to multi-voice chanson composition.19 In his most recent

16 Patrick Macey, “Josquin and Musical Rhetoric: Miserere mei, Deus and Other Motets,” in The Josquin Companion, ed. Richard Sherr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 495-530. This essay is a consolidated version of his dissertation. 17 Brian Vickers, “Figures of Rhetoric/Figures of Music?” Rhetorica 2, no. 1 (1984): 1-44. 18 Vickers, “Figures of Rhetoric.” In a more recent study, Timothy McGee expresses similar reservations. He concludes that prior to the late sixteenth century “it is possible to discuss compositions in terms of their use of rhetorical figures as long as one does not assume that they match those of the text.” Timothy J. McGee, “Music, Rhetoric, and the Emperor’s New Clothes,” in Music and Medieval Manuscripts. Paleography and Performance: Essays Dedicated to Andrew Hughes, ed. John Haines and Randall Rosenfeld (London: Ashgate, 2004), 252. 19 Lawrence F. Bernstein, “A Canonic Chanson in a German Manuscript: Faulte d’argent and Josquin’s Approach to the Chanson for Five Voices,” in Von Isaac bis Bach: Festschrift Martin Just zum 60. Geburtstag, ed.

7 “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” Bernstein attempts to refine a methodology for assessing

authorship, using as a starting point characteristics of style and compositional method that are

shared by works most securely attributed to Josquin. Bernstein focuses mainly on issues of

poetic syntax and tonal manipulation for expressive purposes. His interpretations make apparent

that there is much to gain by a thorough exploration of Josquin’s poetic texts. In contrast to

Macey’s exclusively classical rhetorical approach, Bernstein applies rhetorical analysis in a

larger sense and has greatly informed my analyses of the music.

Other studies focus on individual compositions or small groups of works and do not seek

a systematic examination of musico-rhetorical gestures across a genre. For example, Christopher

Reynolds demonstrated the circular symbolism and symmetrical structure of Josquin’s four-voice

Plus nulz regretz, using the concentric organization of Jean Lemaire de Belge’s poem as a

conduit.20 Warren Kirkendale’s study “Circulatio-Tradition, Maria Lactans, and Josquin as

Musical Orator” argues for the rhetorical significance of circular motives in Josquin’s sacred

music.21 Finally, in his “Rhetorical Aspects of the Renaissance Modes,” Bernhard Meier

emphasizes the rhetorical use of the modes for the interpretation of texts.22

In contrast to the literature focusing on Josquin’s musical rhetoric, similar studies on La

Rue, Mouton, and other multi-voice chanson composers are completely lacking. Honey Meconi

has explored the style of Pierre de La Rue’s secular songs mainly with the purpose of

Frank Heidlberger, Wolfgang Osthoff, and Reinhard Weisend (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1991), 53-71; idem, “Ma bouche rit et mon cueur pleure: A Chanson a 5 Attributed to Josquin des Prez,” Journal of Musicology 12, no. 3 (1994): 253-286; and idem,“Chansons for Five and Six Voices.” 20 Christopher Reynolds, “Musical Evidence of Compositional Planning in the Renaissance: Josquin’s Plus nulz regretz,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 40, no. 1 (1987): 53-81. 21 Warren Kirkendale, “Circulatio-Tradition, Maria Lactans, and Josquin as Musical Orator,” Acta Musicologica 56 (1984): 69-92. 22 Bernhard Meier, “Rhetorical Aspects of the Renaissance Modes,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 115 (1990): 182-190.

8 establishing a canon of his works, but, in general, she does not touch upon issues of text

expressivity.23 There is no study of Mouton’s secular music whatsoever.

My analysis of the multi-voice chanson uses as a starting point the work of Macey and

Bernstein. Although Macey’s study has provided the impetus for examining whether classical

rhetoric also permeated the secular repertories, in my approach, classical rhetorical principles

and figures are but one aspect of musical rhetoric in the broader apparatus of expressive

techniques. Furthermore, Bernstein’s analyses have demonstrated that a deeper understanding of

the poetry—its context, conventions, and prosodic features—is indispensable for a rhetorical

approach to the music. In addition, although focusing on an earlier repertory—Guillaume

Dufay’s secular compositions—Don Michael Randel proposed that even from this early period

musical settings constitute close readings of their poetic texts. Randel suggests that the relations between the poetry and the music can guide us through the text to the composer’s reading(s) and, vice versa, through the musical reading of the text by the composer to the understanding of the

text itself, a premise central to my approach.24

Despite the fact that the above studies have made evident that rhetorical analysis needs to rely as much on the poetry as on the music, there has been no substantial effort to study in depth the verses Josquin and his contemporaries had set. The lack of scholarship in this field seriously impedes the understanding of compositional choices on the level of both surface detail and compositional planning and strategies. This absence of interest in the deep interactions between poetry and music is partly due to the fact that lyric and chanson verse from this period are often

23 Honey Meconi, “Style and Authenticity in the Secular Works of Pierre de la Rue” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1986). 24 Don Michael Randel, “Dufay the Reader,” in Music and Language, Studies in the History of Music, vol. 1 (New York: Broude Brothers, 1983), 38-78; idem, “Music and Poetry, History and Criticism: Reading the Fifteenth-Century Chanson,” in Essays in Musicology: A Tribute to Alvin Johnson, ed. Lewis Lockwood and Edward Roesner (n.p.: American Musicological Society, 1990), 52-74; and idem, “Reading Composers Reading,” Words and Music 17 (1993): 89-107.

9 dismissed by musicologists and literary critics as conventional and dull, and, therefore, unworthy. The enduring popularity of both the poetry and the music, however, begs for revisiting these works in poetic and musical terms. In such an approach, the process is often circular: on one hand, prosodic features can inform our understanding of musical choices while, on the other hand, outstanding musical features offer glimpses into how a composer interpreted a particular point in the poetry.

Recent studies in literary criticism provide nuanced interpretations of the lyric poetry of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries that can enlighten musical readings of the chanson repertory. Instead of accepting received views on the artistic quality of lyric verse, such studies explore a wide variety of issues ranging from authorial self-representation to the rhetoric of the obscene, the play with form and convention for rhetorical purposes, the interactions between the

“courtly” and the “popular” registers, and the intertextuality of medieval texts.25 Such literary interpretations have subsequently provided the impetus to expand my analysis to consider the

25 Some of the most recent studies are: Paul Zumthor, Le masque et la lumière: La poétique des Grands Rhétoriqueurs (Paris: Seuil, 1978); Kevin Brownlee, Poetic Identity in Guillaume de Machaut (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984); Leonard W. Johnson, Poets as Players: Theme and Variation in Late Medieval French Poetry (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990); Michael Randall, Building Resemblance: Analogical Imagery in the Early French Renaissance (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); and Catherine Attwood, Dynamic Dichotomy: The Poetic ‘I’ in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century French Lyric Poetry (Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1998). The literature regarding intertextuality is ever growing. Studies focusing on intertextuality in chanson repertories of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries include Kevin Brownlee, “Literary Intertextualities in Fourteenth-Century French Song,” in Hauptreferate, Symposien, Kolloquien, vol. 1 of Musik als Text: Bericht über den Internationalen Kongress der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung Freiburg in Breisgau 1993, ed. Hermann Danuser and Tobias Plebuch (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1998), 295-299; Paula Higgins, “Servants, Mistresses and the Fortunes of Their Families: Influence and Intertextuality in the Fifteenth-Century Song,” in Hauptreferate, Symposien, Kolloquien, 346-357; David Fallows, “Le serviteur of Several Masters,” in Hauptreferate, Symposien, Kolloquien, 336-345; Yolanda Plumley, “Citation and Allusion in the Late Ars Nova: The Case of Esperance and the En attendant songs,” Early Music History 18 (1999): 287-363; idem, “Intertextuality in the Fourteenth-Century Chanson,” Music and Letters 84, no. 3 (2003): 346-377; idem, “Playing the Citation Game in the Late Fourteenth- Century Chanson,” Early Music 31, no. 1 (2003): 21-39; idem, “Crossing Borderlines: Points of Contact between the Late Fourteenth-Century French Lyric and Chanson Repertories,” Acta Musicologica 76, no. 1 (2004): 3-23; and Elizabeth E. Leach, “Fortune’s Demesne: The Interrelations of Text and Music in Machaut’s Il mest avis (B22), De fortune (B23) and Two Related Anonymous Balades,” Early Music History 19 (2000): 47-79. Also relevant here is Christopher Reynolds’s essay on the intertextual function of chanson quotations in Mass settings. Christopher Reynolds, “The Counterpoint of Allusion in Fifteenth-Century Masses,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 45, no. 2 (1992): 228-60. For further literature regarding intertextuality see Chapter V.

10 representation of the poetic “I” in musical terms; the musical treatment of obscene expressions

and double entendres; melodic articulation as a means for enhancing the prosodic features; the

expressive function of canons and canonic techniques; the manipulation of musical texture for

the dramatization of text; the use of repetition as an expressive device; the impact of the nature

of the poetry—“courtly” or “popular”—on the compositional choices and style; and intertextual

relationships within Josquin’s oeuvre and across the genre. An interdisciplinary approach of this

kind requires a systematic study of the lyric poetry of the period with emphasis on the points of

cross-fertilization between the lyric and chanson verse. To this end, I have taken into account

contemporary poetic theories and overviewed the poetic tradition of the fifteenth century, especially focusing on the features of versification, the prominent themes and topoi and their related imagery, as well as the nature of the poetry (“courtly” or “popular”) and the lexicon that accompanies it (see Chapter II).26

Sources

The multi-voice chanson repertory of Josquin, La Rue, Mouton, and their contemporaries

survives mainly in posthumous sources, especially printed editions dating after 1540. The main

manuscript repositories of multi-voice chansons are the Habsburg-Burgundian chansonniers

Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Musiksammlung. MS Mus. 18746 (olim

A.N.35.H.14), henceforth referred to as VienNB Mus. 18746, and Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale,

MS 228, henceforth referred to as BrusBR 228.27 VienNB Mus. 18746 is the largest contemporary collection of multi-voice chansons. Completed by 1523, it was copied at the

26 Warner F. Patterson provides a comprehensive account of poetic treatises from the early fifteenth to the middle of the sixteenth century. Warner F. Patterson, Three Centuries of French Poetic Theory: A Critical History of the Chief Arts of Poetry in France (1323-1630), Language and Literature, vol. 15 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1935; repr. New York: Russell & Russell, 1966). 27 For a modern edition of BrusBR 228 see Martin Picker, ed., The Chansons Albums of Marguerite of Austria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965).

11 workshop of Petrus Alamire, who was personally involved in its preparation. The manuscript

subsequently found its way to the library of Raimund Fugger the Elder of Augsburg (1489-

1535).28 The collection contains fifty-four five-voice compositions, the majority of which are

French chansons.29 The songs are transmitted anonymously with the exception of two

compositions by Pierre de La Rue, and one each by Antoine Brumel (c. 1460-?1512/13) and Jean

Le Brung (fl. early sixteenth century). Although the chansons are copied without their literary

texts, the anthology remains an important source of the early sixteenth-century multi-voice

repertory, as most of its content is otherwise only transmitted in later printed editions. VienNB

Mus. 18746 contains seven of Josquin’s chansons firmly attributed to him and scholars have

speculated that another four may also be by him. The seven Josquin chansons are: Douleur me

bat, Du mien amant, Incessament livré suis, Parfons regretz, Plaine de deuil, Je me complains,

and Plusieurs regrets.30

VienNB Mus. 18746 completely lacks initials, decoration, and coats of arms and there are

frequent errors in the music. Combined with the absence of texts, VienNB Mus. 18746 has little

practical use and appears to have been copied out of a concern for preservation rather than for

the purpose of presentation. Nevertheless, the manuscript is characterized by the internal organization of codices, grouping compositions that are thematically (and possibly musically)

28 Alamire’s signature appears in the two Tenor part-books. The Fuggers, a powerful family of merchants and bankers, were important patrons of the arts. Over forty printed collections of music were dedicated to Raimund Fugger and his brother Anton (1493-1560). William E. Hettrick, “Fugger,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, vol. 9 (London: Macmillan, 2001), 315-317. 29 VienNB Mus. 18746 contains precisely fifty chansons, three motets, and one motet-chanson. For a complete list of the contents of VienNB Mus. 18746 see Eric Jaas, The Treasury of Petrus Alamire: Music and Art in Flemish Court Manuscripts 1500-1535, ed. Herbert Kellman (Ludion: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 161- 162. 30 Jaap van Benthem has argued for the attribution to Josquin of Dame d’honneur, Sailliés avant, Sans vous veoir, and Consideres mes incessantes plaintes/Fortuna desperata (see also Appendix 1). Jaap van Benthem, “Einige wiedererkannte Josquin-Chansons im Codex 18746 der Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek,” Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 22 (1971-72): 18-42.

12 related, as is evident in the four opening “regretz” chansons and the closing five Fors seullement

settings.31

The chansonnier BrusBR 228, prepared for Marguerite of Austria and probably

completed between 1516 and 1523, transmits five multi-voice chansons, two of which are

concordant with VienNB Mus. 18746: Cueurs desolez/Dies illa, Deuil et ennuy, Je ne dis mot,

Plaine de deuil, and Quant il advient.32 With the exception of Josquin’s Plus nulz regretz, all of the chansons in this manuscript are transmitted anonymously. Nevertheless, four of the five multi-voice chansons therein have been widely accepted as La Rue’s, the composer most closely related to Marguerite’s court.33 As La Rue’s multi-voice chansons did not enjoy the posthumous

fame of Josquin’s and Mouton’s chansons, the above two Flemish chansonniers constitute the

main sources transmitting this repertory.34

Aside from these two central sources, multi-voice chansons appear only scattered in

manuscript and printed editions of the first half of the sixteenth century. The earliest source

containing multi-voice chansons is Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Banco Rari 229

(olim Magliabechi XIX.59) (FlorBN BR 229), compiled during 1492-93.35 Two five-voice compositions appear therein: a textless piece by Isaac (c. 1450/55-1517), possibly instrumental in conception, and the double-texted Je suis d’Alemagne/Joliettement m’en vay. Another early multi-voice chanson, although its appearance in sources postdates FlorBN BR 229, is Johannes

31 Other groupings include the two D’ung aultre aymer settings by La Rue and Le Brung (fols. 17v-18v) and the four chansons related to “douleur” and “tristesse” in fols. 31v-34v. 32 The concordant chansons are Deuil et ennuy and Plaine de deuil. 33 For modern attributions of these four chansons and my views regarding their authorship based on the musico-rhetorical analysis see Chapter VI. 34 The only exception is La Rue’s Incessament mon povre cueur, widely transmitted throughout the sixteenth century. For a complete list of sources of La Rue’s works see Honey Meconi, Pierre de la Rue and Musical Life at the Habsburg-Burgundian Court (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 264-286. 35 Modern edition in Howard M. Brown, ed., A Florentine Chansonnier from the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Banco Rari 229, 2 vols., Monuments of Renaissance Music, vol. 7 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983). The dating of manuscript sources follows the Census- Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music, 1400-1550, 5 vols., ed. Herbert Kellman, Renaissance Manuscript Studies, vol. 1 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1979-1988).

13 de Stokem’s five-voice Brunette m’amiette.36 Stokem’s death is recorded in 1487, which provides a terminus ante quem for this chanson.37

The scattered appearances of chansons for five- and six-voices in turn-of-the-century manuscript sources testify that such compositions were the exception rather than the norm during this period. A similar picture also emerges when browsing through the repertories of the first printed chansonniers: Ottaviano Petrucci included two five-voice chansons in the Odhecaton A

(Brunette m’amiette and Hor oires une chanson) and only one in his Canti B (Franc coeur, qu’as tu/Fortuna dun gran tempo).38 The five-voice Vray Dieu d’amours/Sante Iouanes/Ora pro nobis in Canti C belongs to the sacred domain rather than to the secular.39 Other chanson printers such as Andrea Antico and Antonio Gardano published chansons for exclusively three and four voices, while Jacques Moderne published only four multi-voice chansons throughout his career.40 Pierre Attaingnant issued only one volume of chansons for more than four voices, the

Trente sixiesme livre, which contained mainly chansons by Josquin (see discussion of this print below).

The picture regarding multi-voice chansons publications, in general, and Josquin’s related repertory, in particular, begins to change with mid-century prints from the north, possibly an

36 Brunette m’amiette appears in Harmonice musices Odhecaton A (Venezia: O. Petrucci, 1501) [RISM 1501]. For a modern edition see fnn. 37 and 38 below. For a discussion of the earliest multi-voice chansons see Chapter VII. 37 Recently, David Fallows questioned the attribution to Stokem and suggested a new date of composition for Brunette m’amiette in the 1490s. David Fallows, ed., One Hundred Songs of Harmonic Music: Ottaviano Petrucci 1501, A Quincentenary Performing Edition, rev. ed. (Amherst: Amherst Early Music, 2003), 11. 38 Modern edition in Helen Hewitt, ed., Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1942; repr. New York: Da Capo Press, 1978) and Helen Hewitt, ed., Ottaviano Petrucci: Canti B, Numero cinquanta, Venice, 1502, Monuments of Renaissance Music, vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967). 39 Canti C. Numero cento cinquanta (Venezia: O. Petrucci, 1503) [RISM 15043]; facs. Monuments of Music and Music Literature in Facsimile I, vol. 25 (New York: Broude Brothers, 1978), fols. 95v-96v. 40 For a study of Gardano’s printing enterprise see Mary S. Lewis, Antonio Gardano, Venetian Music Printer, 1538-1569: A Descriptive Bibliography and Historical Study, 3 vols. (New York: Garland Publishing, 1988). For Moderne’s publications see Samuel F. Pogue, Jacques Moderne: Lyons Music Printer of the Sixteenth Century (Geneva: Droz, 1969). The multi-voice chansons published by Moderne fall outside the chronological framework explored here.

14 aftermath of the “German Josquin Renaissance” of the late 1530s. The first important music print

including Josquin’s multi-voice chansons dates from 1540 and comes from the print shop of

Melchior Kriesstein in Augsburg. Selectissimae necnon familiarissimae cantiones contains three

chansons attributed to Josquin: J’ay bien cause de lamenter, Mi larés vous, and N’esse pas ung

grant desplaisir. 41 It also includes the six-voice Allégez moy, ascribed to Josquin in later

sources, but which Kriesstein attributes to both Antoine Barbé (d. 1564) and Jean Le Brung.

Kriesstein’s print is the earliest source for the above four compositions but it remains unclear how the publisher acquired the repertory. One possible channel would be through his editor

Sigmund Salblinger, who had probably access to the library of the Fugger family.42

The interest in printing chansons for more than four voices grew radically with the

publications of the Antwerp-based printer Tylman Susato, in the middle of the sixteenth century.

Throughout his career as a printing entrepreneur (1543-1561), Susato published chansons for the

customary textures as well as chansons ranging from five to eight voices. Susato printed the

latter chansons in sets of five part-books, thus elevating the chanson to a status of a “luxury

good.” In addition to his interest in promoting such compositions Susato also initiated single-

author editions, a practice that was soon followed by other printers in the Netherlands and

France.43 According to Kate van Orden

41 Selectissimae necnon familiarissimae cantiones, ultra centum vario idiomate vocum, tam multiplicium quam etiam paucar (Augsburg: M. Kriesstein, 1540) [RISM 15407]. 42 Sigmund Salblinger, a German Reform leader, teacher, and music editor, spent most of his life in Augsburg. Imprisoned for his religious beliefs in 1527, he was reinstated in Augsburg in 1537 and enjoyed the patronage of the Fugger family. His sacred editions for Melchior Kriesstein and Philipp Ulhart are important since they transmit many unica motets by leading German and Netherlandish composers. As mentioned above, the Fugger family was the recipient of VienNB Mus. 18746, and it is possible that they also possessed sources containing other multi-voice chansons. Marie L. Göllner, “Salminger, Sigmund,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, vol. 22 (London: Macmillan, 2001), 169-170. 43 For a discussion of the changing status of the chanson in the hands of Tylman Susato see van Orden, “Chansons,” 338-341 and idem, “Tielman Susato, Music, and the Cultures of Print,” in Tielman Susato and the Music of His Time: Print Culture, Compositional Technique and Instrumental Music in the Renaissance, ed. Keith Polk (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2005), 143-163.

15 in Susato’s hands, the chanson—and more specifically, the chanson in the material form of print—became the medium for figurations of the composer that it had not known before, not in print and perhaps not in manuscript either. The chanson was drawn into a wholly different social economy dominated by authors: a genre that had been characterized in print by collectivity (the anthology) and a relatively high degree of anonymity came, in Susato’s classier prints, to be inscribed with names in an unprecedented way, attracting both the names of patrons . . . and the names of composers . . . 44

Among Susato’s major contributions to our knowledge of the history of the early

sixteenth-century multi-voice chanson is his seventh book, a commemorative volume devoted to

the memory of Josquin, published in 1545.45 Le septiesme livre includes twenty-three multi-

voice chansons ascribed to Josquin, a response composed by Le Brung, and three Latin epitaphs

by the prominent northern composers Benedictus Appenzeller, Nicolas Gombert, and Jheronimus

Vinders.46 Susato’s print provides the earliest source for five of Josquin’s multi-voice chansons

and the earliest texted source for about one-third of Josquin’s total output in this subgenre.47

Among Josquin’s contemporaries only Noel Bauldeweyn (c. 1480; fl. 1509-1513), Jean Le

Brung, and Jean Mouton are represented in Susato’s secular music editions and only with one

chanson each.48 The scope of Susato’s seventh book and the inclusion of the literary texts render

this print an invaluable tool for the study of the early sixteenth-century multi-voice chanson from

a musico-rhetorical perspective.

44 van Orden, “Chansons,” 338. 45 Le septiesme livre contenant vingt & quatre chansons a cincq et a six parties, composées par feu de bonne memoire & tres excellent en musicque Iosquin des Pres, avecq troix Epitaphes dudiet Iosquin, composez par divers aucteurs (Antwerp: Tylman Susato, 1545) [RISM 154515]. 46 Appenzeller and Gombert set the text Musae iovis for four and six voices, respectively. Vinders’s lament for seven voices sets the text O mors inevitabilis. The earliest surviving source for Appenzeller’s epitaph is Cambrai, Bibliothèque Municipale, MSS 125-128 (olim 124), dated to 1542. For the other two, the earliest source is Susato 154515. Le Brung’s response, Si vous n’avez autre desir (à 6), is placed immediately following Josquin’s N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir. For a discussion of these two chansons see Chapter V. 47 The five chansons for which the seventh book is the earliest source are En non saichant, Pour souhaitter, Regretz sans fin, Vous l’arez, and Vous ne l’aurez pas. 48 The distribution of the multi-voice chansons for these composers is: Bauldeweyn, En douleur en tristesse; Le Brung, Si vous n’avez autre desir; and Mouton, La rousée du mois de may.

16 Prompted by Susato’s commemorative edition, Pierre Attaingnant, the royal French

printer of music between 1528 and 1553, issued a pirate copy of Susato’s seventh book: the

Trente sixiesme livre contenant trente chansons tres musicales, a quatre, cinq et six parties . . .

de feu Iosquin des prez, tres corectement imrimees par Pierre Attaingnant (Paris: Pierre

Attaingnant, 1549) with multi-voice chansons mainly by Josquin.49 Attaingnant published the

Trente sixiesme livre almost immediately after Susato’s privilege expired in 1549 and included

all of the chansons in Susato’s print with the exception of Josquin’s déploration on the death of

Ockeghem (Nymphes des bois/Requiem aeternam) and the three Latin epitaphs. He even included Le Brung’s response Si vous n’avez autre desir, eliminating, however, Susato’s attribution. The Trente sixiesme livre is a novelty in Attaingnant’s output, who was otherwise devoid of interest for Josquin’s works.50 It stands out as his only edition in five part-books and is

one of his very few single-author chanson prints (the others being six Janequin editions and one

by Gervaise).51

The almost wholesale copying of Susato’s edition notwithstanding, Attaingnant’s publication is valuable for our knowledge of the early sixteenth-century multi-voice chanson since it also includes seven additional compositions (six at the end of the edition and one between the first two pieces), three of which are unica.52 Apparently, Attaingnant had an editor

who improved on many details in the text and the music and who was possibly responsible for

49 RISM J681. For Attaingnant’s publications see Daniel Heartz, Pierre Attaingnant, Royal Printer of Music (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969). 50 Attaingnant had printed only two of Josquin’s chansons before the Trente sixiesme livre: the four-voice Cueurs desolez in 1529 (most likely by Appenzeller) and Mille regretz in 1533, the earliest surviving source for this chanson. See Heartz, Pierre Attaingnant, 97. 51 See Heartz, Pierre Attaingnant, nos. 4, 40, 73, 75, 90, 155, and 166. 52 The three pieces are Plus n’estes ma maistresse (à 4), Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit (à 5), and L’amye a tous/Je ne vis oncques la pareille (à 5).

17 acquiring the seven additional chansons.53 Despite the editorial improvements, the Trente sixiesme livre is not considered entirely reliable: two pieces, Cent mille regretz and Incessament mon povre cueur, are now securely attributed to Pierre de La Rue. In addition, I have reattributed Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit to La Rue on the basis of my musico-rhetorical analysis (see Chapter VI).

It was not until ten years later that the next publication with a substantial number of early sixteenth-century multi-voice chansons appeared. The firm of Le Roy & Ballard published the

Livre de meslanges in 1560.54 Le Roy & Ballard succeeded Attaingnant in 1553 as imprimeurs de roi (music printers to the king). In 1567 they obtained the exclusive right to print the works of

Josquin, Mouton, Richafort, Lassus, Gascongne, Jaquet, Maillard, Gombert, Arcadelt, and

Goudimel. In 1572, the firm issued a reprint of the 1560 edition, the Mellange de chansons tant des vieux autheurs que des modernes.55 Both the Livre de meslanges and the Mellange de chansons are historical anthologies that juxtapose the compositions of the older chanson composers to those of the younger generation. The 1572 Mellange is especially important as it is the only source for five of the six extant multi-voice chansons by Mouton.56

53 Bonnie Blackburn has suggested that Claude Gervaise, a composer of dance music and arranger of chansons, could have served as editor for this volume. Bonnie Blackburn, “Josquin’s Chansons: Ignored and Lost Sources,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 29, no. 1 (1976): 56-60. According to Blackburn, if Gervaise was indeed the editor of the Trente sixiesme livre, he must have had access to Netherlandish sources to acquire this repertory. 54 Livre de meslanges, contenant six vingtz chansons, des plus rares, et plus industrieuses qui se trouvent, soit des autheurs antiques, soit des plus memorables de nostre temps: composées à cinque, six, sept, & huit parties, en six volumes (Paris: Le Roy & Ballard, 1560) [not in RISM]. 55 Mellange de chansons tant des vieux autheurs que des modernes, a cinq, six, sept, et huict parties (Paris: Le Roy & Ballard, 1572) [RISM 15722].The main corpus of chansons remains the same, but the 1572 edition adds sixty-eight new works and omits thirty-five from the 1560 edition. See Kate Van Orden, “Imitation and ‘La musique des anciens,’” Revue de musicologie 80, no. 1 (1994): 7. 56 The six Mouton multi-voice chansons are Ce que mon coeur pense, Du bon du coeur, La rousée du mois de may, Le berger et la bergère, Vray Dieu d’amours, and Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux. Only the chanson Le berger et la bergère, in its five- and six-voice versions, appears in earlier sources, Susato’s Vingt et six chansons musicales (Antwerp: Tylman Susato, 1543) [RISM 154315] and Le sixiesme livre (Antwerp: Tylman Susato, 1545) [RISM 154514], respectively.

18 The general absence of attributions in contemporary sources considerably obscures our understanding of the genesis of the multi-voice song. Many chansons still remain anonymous and their study is further impeded by the lack of the accompanying literary texts (as with the majority of the chansons in VienNB Mus. 18746). It is mainly through the ascriptions provided by the posthumous prints such as Susato’s seventh book, Attaingnant’s Trente sixiesme livre, and the two Le Roy & Ballard publications of 1560 and 1572 that our knowledge of the multi-voice chanson distribution has been shaped. However, many of the attributions in the above publications have been questioned by modern scholars and in some cases have been proven faulty (as with the two La Rue chansons in Attaingnant’s print). The chronological distance of the posthumous prints from the origins of the compositions and the lack of a continuum in the circulation of multi-voice chansons is largely responsible for the absence of repertorial ascriptions. As mentioned above, turn of the century print and manuscript sources offer only scattered examples of multi-voice chanson writing. This is partly due to the accidents of transmission, as it is possible that many of the sources containing substantial numbers of multi- voice chansons are irretrievably lost. Yet it is also possible that the secular works for large forces indeed had a limited circulation as they were far more demanding for performance.

As the present study undertakes an overall assessment of musical rhetoric in an entire repertory, the subgenre of the multi-voice chanson in the first quarter of the sixteenth century, issues of authenticity do not impede the analyses. In fact, such a comprehensive picture of musico-rhetorical treatment enriches our understanding of stylistic traits across the genre and fruitfully informs cases of problematic or conflicting attributions or anonymity (see, for example, the discussion of the conjecturally attributed chansons to La Rue in Chapter VI).

19 Rhetorical analysis has further unveiled common compositional traits in particular groups

of chansons, suggesting chronological proximity and common provenance. In many occasions, it

has helped clarify issues of text underlay, providing alternative solutions when the text underlay

in the source is vague, problematic, or antithetical to the poetic and musical structure of the

chanson (see Mouton’s chansons in Chapter VII).

In some cases, multi-voice chanson settings are instrumental arrangements of well-known

pre-existent melodies (such as Josquin’s La Spagna). I will eliminate these from consideration,

along with the textless compositions of VienNB Mus. 18746, since they do not lend themselves

to the model of rhetorical analysis applied in this study. I have nevertheless included them in

Appendix 1.

Editorial policy

The musical examples are based on the existing modern editions.57 Nevertheless, the

rhetorical analyses frequently bring up questions regarding the phrase structure, musica ficta, and

text underlay, in which cases I have consulted the available manuscript and primary printed

sources. Alternative readings are given in parentheses, along with those of the modern editions.

Decimal divisions of measure numbers reflect the position of a note therein, within a four-

semibreves-per-measure count (e.g., m. 12.4 refers to the last semibreve of m. 12). Musical

phrases are shown in capital letters placed at the point of entrance of the structural voice, the one

that determines the phrase division. At the first appearance of a musical phrase I designate it with

the word “phrase” (e.g., “phrase A”). In subsequent repetitions of the same phrase or variations

57 For Josquin see Josquin des Prez, Werken, ed. Albert A. Smijers (Amsterdam: G. Alsbach, 1922-1969); for La Rue see Picker, The Chansons Albums and Honey Meconi, “Style and Authenticity in the Secular Music of Pierre de la Rue” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1986); for Mouton see Charles Jacobs, ed., LeRoy & Ballard’s 1572 Mellange de Chansons (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1982); for Richafort see Jean Richafort, Opera omnia, vol. 3, Magnificats and Chansons, ed. Harry Elzinga, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, vol. 81 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1999). See individual references for the other chansons.

20 of it I only include the capital letter that corresponds to it (“A,” “B,” etc.). Larger sections are

marked with capital letters between brackets (e.g., “[section A]”) over the top staff at the

beginning of each section, while “modules” (specific to Mouton’s songs) are marked with capital

letters in parentheses. Lowercase letters are reserved to indicate rhyme schemes.

I employ the word “canon” not in the sixteenth-century sense of directions to produce a

second melodic line from a single notated one, but in the modern sense of close imitation

between two voices. Thus, I can distinguish between strict or true canonic writing, which

complies with the sixteenth-century use of the word, from “free” canonic writing, which implies

deviations from faithfully reproducing the dux.

For the poetic texts the translations provided are my own unless otherwise indicated. I have included punctuation marks to clarify the syntactic and semantic structure of the poetry, a

crucial element for the rhetorical analysis. As Middle French orthography is an elusive and

complicated matter even for the literary specialist, I have not attempted to homogenize the

spellings in the poetic texts.58 Instead, I have retained the orthography of the modern edition

used (for example, the different versions of the word “cueur,” “coeur,” etc.) but have

distinguished between u and v and have added the accents on à and là (to avoid homographic

confusions), and final –é, as well as cedillas where needed. I have incorporated quotation marks

for reported speech and to distinguish the interlocutors in dialogues.

58 For an in-depth discussion of Middle French orthography and the many variants encountered therein see Paul Zumthor, ed., Anthologie des Grands Rhétoriqueurs (Paris: Union Générale d’Editions, 1978), 19-31.

CHAPTER I

RHETORIC AND HUMANISM DURING THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES: THE IMPACT OF THE “WORD”

The period during which the multi-voice chanson came into being is dominated by the

humanistic precept of the affective potential of the “word.” According to sixteenth-century

humanists, in vocal polyphonic music this potential is magnified by music’s power to stir

effectively the human emotions. Thus the relationship between rhetoric, the art of persuasive

speech, and music becomes tighter. The present chapter explores the origins and basic principles

of the rhetorical tradition and the state of classical learning in the Renaissance, to which

composers of the multi-voice song might have been exposed, in order to assess the ways such

principles found expression on compositional choices and style. Within this conceptual

framework, the chapter also examines the different facets of rhetorical thought that emerge

through the writings of late fifteenth and sixteenth-century music theorists. Central to the discussion of oltremontani theorists of the 1530s is the notion of the composer as musical orator

and of music as a poetic art, that is, an art that can express the thoughts and emotions of the text

in an affective way. These theorists point out Josquin des Prez as the composer who most

successfully achieved a union of words and music. Since the affective power of speech is mainly

ascribed to rhetorical figures, or ornaments of language, the chapter concludes with an overview

of the figures of rhetoric, especially those that could have a musical application. Such overview

subsequently guides and informs the aspect of the analysis that investigates the extent to which

composers employed classical rhetorical gestures in secular music, as they demonstrably did in

their sacred compositions.

22 The foundations of rhetoric

The origins of rhetoric go back to property disputes in the Greek towns of Sicily between

471 and 463 B.C.E. In order to regain seized property, defenders developed verbal means of

persuasion that were soon codified into a teachable method.1 When the Sicilian Gorgias came to

Athens to request help in 427 B.C.E, the system of Athenian politics was ripe to adopt the principles of oratorical practice developed in Sicily. The direct involvement of Athenian citizens with community decisions demanded the ability to speak effectively and persuasively in front of a large jury. The origins of rhetoric are, therefore, closely related to social and political activity, the vita activa. Isocrates was the first to establish a school of rhetoric in Athens, around 393

B.C.E. He not only delivered his speeches but he also wrote them down and polished them, thus giving rhetoric the dimension of an academic discipline, in addition to its oral civic function.

Plato distrusted rhetoric as deceptive since it deals only with opinion, in contrast to philosophy, which deals with truth.2 His student Aristotle, however, viewed opinion (doxa) equal

to knowledge (episteme). Aristotle’s The Art of Rhetoric, written c. 335 B.C.E, is the first surviving text on the subject and it became the model for the early Roman orators Cicero and

Quintilian.3 From Rome, rhetoric spread into other European regions through education, public activity, and literature, and remained important until its decline in the nineteenth century.

The most significant early Roman treatises on rhetoric comprise the anonymous

Rhetorica ad Herennium (written c. 85 B.C.E and long attributed to Cicero), seven treatises by

Cicero (dating 87-44 B.C.E), and Quintilian’s comprehensive Institutio oratoria (92-94 C.E).4

1 Brian Vickers, “An Outline of Classical Rhetoric,” in In Defense of Rhetoric (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 6-7. 2 Plato Gorgias 452-466. 3 Aristotle, The Art of Rhetoric, trans. and ed. Hugh C. Lawson-Tancred (London: Penguin, 1991). 4 Modern editions: Ad C. Herennium. De ratione dicendi (Rhetoric ad Herennium), with English trans. Harry Caplan, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954). Among Cicero’s treatises the most influential were the early De Inventione, with English trans. Harry Mortimer Hubbell, Loeb Classical

23 Cicero advocated that reason (ratio) can only benefit men when it uses speech (oratio). As man’s duty is to participate in social life, the study of language and its appropriate usage should serve

the common good. Rhetoric could thus lead to moral and social improvement and altruism. The sixteenth-century Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives (1492-1540) poignantly stated, “your

tongue is the one instrument nature gave to you for doing good.”5 Also central to the writings of

both Cicero and Quintilian is the idea that a successful oration should perfectly balance the res

(content of the argument) to the verba (proper style). Once this balance is achieved, the oration

has accomplished its threefold goal: to teach, to move, and to delight—docere, movere,

delectare.

The Roman writers followed Aristotle’s classification of oratory into three main genres,

the judicial, the deliberative, and the epideictic. The judicial or forensic took place in a law court

and focused on proof and disproof. The deliberative concerned politics and was about persuasion

and dissuasion. The epideictic or demonstrative was concerned with praise or blame. With the

fall of the Greco-Roman political and legal systems, the judicial and deliberative gradually

declined and the epideictic was the sole genre that remained alive in the Middle Ages and the

Renaissance. Its main characteristic, the division of the rhetorical discourse into praise and

blame, influenced much medieval and renaissance literature.

Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1949) and the mature De oratore, 2 vols., Books I and II, with English trans. Edward W. Sutton and Harris Rackham, Book III, trans. Harris Rackham, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942-48). Quintilian, Institutio oratoria, 4 vols., with English trans. Harold E. Butler, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920) and more recently Institutio oratoria. The Orator’s Education, 5 vols., with English trans. and ed. Donald A. Russell, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). 5 Juan Luis Vives, De ratione dicendi 3.12; quoted in Brian Vickers, “Rhetoric and Poetics,” in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Charles B. Schmitt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 728.

24 Classical orators distinguished five stages in the composition of a speech: inventio

(invention), dispositio (arrangement), elocutio (expression), memoria (memory), and pronuntiatio (delivery). Cicero’s definitions in De inventione are as follows:

Invention is the discovery of valid or seemingly valid arguments to render one’s cause plausible. Arrangement is the distribution of arguments thus discovered in the proper order. Expression is the fitting of the proper language to the invented matter. Memory is the firm mental grasp of matter and words. Delivery is the control of voice and body in a manner suitable to the dignity of the subject matter and the style.6

Of the five stages, elocutio received special emphasis in the writings of the humanists in

connection with rhetoric’s function to move its audience. The last two stages, memoria and

pronuntiatio, are only relevant when the speech is to be delivered orally, that is, in the cases in

which rhetoric is a performance art.

Also from Aristotle spread the idea of the division of a speech into distinct formal

sections, each with a specific persuasive function. The most common division recognized six

parts: exordium (introduction), narratio (narration), partitio (division), confirmatio (proof),

refutatio (refutation), and conclusio (conclusion). The anonymous author of Rhetorica ad

Herennium described their function as follows:

The Introduction is the beginning of the discourse, and by it the hearer’s mind is prepared for attention. The Narration or Statement of Facts sets forth the events that have occurred or might have occurred. By means of the Division we make clear what matters are agreed upon and what contested, and announce what points we intend to make up. Proof is the presentation of our arguments, together with their corroboration. Refutation is the destruction of our adversaries’ arguments. The Conclusion is the end of the discourse, framed in accordance with the principles of the art.7

6 Cicero De inventione 1.7.9. 7 Ad C. Herennium 1.3.4

25 In addition to a masterful layout, a speech must also adopt the proper type of style in

order for it to be successful. In the same treatise we find the first extant division of style into the

Grand, the Middle, and the Simple types.

The Grand type consists of a smooth and ornate arrangement of impressive words. The Middle type consists of words of a lower, yet not of the lowest and most colloquial, class of words. The Simple type is brought down even to the most current idiom of standard speech.8

Related to the concept of style is the stage of composition defined as “expression” or

elocutio. In his Art of Rhetoric, Aristotle advised the orator to use appropriate language so that his audience can recognize and identify with his emotions. Aristotle’s statement implies that the language that aptly expresses the feelings of the speaker has a convincing power over the audience. Such language is successful when relying on patterns of speech, schemata lexeos,

which can express the right emotion in the most effective way. Schemata originally derive from

life, that is, they are mimetic of natural eloquence. The eloquence of the orator is thus a mimesis

and systematization of everyday speech. The lore of schemata, or rhetorical figures and tropes as

they came to be known in the Latin rhetorical tradition, implied that these had a psychological

effect on the audience. The Latin authors agreed that the form of a figure might be fixed but the

possible relationships between the resulting meaning and emotion are infinite, depending on the

content and the immediate context of the speech. According to Brian Vickers, figures have a

polysemous or polypathous nature (they can have various meanings or express various emotions,

respectively) since they “contain and arouse many possible relationships between meaning and

feeling.”9

8 Ad C. Herennium 4.8.11 9 Vickers, “The Expressive Function of Rhetorical Figures,” in In Defense of Rhetoric (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 339.

26 The oldest extant formal study of schemata or figures appears in Rhetorica ad

Herennium. In book IV of this treatise, the anonymous author distinguishes between “Figures of

Diction,” related to the fine polish of language itself, and “Figures of Thought,” related to the

idea behind the words. The author advises moderation in the use of figures so as not to violate

propriety. Similarly, Quintilian defines figures as deviations from normal speech and cautions

the orator to avoid excessive use in order to remain within the boundaries of propriety.

According to Quintilian, propriety or decorum is one of the main four virtues of rhetoric.10

Quintilian further admits that different writers often assign different names to the same figure and he, therefore, frequently refrains from labeling the figures he describes to prevent further confusion. Like the author of Rhetorica ad Herennium, Quintilian advocates the avoidance of pedantry and suggests that the best critic remains our senses:

The best judge of composition is the ear, which senses completeness, feels lack when something is incomplete, is offended by unevenness, soothed by smoothness and excited by speed; it approves stability, detects lamentness, and is bored by redundancy or excess. The learned therefore know the principles of composition but even the unlearned know its pleasures.11

Quintilian’s suggestion echoes the belief that the orator’s eloquence reflects natural eloquence, which even the unlearned can recognize.

The two basic rhetorical concepts regarding elocutio, that figures and tropes are expressive and that rhetoric is essentially a mimesis of natural speech, persisted well into the

Middle Ages and Renaissance and occupied a central position in humanistic literature. The pursuit of eloquence thus became one of the most important tasks of the humanist scholar.

10 The other three virtues comprise correctness (of language), lucidity, and ornament. Quintilian Institutio 8.1-3; 11.1. 11 Quintilian Institutio 9.4.

27 Classical learning in the Renaissance

The terms “renaissance,” “humanism,” and “rhetoric” have been the subject of much

controversy among historians of literature, philosophy, and the arts. The Renaissance is generally understood as the period characterized by the revival of classical learning initiated in Italy during the fourteenth century.12 This revival was diligently pursued by the humanists: students and

teachers of the so-called studia humanitatis, which included the five disciplines then known as

grammatica (grammar), rhetorica (rhetoric), poetica (poetry), historia (history), and philosophia

moralis (moral philosophy). As the humanists studied classical literature they discovered that rhetoric was the core and connecting thread among the five studia and the discipline that shaped and adorned the texts they so much admired.

In order to assess the extent to which Greek and Latin rhetorical writings affected the medieval and renaissance humanists we need to first identify the sources of classical literature available to them. During the Middle Ages, the most widely circulated theoretical writings were

Cicero’s De inventione, the Rhetorica ad Herennium, and a truncated version of Quintilian’s

Institutio. Some Greek sources were also accessible but had limited circulation: Aristotle’s The

Art of Rhetoric, the pseudo-Aristotelian Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, De elocutione attributed to

Demetrius of Phaleron, and Isocrates’s speech Ad Demonicum.13 Between 1350 and 1600 western scholars visiting the East, as well as Byzantine scholars fleeing Constantinople after its fall to the Turks in 1453, brought with them the majority of the Greek manuscripts that are today

12 For opposing views regarding the meaning of the term “Renaissance” and its origins in music consult Claude V. Palisca, “An Italian Renaissance in Music?” in Humanism in Italian Renaissance Musical Thought (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), 1-22. 13 For an account of sources available in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance see Paul O. Kristeller, “Rhetoric in Medieval and Renaissance Culture,” in Renaissance Thought and the Arts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 230-232.

28 known in the West.14 Since knowledge of Greek was never widespread, humanists took as their

task to translate the available ancient Greek literature into Latin and also to provide new

translations and commentaries for the texts that were already known through medieval Latin

translations.15 Catering to an audience of noblemen, merchants, and craftsmen that had no

knowledge of Latin but were pursuing humanistic interests, the humanists also translated a large

body of classical literature into the various vernacular languages. Thus many Greek and Roman

authors were translated into Tuscan as early as the fifteenth century and subsequently into

French, German, English, and Spanish during the sixteenth century.16

The discovery of the full text of Quintilian’s Institutio oratoria in 1416 and Cicero’s De oratore in 1422 rekindled a new interest in the ars rhetorica.17 These two works were published

in Italy in 1470 and 1465, respectively, and were widely disseminated in the first half of the sixteenth century. For example, Quintilian’s Institutio appeared in at least eighteen editions by

1500 and 130 more by 1600.18 In 1470, the first printed edition of Ad Herennium also appeared and would be followed by twenty-four editions before the end of the century. This treatise, already widely circulating in manuscripts during the Middle Ages, became the basic text for instruction in rhetoric.19 Vickers further estimates that approximately 2,000 books on rhetoric were published between 1400 and 1700, each edition usually circulating in press runs of 250 to

14 Paul O. Kristeller, “Humanism,”in The Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy, 119. Among the most important Byzantine scholars was Manuel Chrysoloras, who came to Italy as an ambassador and taught Greek in Florence from 1396 to 1400. The most influential figure for the history of rhetoric was George of Trebizond (1392-1472), who brought the Greek classics and the Byzantine rhetorical tradition to the West. He wrote the first new treatise on rhetoric in the Renaissance, Rhetoricorum Libri V (1433). The standard monograph for Trebizond’s life and contributions is John Monfasani, George of Trebizond: A Biography and a Study of his Rhetoric and Logic (Leiden: Brill, 1976). 15 For the types of ancient Greek writings that became available to the West during the Renaissance see Kristeller, “Humanism,” 120. 16 Kristeller, “Humanism,” 121. 17 Quintilian’s complete text was discovered by Poggio Bracciolini in the dungeons of the monastery of Saint Gall in Switzerland during his visit there for the Council of Constance. 18 Brian Vickers, “Figures of Rhetoric/Figures of Music?” Rhetorica 2, no. 1 (1984): 4. 19 Warren Kirkendale, “Ciceronians versus Aristotelians: On the Ricercar as Exordium, from Bembo to Bach,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 32, no. 1 (1979): 21.

29 1,000 copies.20 With such a proliferation of rhetorical writings it is certain that an educated man would have been exposed to the principles of oratory; the question is how his intellectual goals and professional obligations would have prompted him to use them. My rhetorical analyses of the multi-voice songs aims to address this question as it relates to contemporary composers of secular music.

To the body of classical writings, medieval and renaissance humanists usually added commentaries rather than independent treatises; the idea of ancient authority inhibited writers from rivaling the classical authors. However, the latter practice became increasingly popular as the sixteenth century progressed. In addition to the literature on rhetoric, a significant body of writings in and about other literary genres, such as the ars epistolandi, the oration, and the sermon, further developed out of their medieval predecessors. The ars epistolandi, or composition of letters, both for legal and administrative purposes and as private correspondence, occupied a central position in humanistic writings. In their capacity as chancellors and secretaries, renaissance humanists continued the medieval tradition of the ars dictaminis (the composition of documents and letters). The second literary genre, also inherited from the Middle

Ages, is the speech or oration. Common occasions for such speeches were weddings or funerals, welcoming ceremonies for distinguished visitors, university orations at the beginning of the academic year, and a variety of public events. Finally, the sermon continued to occupy a central position in the literature, only during the Renaissance secular oratory greatly influenced sacred eloquence. Preachers viewed the sermon as embodying the technique of praise and blame, thus aligning itself with epideictic rhetoric. The purpose of sermons in the Renaissance became to move the congregation to ethical conduct.21

20 Vickers, “Renaissance Reintegration,” in In Defense of Rhetoric (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 256. 21 Kristeller, “Rhetoric in Medieval and Renaissance Culture,” 234-242.

30 In their attempt to bring classical eloquence into their writings, humanists were not in

agreement as to which style of Latin they should adopt. They were divided into two major

camps, the Ciceronians and the anti-Ciceronians. The first group sought to imitate exactly

Cicero’s language to the extreme extent that they refused to apply any word not found in

Cicero’s writings. The anti-Ciceronians, supported by Erasmus, advocated a classical yet flexible

Latin style. Their disputes resulted in the publication of numerous essays that exposed their

respective views.22

Humanism and rhetoric north of the Alps

It is generally accepted that the return to the classical sources was a hallmark of

humanistic activities throughout Europe. However, humanism was not practiced with the same

intensity or for the same reasons, nor did it emphasize the same aspects, in all European regions

at all times. Humanism in Italy originated with the writings of Petrarch (1304-1374) in the

middle of the fourteenth century. Petrarch became the leading humanist figure until modern

times and his writings include Latin poems and treatises, historical works, and private letters which he collected, edited, and revised with admirable care. Other Italian humanists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries include Coluccio Salutati (1331-1406), Leonardo Bruni (c.

1370-1444), Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459), Lorenzo Valla (1407-1457), and Angelo Poliziano

(1454-1494). From Italy humanism spread to other European countries through a variety of channels: foreign scholars or students that resided in Italy for long periods of time and then

traveled elsewhere; Italian bankers and businessmen as well as political envoys that accompanied

royalty and nobles throughout Europe; Italian scholars that taught at foreign universities; Italian

humanists corresponding with individuals in foreign lands; and, above all, through the diffusion

22 Erasmus wrote the treatise Ciceronianus on the subject, in 1528.

31 of manuscript and printed sources of and about classical literature into public and private

libraries.23

While France had a strong tradition of reading and interpreting Roman writers since the

ninth century, especially centered around the cathedral school of Chartres, this tradition started to

decline at the beginning of the fourteenth century.24 At the same time humanism emerged in

Italy and was subsequently re-imported to France during the fifteenth century by the French

humanists Guillaume Fichet (1433-c. 1490) and Robert Gaguin (c. 1430-1501). It was the

leading figures of the next generation, however, that best represented the high point and main

interests of French humanism: Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples (c. 1460-1536) and Guillaume Budé

(1468-1540).25 King Francis I appointed Lefèvre librarian of the Blois collection in 1526, and

during his service Lefèvre finished a translation of the Bible, published in Antwerp in 1530.

Lefèvre was a prolific writer—over 350 editions of his works appeared during his lifetime. His

interests rested mainly with Christian literature, medieval Christian mysticism, Aristotelian

philosophy, and mathematics. He combined his own interests with that of his French patrons and

adapted Italian humanism to the educational needs and traditions of the University of Paris.26

Both Lefèvre and his younger contemporary Budé were striving to reconcile the conflict between

Christian devotion and their admiration for ancient philosophy. Budé, more historically minded than Lefèvre, perceived this paradox more clearly and advocated the study of the humanities only as a preparation for and complement to sacred studies.

23 For a detailed discussion of the ways Italian humanism spread to other European countries see Paul O. Kristeller, “The European Diffusion of Italian Humanism,” in Renaissance Thought and the Arts (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 69-88. 24 Kristeller, “Humanism,” 128. For a detailed discussion of the study of rhetoric in medieval France see George A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999), 216-219. 25 For a comprehensive discussion of the nature of humanism in France see Eugene F. Rice, “Humanism in France,” in Humanism beyond Italy, vol. 2 of Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, ed. Albert Rabil, Jr. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988), 109-122. 26 Rice, “Humanism in France,” 112.

32 The humanist program in France acquired a different profile and served quite different

purposes than in Italy. According to Eugene Rice,

the reception in France of the studia humanitatis is closely related to the emergence in the sixteenth century of the social group of which Budé was himself a representative member, that elite corps of royal office-holders known to contemporaries as the noblesse politique or noblesse civile . . . The old nobility, the noblesse d’armes et de race, asserted that true nobility is inherited, not acquired . . . Members of the noblesse civile required an alternative idea of nobility, an alternative vision of what living nobly could mean, one distinct from the chivalric aspirations and mentality of the nobility of the sword and adaptable to their conception of themselves and their own style of life, a coherent body of cultural ideals distinct from those of the older nobility with whom they shared and competed for power. They found it in the cultural and educational program of humanism and in the ideal of human dignity implicit in it. A humanist education not only taught them to speak and write persuasively, it also inculcated a self- confident dignity independent of both office and birth and helped to bridge the gap between legal nobility, the reward of service, and acceptance as a gentleman . . . Humanists had long argued that true nobility was grounded on virtue and merit rather than on birth. The dignity and quality of nobility that the noblesse de race located in the blood and defined as honor, bravery, strength, and military brio, the noblesse politique et civile redefined as the virtues of peace, eloquence, scholarship, and reason . . . The true noble is the upright and cultivated man . . . A humanist education and enlightened taste and patronage gratifyingly distinguish him both from the merely rich and from nobles whose claims rest only on the merits of their ancestors.27

Thus humanist activity in France acquired a sociological agenda that aimed to bridge the gap

between the nobility and an emerging middle, yet educated class, the noblesse civile. At the same

time, humanists in France faced the problem of “double imitation” since they had to look for

models both in the ancient Greek and Latin authors and to the Italians, which caused “a cultural

inferiority complex.”28 Thus French writers were torn between their admiration for Italian as a

third classical language to be imitated, and their desire to go beyond all three and create a new

and distinct literature in French. To overcome this obstacle, “there soon developed a spirit of

27 Rice, “Humanism in France,” 119-120. 28 Sem Dresden, “The Profile of the Reception of the Italian Renaissance in France,” in Itinerarium Italicum: The Profile of the Italian Renaissance in the Mirror of Its European Transformations, ed. Heiko A. Oberman and Thomas A. Brady, Jr., Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought, vol. 14 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975), 131.

33 competition, of aemulatio, a desire to do just as well in one’s own language and ultimately to alter it in such a way as to be able to compete on an equal footing. The Romans had done so with regard to Greek, the Italians with regard to Latin, and the French with regard to Greek, Latin, and

Italian.”29 The concern with the vernacular not only gave rise to a considerable body of humanist

literature in French but also triggered an interest in and appreciation of other vernacular literary

genres. This possibly explains why the popular lyric also rose in prominence and infiltrated the

courtly poetic tradition during the fifteenth century. This trait had important consequences on the

development and style of the French chanson and will be explored in the next chapter.

The French concern with elevating the national tongue to a more sophisticated level

stands in contrast to the intense cultivation of the classical languages taking place in the Low

Countries. Among the fundamental contributions of northern humanism was the

institutionalization of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. The university of Louvain established the

Collegium Trilingue in 1517, the first such institution in Europe, where the three languages were

taught in a humanistic environment. Such interest in the classical heritage is possibly due to the

international quality of humanism in Burgundian territories, made evident through the constant

exchange of scholars with other countries. Many Italian, French, German, and Spanish humanists

were active in the Low Countries, and, conversely, many northern scholars and students went

abroad to study or to enter the service of nobles.30

Other factors, such as the influence of Erasmus and the Reformation, played a major role

in shaping transalpine humanism. The Christian orientation that characterizes the humanist

movement in France is also paramount in the Low Countries. The writings of the two pre-

29 Dresden, “The Profile,” 131. 30 For the international exchange of humanists among the Low Countries and other European regions see Josef Ijsewijn, “Humanism in the Low Countries,” in Humanism beyond Italy, vol. 2 of Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms, and Legacy, ed. Albert Rabil, Jr. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988),160- 161.

34 eminent northern humanists, Rudolphus Agricola (1444-1485) and Desiderius Erasmus (1469-

1536), are imbued with Christian piety and morals. Erasmus revived Christian piety through the study of the classics and his major contribution is an edition of the New Testament in Greek. The

confluence of classical learning with Christian teachings is mostly made evident in Erasmus’s

advice to preachers to take advantage of the rhetorical expressive devices in their sermons in

order to bring the faithful closer to God. Agricola also places emphasis on the power of the ars

rhetorica to teach (docere), with the ultimate goal to speak of Christian truth. Unfortunately, the ecclesiastical upheavals that accompanied the Reformation had a negative effect on the development of free intellectual activities in the Low Countries. Religious fanaticism forced northern scholars to write works acceptable to theological censors. In order to avoid unwelcome outcomes, they often “withdrew into the neutral and safer work of the purely classical philological kind.”31

Within the framework of humanism’s influence on European intellectual activities on

both sides of the Alps, it is safe to assume that early sixteenth-century composers were amply

exposed to rhetoric and its principles, either through their years of service in Italian courts or

through their training in maîtrises, the choirschools that served as their music training grounds.

Of the known composers of multi-voice chansons, only Josquin and Johannes de Stokem have

documented activity in Italian courts; nevertheless, all composers pursued an ecclesiastical career

to a greater or lesser extent, which implies that they were exposed to a pedagogical curriculum

most certainly imbued by the rhetorical tradition. In addition, composers’ acquaintance with

some aspects of rhetorical theory might also have been possible through their contacts with

contemporary poetry. For the renaissance humanist, both rhetoric and poetics applied techniques

of persuasion with the ultimate goal to morally improve the reader or the audience. Behind this

31 Ijsewijn, “Humanism in the Low Countries,” 164.

35 notion lies the authority of Aristotle who opened his Poetics with the aphorism “every poem and

all poetic discourse is blame or praise,” therefore linking poetry with epideictic oratory.

A great number of treatises on the formal aspects of poetry or seconde rhétorique (to distinguish it from the première rhétorique which dealt with prose writings) appeared in fifteenth-century France.32 These were mainly concerned with the surface details of the poetic

art, emphasizing formal properties such as rhyme systems and rhythm.33 A change of interest

from the structural aspects of poetry to its expressive ones occurred at the turn of the sixteenth

century, and poetic treatises of the period frequently included descriptions of rhetorical figures

and their applications to poetry. Composers must have been aware, at least partly, of this new

concern with poetry’s expressive function, as well as with the indebtedness of contemporary

poetic theory to the rhetorical tradition.

At the same time, theorists advocated the close relationship between poetry and music.

For Jean Molinet, for example—poet, theorist, and historiographer at the Burgundian court from

1475 to 1507—poetry is “a kind of music called rhythmic.”34 Therefore, in turn of the sixteenth-

century writings, rhetoric, poetry, and music are regarded as interrelated art forms.35 The

emergence of the multi-voice chanson during the same period can only be viewed against this

background.

32 For a detailed discussion of differing views of poetry from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance see H. Lubienski-Bodenham, “The Origins of the Fifteenth-Century View of Poetry as ‘Seconde Rhétorique,’” Modern Language Review 74 (1979): 26-38. For a brief survey of poetic treatises in the Middle Ages, consult Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric, 220-221. 33 Chapter II discusses in detail contemporary treatises on poetic theory. 34 Jean Molinet, Art de Rhétorique, in Ernest Langlois, Receuil d’arts de seconde rhétorique (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1902), 216. 35 The appropriation of rhetorical principles for evaluating painting, sculpture, and architecture is discussed in Vickers, “Rhetoric and the Sister Arts,” in In Defense of Rhetoric (Oxford: Clarendon, 1988), 340-374.

36 Rhetoric and music

The relationship between rhetoric and music has a long history, extending back to the

ancient times. Indeed, the power of music over the emotions has its roots in the writings of Plato

and Aristotle, and this notion found expression in many different guises in the writings of later

theorists. Quintilian praised the musician and urged the orator to imitate him. In a frequently

quoted passage, Quintilian appealed: “Give me the knowledge of the principles of music, which

have the power to excite or assuage the emotions of mankind,” for these will provide the future

orator with “all [of the] methods which are concerned firstly with gesture, secondly with the

arrangement of the words, and thirdly with the inflections of the voice, of which a great variety

are required in pleading.”36 Quintilian’s appeal must be seen in relation to the central notion that music is also mimetic of nature and, therefore, music can be used as a model. Furthermore, for

Quintilian, music could stir the emotions even in the absence of a text.37

During the Renaissance, this correspondence between music and rhetoric was reversed

and rhetoric became instead the model for music to imitate. This reversal occurred because

humanists believed that the main agent responsible for the arousal of the emotions in a musical

composition was the text. According to Conrad Peutinger, the author of the epilogue in the Liber

selectarum cantionum, one of the earliest German repositories of Josquin’s motets, “almost all

things in all the disciplines are beholden to speech, to such an extent that every learned man

would desire, and borrow, from this very art the measures, tones, vocal inflections, mutations,

and other items of this same type, even furthermore, a well composed and elegant structure…”38

36 Quintilian Institutio 1.10.22. 37 Quintilian Institutio 9.4.11. 38 Liber selectarum cantionum quas vulgo mutetas appellant (Augsburg: Grimm & Wyrsung,1520), fol. 271v; quoted and translated in Stephanie P. Schlagel, “The Liber selectarum cantionum and the ‘German Josquin Renaissance,’” Journal of Musicology 19, no. 4 (2002): 580.

37 Within this word-dominated conception, music had to adjust to the demands of its literary

counterpart.

Despite the honorable position that music held in the writings of the classical authors,

musical humanists faced a fundamental problem: how to imitate the music of the ancients. The

information about ancient Greek and Roman musical practice was rather scant compared to the

knowledge of ancient literature, and very few musical examples survived. According to Claude

Palisca, by the end of the fifteenth century, humanists had recovered, read, and commented upon

the entire corpus of ancient writings on music and some of the notated examples. They became

aware that the polyphonic practice that had developed during the Middle Ages had no

relationship to Greek monody. To complicate matters, theoretical writings about ancient music

did not always allow for easy interpretations, a problem that resulted in much confusion and

differing ideas among medieval and renaissance music theorists.39 Ironically, in their attempt to

recover the effects of ancient music, musical humanists

advocated reforms that would have deprived composers of some of their most effective means of expression . . . The greatest irony is that under the cover of restoring the ancient union between poetry and music many of the musical humanists were actually trying to assert the superiority of poetry over music, to curtail music’s growing independence, to bring it under the control of texts.40

The humanistic concern with the “word” gradually becomes the focus of musical theoretical writings on both sides of the Alps.

Treatises on music from the end of the fifteenth century betray their authors’ exposure to

the most widely disseminated oratorical treatises. Johannes Tinctoris (c. 1435-1511) cites Cicero

as his authority and distinguishes between three styles to define the polyphonic mass, motet, and

chanson. These are the cantus magnus, mediocris, and parvus, respectively, echoing the

39 Palisca, Humanism, 23. 40 James Anderson Winn, Unsuspected Eloquence: A History of the Relations between Poetry and Music (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), 176.

38 threefold division of oratorical style by Cicero (magna, mediocria, parva).41 In his eighth rule of

counterpoint Tinctoris also propagated variety as important to music, invoking the Ciceronian

principle of varietas.42

Franchino Gaffurio (1451-1522), known for his avid interest in seeking out and studying

ancient sources, places emphasis on the relationship between music and words, emphasizing the

ancient identity between the two arts.43 In his “Rules of Decorum in Singing,” Gaffurio draws

from the Ciceronian principle of decorum to advise the composer to “take care that words are set in an appropriate way to music” and also to select the mode of his song to fit the subject matter of his text.44 Quintilian’s division of pronuntiatio into vox and gestus (voice and gesture) also

informs Gaffurio’s discussion of delivery in singing. Gaffurio advises the singer to use

moderation and “to avoid bellowing or excessive vibrato and refrain from a gaping, distorted

mouth and exaggerated movements of the head and hands.”45 Once again, humanists have made

oratory the model for music, contrary to Quintilian’s text, in which the author urged the orator to

learn from the gestures of the musician. Despite Gaffurio’s focus on pronuntiatio, his analogies

between rhetoric and musical style and composition are otherwise only of a general nature.

Italian music theorists of the first half of the sixteenth century were more specific in

relating musical composition to rhetoric. The idea that oratory could provide the model for all

41 Blake McDowell Wilson, “Ut oratoria musica in the Writings of Renaissance Music Theorists,” in Festa Musicologica: Essays in Honor of George J. Buelow, ed. Thomas J. Mathiesen and Benito V. Rivera, Festschrift Series, vol. 14 (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon, 1995), 346. 42 Johannes Tinctoris, Liber de arte contrapuncti, 2 vols., ed. Albert Seay, Corpus Scriptorum de Musica, vol. 22 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1975), 2:155. For an extensive discussion of Tinctoris’s statement and the possible range of meanings of varietas in late fifteenth-century repertories see Sean Gallagher, “Models of varietas: Studies in Style and Attribution in the Motets of Johannes Regis and His Contemporaries” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1998). 43 Gaffurio commissioned translations of the most important Greek musical writings into Latin. See Palisca, “Gaffurio as a Humanist,” in Humanism, 191-225, and idem, “The Early Translators: Burana, Leoniceno, Augio,” 111-132. 44 Franchino Gaffurio, Practica musicae, trans. Clement Miller, Musicological Studies and Documents, vol. 20 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1968), book III, chapter 15. 45 Gaffurio, Practica musicae, book III, chapter 15.

39 kinds of artistic expression, expounded by the Venetian Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), found fertile

ground in this city, where a number of music theorists centered their activities.46 Pietro Aaron

(c. 1480-after 1545), Giovanni Lafranco (c. 1490-1545), and Giovanni del Lago (c. 1490-1544) were all involved with Venetian literati and musicians. Of special concern to Lafranco and del

Lago is the proper placement of the text. Lafranco sets out specific rules for adapting notes to syllables, and both theorists advise that melodic phrases should coordinate with the sentence structure of the text. To this end, a composer should judiciously place his rests and cadences.

Furthermore, for del Lago, a composer should study the words before proceeding to their musical setting and choose the mode that enhances the affective power of his music.47

It is not until the writings of Gioseffo Zarlino (1517-1590) and Nicola Vicentino (1511-

c. 1576) of the 1550s, that the relationship between rhetoric and music is explicitly articulated.

The two theorists hold the orator, once again, as a model whom the singer should imitate in performance. According to Vicentino:

The experience of the orator teaches us this, for we observe the method he adopts in his oration, that he now speaks with force, and now soft, now a bit slower, now a bit faster, and by this means greatly moves the listeners, and this method of changing the pace greatly affects the spirit. And thus one should sing improvised music in such a way as to imitate the accents and effects of the different parts of the oration. If an orator would attempt to make a beautiful oration without [adopting] the rules of its accents, pronunciations, words delivered now quickly or slowly, some softly, some loudly, the effect will not move the listeners. It must be the same in Music because if the orator is to move the listeners with the abovementioned rules, so much better the music recited with the same rules accompanied by well ordered harmony; it will be far more effective.48

46 Pietro Bembo was a highly influential humanist scholar of the first half of the sixteenth century. His praise of the Tuscan dialect and Petrarchan poetics had a substantial impact on the mid-century madrigal style of Adrian Willaert. 47 For details on Lafranco’s and del Lago’s theories of text underlay see Don Harrán, “Toward a Codification of Word-Tone Relations: Lafranco,” in Word-Tone Relations in Musical Thought, Musicological Studies and Documents, vol. 40 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1986), 130-160. 48 Nicola Vicentino, L’antica musica ridotta alla moderna prattica (Rome: A. Barre, 1555), book 4, chapter 42; quoted and translated in Timothy McGee, “Music, Rhetoric, and the Emperor’s New Clothes,” in Music and Medieval Manuscripts: Paleography and Performance. Essays Dedicated to Andrew Hughes, ed. John Haines and Randall Rosenfeld (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2004), 253-254.

40 In the same vein Zarlino remarked:

Therefore, just as it is allowed that in reciting, according to the material that he draws upon, an orator sometimes does not just speak, but when he would wish to convey fear and terror he explains his concept with a loud and horrible voice, yelling and exclaiming; and when he wishes to provoke commiseration [he speaks] with a subdued and lowered voice. Thus is it not inappropriate for a musician to use similar devices—high and low, now loud and now subdued, when reciting his compositions? Our scholars perhaps would say, that it is one thing to sing and another to orate or to harangue, and that it is not good for a Musician when singing to adopt these devices that an Orator uses in his Orations. Very well, I too have said as much above: I do not say that a singer while singing should yell or roar, because such a thing would have neither proportion nor dignity, but I say that it is permitted to him [when he functions] as a reciter, for whatever is allowed to a reciter of Tragedy and Comedy…thus if the reciter is permitted these things for the enjoyment of his listeners, so must the singer be allowed to use some of them in singing.49

These quotations reveal their writers’ concern mainly with pronuntiatio, the delivery or

performance techniques of a song, and not its composition. Apart from the discussion of

performance practice and abstract generalities, the affinities with rhetoric that Italian theorists

advocated were rather superficial and did not involve any discussion on the relationship of music

to rhetorical structure and figures.

It was left to German music theorists of the sixteenth century to advocate the confluence

between rhetorical principles and compositional practice. Treatises designed to serve the

practical needs of singing instruction in the Protestant Lateinschulen, musically-oriented Latin

schools instituted by Luther’s education minister Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560), betray signs

of the humanistic concern with the relationship between text and music.50 Among them,

Nikolaus Listenius made a fundamental contribution when he introduced a new division of music theory into musica poetica, musica theoretica, and musica practica in his Musica (1537),

reflecting the threefold Aristotelian categorization of human activities into the theoretical, the

49 Gioseffo Zarlino, Sopplimenti musicali (Venice: Sanese, 1588), chapter 11; facs. (New York: Alan R. Liss, 1979); quoted and translated in McGee, “Music, Rhetoric,” 254-255. 50 For some early northern treatises on the subject see McDowell Wilson, “Ut oratoria,” 350.

41 practical, and the poetic.51 Listenius’s new concept of musica poetica emphasizes the creative or

poetic aspect of musical composition, which goes beyond the successful combination of notes to

the more abstract notion of conveying the mood of the text. In this sense, poetic music is

intimately connected to rhetoric, and the concept subsequently became very influential in

Germanic lands, culminating with Joachim Burmeister’s Musica poetica of 1606.

By the middle of the sixteenth century, oltremontani writers increasingly expanded on the

analogies between rhetoric and music. Music’s ability to move (movere), achieved through

elegant singing and the proper relationship between the words and its musical setting, became of

central focus. In the dedication of his treatise De arte canendi (1540), Sebald Heyden invokes

the rhetorical terms coloribus (ornaments), figura, and varietas, as well as the rhetorical

commonplace that figures have the capacity to vividly place subjects before the mind’s eye (ob

oculos ponere).52 It is exactly for his effective and affective coordination between the text and

the music that the Swiss humanist Henricus Glareanus praised Josquin des Prez above all composers. In his Dodecachordon, published in 1547 but completed about ten years earlier,

around the same time with Listenius’s and Heyden’s treatises, Glarean provides an extensive encomium of Josquin:

No one has expressed more effectively in songs the moods of the heart than this symphonetes, no one has begun more successfully, no one has been able to vie with him on an equal plane in grace and fluency of expression, just as no one of the Romans is superior to Maro [Virgil] in the epic. For just as Maro, with the felicity of a natural talent, was accustomed to make a poem equal to the subject matter, as for instance, to place weighty matters before the eyes with accumulated spondees, to express rapidity with unmixed dactyls, to use words suitable to his every subject, in short as Flaccus said about Homer, to undertake nothing ineptly, so also our Josquin sometimes moves with light accelerating notes where the subject demands it, sometimes sings the songs with slow, moving tones; and, to

51 Nikolaus Listenius, Musica (Wittenberg: Georg Rhau, 1537); trans. Albert Seay, Colorado College Music Press, vol. 6 (Colorado Springs: Colorado College, 1975). 52 Sebald Heyden, De arte canendi (Nuremberg: Johann Petreius, 1540); trans. Clement Miller, Musicological Studies and Documents, vol. 26 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1972), 19.

42 say finally, has never brought forth anything which was not pleasant to the ears, and which the learned did not approve as superior in talent, which in sort, even if it should seem less erudite, would not be agreeable and acceptable to discerning listeners.53

With Andrianus Petit Coclico (c. 1500-c. 1563) and Hermann Finck (1527-1558) the ties

between music and language become even closer. Finck explicitly states that “indeed, the

composer who wishes to write a piece must above all take the text into account, diligently

examine all its parts, considering what kind of melody can be given it which would suitably go

with it and express most properly its meaning and the affection of the individual words.”54 Both

theorists single out Josquin as the composer who best represents the new text-expressive style of composition. A more explicitly formulated connection between music and rhetoric occurs in

Gallus Dressler’s Praecepta musicae poeticae (1563). Dressler is the first writer to parallel the division of an oration into exordium, medium, and finis with the beginning, middle, and finale of a musical composition.55

It was only at the turn of the seventeenth century that a full-fledged systematization of

musico-rhetorical theory came into being. The writings of Johannes Lippius (1585-1612) and

Joachim Burmeister (1564-1629) bring into musica poetica the rhetorical principles of

composition, organization, and expression. In his Synopsis musicae novae (1612), Lippius

describes in detail how the five stages that characterize the composition of a speech can serve as

a model for musical composition. Lippius focuses on the first two principles, invention and

53 Henricus Glareanus, Dodecachordon (Basel: Petri, 1547); facs. (New York: Broude Bros., 1967), 362- 363; trans. Clement A. Miller, Musicological Studies and Documents, vol. 6 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1965), 264-265. 54 Hermann Finck, Practica musica (Wittenberg: Georg Rhau, 1556); quoted and translated in McDowell Wilson, “Ut oratoria,” 357. Adrianus Petit Coclico, Compendium musices (Nuremberg: Berg & Neuber, 1552); Musical Compendium, trans. Albert Seay, Colorado College Music Press, vol. 5 (Colorado Springs: Colorado College, 1973). 55 Gallus Dressler, Praecepta musicae poeticae, MS 1563; ed. B. Engelke, in Geschichtsblätter für Stadt und Land Magdeburg 49-50 (1914-15), 243-248. Modern edition Gallus Dressler, Praecepta musicae poëticae, ed. and trans. Robert Forgács, Studies in the History of Music Theory and Literature, vol. 3 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007).

43 arrangement (inventio and dispositio), but largely ignores expression (elocutio).56 Therefore,

rhetoric provides Lippius with the conceptual framework for the articulation of a theory of

musical form, the earliest explicit attempt towards this end.

Elocutio is the focus of Burmeister’s theory exposed in his three treatises

Hypomnematum musicae poeticae (1599), Musica autoschediastike (1601), and Musica poetica

(1606).57 Belonging to the German line of music theorists, Burmeister sought to reconcile the

compositional techniques of Franco-Flemish polyphony with the expressive ideals of oratory. In

his Musica autoschediastike, Burmeister extols music for its affective power, which is above that

of oratory:

In the art of oratory, in so far as it has power, the power resides not in the simple collection of simple words, in the proper measuring out of periods, and although they be plain, in their exquisite combination, which remains naked and always even and equal. Rather it resides in those things in which charm and elegance lie concealed in ornament and through words charged with wit, in periods enclosing a range of emphatic words. Thus also this art [music], beyond the naked mixture of perfect and imperfect consonances, offers to the sense through the intermingling of dissonances a combination that similarly cannot fail to touch the heart . . . So that these things may deserve greater confidence, a single example may be selected from among many in the works of Orlandus in the song Deus qui sedes for five voices. He interpreted the text “Laborem et dolorem, etc” so artfully; indeed he so portrayed it that through these very contorted inflections of intervals he put before the eyes the meaning of the thing [itself]. Certainly the mere regular interweaving of consonances does not accomplish this feat; rather the labor of craft and the learned syntax are swept away by the majesty of gesture and ornament. By Hercules, not Apelles, with the most accurate skill of his art, not Demosthenes, not Cicero by the art of persuading, deflecting, moving, and orating, would have better placed the burden of trouble and lamentation before the eyes, moved the ears, implanted these [feelings] in the heart than Orlandus did with this harmonic art.58

56 Johannes Lippius, Synopsis musicae novae (Strassburg: Kieffer, 1612); Synopsis of New Music, trans. Benito V. Rivera, Colorado College Music Press, vol. 8 (Colorado Springs: Colorado College, 1977). 57 Joachim Burmeister, Hypomnematum musicae poeticae (Rostock: S. Myliander, 1599); Musica autoschediastike (Rostock: C. Reusner, 1601); Musica poetica (Rostock: S. Myliander, 1606); Musical Poetics, trans. Benito V. Rivera (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993). 58 Burmeister, Musica autoschediastike, fols. A2v-3v; translated in Claude V. Palisca, “Ut oratoria musica: The Rhetorical Basis of Musical Mannerism,” in Studies in the History of Italian Music and Music Theory (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994), 288.

44 Burmeister’s emphasis on elocutio and consequently on the figures of speech, the

gestures responsible for the affective power of language, led him to produce a similar system of

figures for music. Using as models composers such as Clemens non Papa and Orlando di Lasso,

Burmeister provided a thorough exposition of musico-rhetorical figures, thus becoming the

founder of the Figurenlehre tradition. His taxonomy served both a descriptive function—and as

such it provided the foundation for musical analysis and criticism—and a prescriptive one, as a

pedagogical tool for young composers and students of music.

Although Burmeister adopts Greek and Latin terminology, his use of figures is

idiosyncratic; more often than not, his terms only vaguely reflect the function of their rhetorical

counterparts or have no rhetorical precedent at all. In fact, Burmeister’s figures describe purely

musical phenomena, frequently detached from a text and its meaning, and thus are not an

appropriate model for musical rhetorical analysis, in which some kind of relationship between

the text and its musical setting is asserted.

Later theorists were more successful in relating figures of speech with musical gestures.

For example, in rhetoric anadiplosis is defined as the repetition of a word that ends a clause or

sentence at the beginning of the following clause or sentence. For Burmeister anadiplosis is a

harmonic ornament consisting in the repetition of an antiphonal exchange of homorhythmic

passages between two groups of voices, while for Mauritius Vogt, writing in 1719, it is a

melodic gesture that ends a musical phrase and repeats at the beginning of the next.59 It is

obvious that Vogt’s application is more faithful to its linguistic counterpart than Burmeister’s.

Eventually, rhetoric provided theorists with the necessary conceptual framework and

vocabulary to describe musical gestures that do not have a linguistic equivalent but, nevertheless,

59 Mauritius Vogt, Conclave Thesauri magnae artis musicae (Prague: Vetero, 1719), 150. For Burmeister’s definition see Musical Poetics, 167.

45 derive their inspiration from the textual content. In his Musurgia Universalis (1650), written

some fifty years after Burmeister’s treatises, Athanasius Kircher introduces three new musical

figures whose shape reflects a graphic representation of the text: anabasis, a rising line to reflect

textual references to ascent or high and distinguished things; catabasis, a descending line that

illustrates servitude, humility, or infernal notions; and circulatio, a circular melodic motion, that

symbolizes perfection, eternity, circular objects, or turning motions.60 In his study “Circulatio-

Tradition, Maria Lactans, and Josquin as Musical Orator” (discussed below), Warren Kirkendale

points out the presence of circulatio in Josquin’s compositions. The analysis of the multi-voice

chansons reveals that all of the above figures are found in nascent form in the repertory of

composers of Josquin’s generation.

The Figurenlehre tradition initiated by Burmeister became extremely influential for the

next two hundred years and often re-emerges in modern music criticism. This approach has not

been accepted without skepticism. The main objections come from Vickers, who questions the

ability of a non-linguistic system (music) to be adapted to a linguistic one (rhetoric). His main

concern is that in doing so contemporary theorists and musicians unavoidably transformed the

nature of the figures of speech from semantic to structural. Vickers rightly observes that

all discussions of music and rhetoric assume that notes in music behave in the same way as do words in language. That is, since notes can be repeated, as words can, then the effect will be similar. Insofar as we consider the shape of the resulting figure, that may be true; yet what of the meaning of the words? How can music be said to match the denotational or referential level of language?61

60 Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia Universalis (Rome: Francisci Corbelletti, 1650). For a modern edition see Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia Universalis. Mit einen Vorwort, Personen-, Orts- und Sachregister von Ulf Scharlau (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1970), B 145. 61 Vickers, “Figures of Rhetoric,” 28-29

46 For example, the rhetorical figure hyperbaton describes the dislocation of the order of words to

reflect disordered feelings.62 The audience, drawing from personal experience, could easily

recognize the effect. Since music does not have the same laws of syntax as language, it is

impossible to achieve the same result. Linguistic figures based on semantic properties, such as

the tropes, are hardly transferable to music. For example, antimetabole repeats words in inverted

order with a specific semantic result: “eat to live: do not live to eat.” Although mirror shapes are

very common in music, the immediate effect of the corresponding rhetorical figure is not

possible.63 Yet the rhetorical analysis demonstrates that the composers of multi-voice songs

successfully applied such figures with semantic intent.64

Another obstacle in applying figures of rhetoric to music is that even within the rhetorical

tradition itself there exists great ambiguity in the definition of terms. Writers of rhetoric

textbooks often assigned different meanings to the same rhetorical figure, thereby making it

impossible to talk about a generally agreed upon system. Vickers concludes that

while the influence of rhetoric gave composers ideas about musical form and the stages of composition, and encouraged focus on the representation and arousal of feeling, it did not always assist the development of specifically musical resources, and the attempt to find equivalents for verbal devices was problematic . . . The musical application of a figure is always more limited than its rhetorical function, and . . . it usually involves a transposition of the linguistic effect on to some other plane.65

Musicologists tend to agree, in general, with Vicker’s conclusions. Maria Rika Maniates

asserts that “Music is ‘as rhetoric’ whenever musicians adapted this analogy to justify, explain,

teach, perform or compose music.”66 Similarly, in his extensive investigation of the confluence

62 Vickers, “Figures of Rhetoric,” 29-30. 63 Vickers, “Figures of Rhetoric,” 33. 64 See, for example, the discussion of Plusieurs regretz and Si vous n’avez autre desir, in chapters III and V, respectively. 65 Vickers, “Figures of Rhetoric,” 40-41. 66 Maria R. Maniates, “Music and Rhetoric: Facets of Cultural History in the Renaissance and Baroque,” Israel Studies in Musicology 3 (1983): 68.

47 between musical theoretical writings involving rhetoric and actual composition, Timothy McGee proposed that composers were guided by rhetoric only in its general precepts—by adjusting, for

example, the division of musical phrases to match the syntax of the text—and did not seek to

reflect the rhetorical ornaments of the poetry they set with matching musical figures. In other

words, there is no one-to-one correspondence between the rhetoric of the text and that of the

music.67 He further rightfully observes that Josquin overlooked several opportunities to represent rhetorical figures present in the text.68

The only attempt, so far, to demonstrate that there can be a tighter and multi-faceted

relationship between the rhetorical details of the text and its musical setting is Patrick Macey’s

analysis of Josquin’s motet Miserere mei, Deus.69 In his dissertation, “Josquin’s Miserere mei

Deus: Context, Structure, and Influence,” Macey developed a systematic model of musico-

rhetorical analysis by using the principles and figures of the classical orators as well as those

described by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century musical theorists, including Burmeister, to

illuminate Josquin’s compositional approach both in the large structural level and the surface

details. In his more recent essay “Josquin and Musical Rhetoric,” however, Macey restricted the

use of rhetorical figures to those derived from classical oratory only. Table 1.1 lists the most

common rhetorical figures described in Rhetorica ad Herennium and Institutio oratoria, the most

widely disseminated treatises during the Renaissance and which contemporary composers were

likely acquainted with, that could have a musical application. For example, anaphora, the

repetition of the same word(s) at the beginning of successive sentences, finds expression in

67 McGee, “Music, Rhetoric,” 207-259. 68 McGee, “Music, Rhetoric,” 242. 69 Patrick Macey, “Josquin and Musical Rhetoric: Miserere mei, Deus and Other Motets,” in The Josquin Companion, ed. Richard Sherr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 495-530. This essay is an excerpted and revised version of his dissertation “Josquin’s Miserere mei Deus: Context, Structure, and Influence” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1985).

48 music as repetition of the same motif to open different musical phrases. In contrast, hypophora, a

figure of reasoning which takes the form of asking the audience or one’s adversary what can be

said of the matter, cannot obviously be appropriated in any meaningful way by music and is thus

not included in the table.

Macey’s analysis convincingly demonstrates that the overall musical structure of

Josquin’s Miserere mei, Deus follows the known formal divisions of oratory. Josquin builds the

motet’s structure by strategically incorporating melodic gestures that derive from rhetorical

figures. It should be noted however, that the musical figures Macey identifies do not reflect the

same figures in the text, but are rather used for their rhetorical effect: as pointers that emphasize

a syntactic or semantic detail of the text in musical terms. For example, Macey likens the

truncation of the musical phrase in the alto part of verse 19 of the psalm to the rhetorical figure

apocope, which is defined as the dropping off of the final syllable or letter of a word. Since no

such curtailing occurs in the motet’s text, Macey interprets this gesture as reflecting the

emotional tension of the moment.70 Although there is no direct analogy with the linguistic figure,

the oratorical apocope provided the conceptual background that fostered Macey’s meaningful interpretation of Josquin’s gesture. Furthermore, Macey assigns structural significance to figures of repetition such as anadiplosis and epanadiplosis (for their definitions see Table 1.1), as gestures that “fuse the individual verses of the psalm into larger units.”71 He thus justifies

Vickers’s claim that, when transferred to music, rhetorical figures are transformed from semantic to structural or “on to some other plane.” The analysis of the multi-voice chansons reveals that, besides their structural function, such figures may also have semantic significance, unveiling

how the composer read and interpreted a particular poetic text.

70 Macey, “Josquin and Musical Rhetoric,” 515. 71 Macey, “Josquin’s Miserere mei Deus,” 70.

49 Warren Kirkendale has provided further confirmation of Josquin’s rhetorical approach in

his “Circulatio-Tradition, Maria Lactans, and Josquin as Musical Orator.” 72 In this study,

Kirkendale argues for the rhetorical significance of circular motives in Josquin’s music. As mentioned above, circulatio or circulus has no analogy in literature, but was first identified as a musico-rhetorical figure by Kircher (in 1650). In practice, circulatio describes a melodic motion which includes upper and lower neighbor tones of a different central note. Kirkendale points out that Josquin employs this circle symbolism to represent the motion of Fortune’s wheel in

Fortuna dun gran tempo and to depict the Virgin’s breast in the motet Ave Maria…benedicta tu.

In addition to whatever rhetorical precepts or gestures it appropriates from oratory, music, as other non-linguistic arts, has its own expressive means. Discussions about the affective qualities of the modes, a musical property without any equivalent in rhetoric, belong to this category. Claude Palisca has demonstrated that there exists great inconsistency in contemporary theory about the ethical power or emotional associations of the different modes.73 Music

theorists confused the ancient Greek system with medieval writings on modes concerning the

plainchant tradition and with their own experience hearing and composing polyphonic music. In

the mid-sixteenth century, Zarlino attempted to define the expressive potential of the modes by

relying on the musical properties of the intervallic combinations that each mode afforded.74

However, in practice, according to Palisca, there were no objective affective profiles associated with each mode, and different theorists could assign different affects to the same mode. The

72 Warren Kirkendale, “Circulatio-Tradition, Maria Lactans, and Josquin as Musical Orator,” Acta Musicologica 56 (1984): 69-92. 73 Claude V. Palisca, “Mode Ethos in the Renaissance,” in Essays in Musicology: A Tribute to Alvin Johnson, ed. Lewis Lockwood and Edward Roesner (n.p.: American Musicological Society, 1990), 126-139. 74 Palisca, “Mode Ethos,” 131-133.

50 concern with mode was a cultural phenomenon related to the humanistic notion of the expressive

function of music.75

The view that manipulation of modal aspects of a composition served a rhetorical

purpose is widespread in modern scholarship. In his “Rhetorical Aspects of the Renaissance

Modes,” Bernhard Meier investigates whether the so-claimed affective qualities of the modes

have any objective meaning.76 According to Meier, modes can serve as vehicles with affective potential that can enhance the semantic interpretation and expression of the text. In an earlier,

extended essay, Meier asserted that the frequently encountered combination of Dorian and

Phrygian modes in polyphonic music of the sixteenth century served the rhetorical purpose to

express unusual states of mind.77 Composers manipulated the modes and the audience’s

expectations about them to rhetorical ends and the analysis of the multi-voice songs further

justifies such claim.

The above studies demonstrate that rhetorically informed analysis widens our

interpretative horizons and elucidates text expressive devices, which would otherwise remain unnoticed or obscure. Acquaintance with the history and basic premises of the rhetorical tradition and with its profile within the humanistic background of the Renaissance provides the framework for the subsequent analysis of the multi-voice songs from a rhetorical perspective.

Such analysis is justified by the composers’ contact with humanistic ideals. This is especially true for Josquin, who spent a great deal of his career in Italy before composing his multi-voice chansons in Condé-sur-l’Escaut (1504-1521).

75 Harold Powers distinguishes between mode as an “emic,” that is, interpretative musical concept from tonal type, which is “etic,” or objectively identifiable. Harold Powers, “Tonal Types and Modal Categories in Renaissance Polyphony,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 34, no. 3 (1981): 428-470. 76 Bernhard Meier, “Rhetorical Aspects of the Renaissance Modes,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 115 (1990): 182-190. 77 Bernhard Meier, “The Musica Reservata of Adrianus Petit Coclico and its Relationship to Josquin,” Musica Disciplina 10 (1956): 67-105.

51 Table 1.1. Rhetorical figures and tropes in Rhetorica ad Herennium and Institutio oratoria that can have possible applications in music.

Name of figurea Definition Rhetorica ad Herenniumb Institutio oratoria anadiplosis * The word ending one not described yes (not labeled) clause or sentence is repeated at the beginning of the next anaphora Repetition of the same yes (epanaphora) yes (not labeled) word(s) at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences antimetabole Repetition of two or more yes (commutatio) yes words in successive clauses in inverted order antithesis Juxtaposition of yes yes contrasting words or ideas aposiopesis Breaking off a sentence yes (praecisio) yes out of sudden passion articulus Creating emphasis through yes yes (not labeled) repetition and distinct figuration usually by joining successive phrases without conjunctions to accelerate the pace of the phrase climax Last word of a clause yes (gradatio) yes becomes the first of the next, through several clauses arranged in ascending order of magnitude epanadiplosis * The opening word(s) of a not described yes (not labeled) clause or a sentence is repeated at the end epistrophe * Ending a series of clauses yes (antistrophe, yes (not labeled) or sentences with the same conversio) word(s) exclamatio Expression of strong yes yes emotions, which disturbs the flow of speech; an emotional exclamation hyperbaton Dislocations of normal yes yes word order reflecting psychological disorder hyperbole Rhetorical exaggeration yes yes hypotyposis The vivid presentation of yes (diatyposis) yes the meaning and feeling of the text, making the words visible interiectio * Insertion of a sentence in not described yes (not labeled) the midst of another

52 isocolon * Repetition of clauses of yes yes equal length and corresponding structure maxim A short and pithy saying yes (sententia) yes (gnome, sententia) drawn from life ploke Repetition of one or more yes (also antimetathesis) yes words for rhetorical emphasis polyptoton * (musical Same word inflected yes yes application only in relation differently to give two to the same figure in the syntactically distinct text) perspectives symploke The combination of yes yes (not labeled) anaphora and epistrophe (described above) a The asterisks in this column denote figures identified by Macey in Josquin’s Miserere mei, Deus. b Terms in parentheses denote the alternative name employed in the specific treatise if different from the term in the first column. If the treatise describes a figure without assigning a name to it, it is marked as “not labeled.” When a figure does not appear in the specific treatise it is marked as “not described.”

CHAPTER II

LYRIC AND CHANSON VERSE IN THE LATE FIFTEENTH AND EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURIES

Any study on musical rhetoric of vocal compositions presupposes a relationship between the words and the music. Deeper understanding of the poetry—its context, conventions, vocabulary, prosodic features—may help us trace the path from the text to its musical realization and, vice versa, from the music to the reading of the text by the composer. As French contemporary poetic theory reveals, the first quarter of the sixteenth century—the period during which the multi-voice chanson emerges—witnesses tightening connections between poetry, rhetoric, and music. Poetry is regarded at the same time as a type of oratory (seconde rhétorique) and a type of music (rhythmic music). Acquaintance with the classical rhetorical tradition during the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, as explored in the previous chapter, and with the poetry and poetic theory during the same time, the focus of the present chapter, enables a multi- faceted approach towards the rhetorical analysis and interpretation of the multi-voice song.

While French poetic treatises emphasize poetry’s affinities with rhetoric and frequently include a description of the figures of speech, they also make evident that poetry has its own rhetoric that is idiosyncratic to this art. The analyses in later chapters demonstrate that composers of the multi-voice song were extremely sensitive to this rhetoric of the verse. In particular, poetic theory reveals a growing concern with rhyme as the locus where meaning is intensified, and composers prove to be very inventive in reflecting this prosodic feature in musical terms. The frequently strong sonorous quality of the verse, evident through alliterations, assonances, verbal puns, etc., is underscored by the expanded textures. Awareness of the contemporary penchant for

54 obscene expressions or double entendres elucidates the musical treatment of relevant moments and reveals the composers’ stance to this matter. Familiarity with the prominent poetic topoi and the related registers (“courtly” or “popular” or a mixture of both) help further discern and interpret differing patterns of musical treatment. Finally, the play with form and convention frequently encountered in the multi-voice song, when placed against the background of the common poetic forms set to music, throws into relief the rhetorically-oriented approach of the composers.

The first part of this chapter, “French poetry in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries,” surveys the poetic traditions in both theory and practice, focusing especially on the points of cross-fertilization between lyric and chanson verse. It further explores the relationship between rhetoric, poetry, and music, and revisits received views on the artistic qualities of the lyric and chanson verse in the light of recent studies in literary criticism. The second part,

“Chanson verse and the multi-voice song repertory,” focuses on chanson verse, particularly on the texts of the multi-voice genre. It surveys the manuscript and printed sources containing chanson texts and examines the features of versification and the prominent topoi and themes in relation to the nature of the poetry set (“courtly” or “popular”).

French poetry in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries

The Middle Ages is one of the most prolific and influential periods of European literature, in general, and French poetry, in particular. The early stages of French poetry provide us with persistent notions about love: the literary doctrine of fin’amor, prominent in the songs of the troubadours and trouvères, became the source of the romantic love tradition established in the

West ever since. The term “courtly love” or “amour courtois,” coined by Gaston Paris in 1883 to describe the love of Lancelot and Guenevere in Chrétien de Troyes’s novel Conte de la

55 charrette, was attached to the corpus of love poetry produced during a span of almost 600 years

(from the eleventh to the sixteenth centuries).1 The early medieval romances and epics have

furnished subsequent literature with a variety of heroic figures ranging from the legendary King

Arthur, Tristan, Isolt, Lancelot, and Sir Perceval, to the comic Raynard the Fox and his company.

In the later Middle Ages, allegory became the persistent mode of love literature, in which the

hero struggles with personified abstractions in his quest to encounter Love. The Roman de la

Rose, a 4,000-line poem written by Guillaume de Lorris c. 1230, describes a young man’s first

experience with love within an allegorized landscape. The narrative ends with the Lover being

impeded by Jealousy, Danger, Fear, and Slander to reach the desired Rosebud, a symbolic representation of the female Lover. The writing of the poem was interrupted by Guillaume’s death, but Jean de Meun continued the narrative c. 1275, adding approximately 18,000 lines. In

his continuation, however, the poet completely reversed the situation set out by Guillaume. De

Meun advocated outright copulation with the ultimate purpose of reproducing the species and

condemned the spiritual games of courtly love as unnatural. He thus created an anti-romance that

demystified the poetic notion of fin’amor. His views on the nature of women and their place in

society fuelled a number of proto-feminist controversies.2 De Meun’s version became

1 Gaston Paris, “Études sur les romans de la Table Ronde. Lancelot du Lac. II. Le Conte de la Charrette,” Romania 12 (1883): 459-534. For a comprehensive study of the history of controversial scholarship related to the origins and meaning of the notion of “courtly love” consult Roger Boase, The Origin and Meaning of Courtly Love: A Critical Study of European Scholarship (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977), as well as the essays in F. X. Newman, ed., The Meaning of Courtly Love: Papers of the First Annual Conference of the Center of Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, State University of New York at Binghamton, March 17-18, 1967 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1968). 2 Among the ardent protagonists of this controversy was the poetess Christine de Pizan. Pizan attacked the antifeminism of de Meun and gained the support of Jean de Gerson, chancellor of the Cathedral of Notre Dame and rector of the University of Paris.

56 particularly influential during the following centuries, immediately following Dante’s Commedia in the number of manuscript copies in which it is preserved.3

Even within the highly allegorized space of the Roman de la Rose, the poetic tradition of fin’amor relies on a number of specific topoi and conventions. In this tradition, the poetic lover- singer-narrator, uttered always in a male voice, declares his admiration for the lady, who is superior to him in both social class and virtue.4 He adores her in a manner that one ought to adore the Virgin Mary, and his longing is thus frequently expressed in a religious vocabulary.

Dazzled by her unsurpassed beauty, the lover attempts to convince the lady to grant him her favors; these could range from a smile or a simple acknowledgment of his existence to an act of sexual intimacy. The lover’s advances, however, face a number of obstacles: in addition to the gap of social class, he has to face the danger of the losengiers, the slanderers who, creeping out from every corner, seek to harm her reputation or harm both her and her admirer by revealing their bond to her husband. The longer the favor is not granted, the more ennobling the experience of fin’amor is, throwing the lover into a condition of religious contemplative exaltation. In fact, the pain caused by love is indistinguishable from joy. The lover is grateful to his lady because, through her unyielding and virtuous stance, she allows him to experience a state of perpetual desire. Fin’amor is ideally an end in itself, a state of perpetual courtship, which verifies the lover’s worth and nobility. However, the different guises and subtle variations in which fin’amor found expression, often depending on the conventions of the genre it was called to serve, reveal that it was a much richer and diverse notion than the above schematic description demonstrates.

3 René of Anjou, The Book of the Love-Smitten Heart (Le livre du cuers d’amours espris), ed. and trans. Stephanie Viereck Gibbs and Kathryn Karczewska (New York: Routledge, 2001), xlii . More than 300 manuscripts and a considerable amount of printed editions (published between 1481 and 1538) of the Roman de la Rose have survived. Stephen Minta, Love Poetry in Sixteenth-Century France: A Study in Themes and Traditions (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977), 108. 4 In the troubadour poetry the lady is often addressed as “midons” (“my lord”).

57 In the fourteenth century, the poetry of Guillaume de Machaut both follows and

undermines the conventions of courtly discourse. Machaut’s several dits amoureux preserve the

dream-like atmosphere of the Roman de la Rose, and combine historical figures with allegorical

abstractions presented as real actors. The poet-narrator of these dits, however, deviates from the traditional rules of courtly decorum by displaying cowardice, misogyny, sloth, or inappropriate attitude. At the same time, in musically setting some of his own shorter verses, Machaut becomes the last major representative of a long tradition of poet-musicians.5 After him, the gulf between

the poet and the composer increases. Poets of the fifteenth century generally did not set their

texts to music, while composers had to look at the corpus of poetry provided by these poets for their musical settings, only occasionally penning their own verses.

It is at this point in time that French literary historians have raised a barrier between the

Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Early twentieth-century scholars regarded the poetry of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries as stereotyped, excessive, and unoriginal. Such views have largely been determined by the reproachful and dismissive comments of the Pléiade, a group of poets who dominated the French literary scene after 1550. Seeking a break with their immediate past, the Pléiade poets condemned the poetry of their predecessors and advocated a literary rebirth based upon the imitation of antiquity. In his 1549 Deffence et illustration de la langue françoyse, Joachim Du Bellay expressed disdain for “all that old French poetry . . . like rondeaux, ballades, virelais, chants royaux, chansons, and other such spicery, which corrupts the taste of our language.”6 Ever since, any poetry that falls between that of François Villon and

5 However, some post-Machaut poets did continue to compose music. For a comprehensive study on such poets-musicians see Nigel Wilkins, “The Post-Machaut Generation of Poet-Musicians,” Nottingham French Studies 12 (1968): 40-84. 6 “ . . . toutes ces vieilles poësies Francoyses . . . comme rondeaux, ballades, vyrelaiz, chantz royaulx, chansons, et autres telles episseries, qui corrumpent le goust de nostre Langue.” Joachim Du Bellay, Deffence et illustration de la langue françoyse, ed. Henri Chamard (Paris: Didier, 1948), 108. Unless otherwise indicated all translations are mine.

58 Charles d’Orléans (discussed below), on one hand, and that of Pierre de Ronsard (leader of the

Pléiade) and Du Bellay, on the other, has been approached with skepticism or has been altogether ignored as “poetry of transition” and, therefore, of secondary interest.7 Since the poetry of the Pléiade has been linked with the idea of “rebirth” or “renaissance,” it is inevitable that the preceding era would have to suffer from negative characterizations. Johan Huizinga’s view of the French fifteenth century as a dying civilization further reinforced this attitude towards literature.8

Nineteenth-century scholars surveyed, edited, and published a great deal of fifteenth- century poetry with the main purpose of bridging the gap between the period of Machaut and that of the renewed spirit of the Pléiade poets. Unfortunately, nineteenth-century aesthetic prejudices regarding originality of form, themes, and personal expression unavoidably guided scholarship to a perpetuation of the attacks initiated by the Pléiade.9 As C. S. Shapley would later observe “the concept of medieval impersonality and virtually anonymous craftsmanship serving as prelude and contrast to the art-consciousness and individuality of the Renaissance encouraged these scholars to deny the uniqueness of the work and thus blinded them to its identity.”10 After World

7 The early twentieth-century literary scholar Gustave Michaut referred to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, up to the period of the Italian wars, as a “period of transition” at the end of which the Middle Ages finally came to a close. Gustave Michaut, L’evolution littéraire du Moyen Age français (Paris: Croville-Mornat, 1931), 86. Marcel Françon also titled the collection of the 601 rondeaux of the manuscript 402 de Lille as “poèmes de transition.” Marcel Françon, Poèmes de transition (XVe-XVIe siècles): rondeaux du Ms. 402 de Lille (Paris: Droz, 1938). The manuscript will henceforth be referred to as Lille 402. 8 Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages: A Study of the Forms of Life, Thought and Art in France and the Netherlands in the XIVth and XVth Centuries (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1924). For a more recent edition see Johan Huizinga, The Autumn of the Middle Ages, trans. Rodney J. Payton and Ulrich Mammitzsch (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1996). 9 Among these prejudiced works see Henri Guy, Histoire de la poésie française, 2 vols. (Paris: Champion, 1910); Henri Chamard, Les origins de la poésie française de la Renaissance (Paris, 1932); and Gustav Lanson, Histoire de la littérature française (Paris: Hachette, 1916). Referring to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Lanson headed sections with titles such as “Décomposition du Moyen Age” and “Décadence générale de la littérature française.” In his opening lecture on fifteenth-century French poetry at the Collège de France in 1885, Gaston Paris only considered poetry from the period 1440-1480. Gaston Paris, La poésie du Moyen Age, 2nd ed. (Paris: Hachette, 1895). 10 C. S. Shapley, Studies in French Poetry of the Fifteenth Century (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1970), 171.

59 War II, however, literary historians indulged in a re-evaluation of the fifteenth century. Franco

Simone’s French Renaissance led the way to a more careful study of the period.11 With his

extensive monograph on the courtly lyric from Machaut to Charles d’Orléans, Daniel Poirion

further contributed to the understanding and appreciation of French literature from 1300 to

1480.12

Ironically, the poets rejected by nineteenth-century critics were highly esteemed during

their lifetimes. The early part of the fifteenth century, despite the ravaging effects of the Hundred

Years’ War, witnessed a significant growth of literary production. Literary creativity was

encouraged and patronized in the provincial courts of Anjou, Blois, Champagne, Flanders, and

Normandy in the North and those of Poitou, Limousin, Auvergne, Toulouse, Montpellier, and

Provence in Occitan.13 Poets included clerics, chancellors, or other people living or affiliated

with a court, on one hand, and members of the nobility, on the other. In the first category belong

Alain Chartier (c. 1380-1430), for many the founder of the Grands Rhétoriqueurs school and the

only poet not renounced by the Pléiade,14 Cristine de Pizan (1364-1430), and Francois Villon

(1431-1463). The most notable princely poets are Charles, Duke of Orléans (1394-1465) and

René d’Anjou (1409-1480), Count of Provence and titular King of the Two Sicilies.

The poetry of these prominent figures displays an impressive scope and range of genres.

Alongside the shorter formes fixes, the poets cultivated didactic, religious, moralizing, historical,

and satirical genres, often combining prose with verse. The length of these works vary from

11 Franco Simone, The French Renaissance: Medieval Tradition and Italian Influence in Shaping the Renaissance in France, trans. H. Gaston Hall (London: Macmillan, 1969); originally published as Il Rinascimento francese (Turin: Società Editrice Internazionale, 1965). 12 Daniel Poirion, Le poète et le prince: l’évolution du lyrisme courtois de Guillaume de Machaut à Charles d’Orléans (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1965). 13 William Calin, In Defense of French Poetry: An Essay in Revaluation (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1987), 135. 14 Warner F. Patterson, Three Centuries of French Poetic Theory: A Critical History of the Chief Arts of Poetry in France (1323-1630), Language and Literature, vol. 15 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1935), 101-104.

60 several hundreds to thousands of lines. The allegorical figures of the Roman de la Rose feature prominently mostly in the longer works. Personified abstractions such as Dangier, Espérance,

Tristesse, Merancolye, and Desconfort act upon the main character or acteur of the poem, often as concretized aspects of his own psyche. The last example of love allegory in the tradition of the

Roman de la Rose is Le livre du cuers d’amours espris (The Book of the Love-Smitten Heart), a dream-tale of 315 prose and verse passages.15 Written by René d’Anjou, the last of the princely poets, Le livre du cuers combines allegorical figures with mythological, medieval, and contemporary heroes, mixing prose with verse to describe the ordeals during the journey of the

Lover.

Love poetry of the early fifteenth century perpetuates the crisis of courtly idealism, already evident in the work of Machaut. Especially through their poetic disputes, debates where a subject is held up for acceptance or rejection, both Christine de Pizan and Alain Chartier carry the audience away from the expected paths of courtly love discourse.16 Pizan’s Cité des dames

(1404-1405), Dit de Poissy (c. 1401), and Cent ballades d’amant et de dame (1409-1410)

emphasize the futility and misery of courtly love. With La Belle Dame sans merci (1424),

Chartier “has finally undone courtly love in France.”17 This 800-line debate, influential

throughout the fifteenth century, recounts the continuous efforts of an ardent lover to gain the

sympathy and love of his object of desire.18 The lady is adamant in her rapprochement and the

lover finally dies from grief. To the suitor’s advances the lady replies with practical language:

15 The book was possibly written between 1457 and 1477. René died in 1480. For citation see fn. 3. 16 Such poetic debates are anticipated in Machaut’s two Jugements, Le Jugement du roy de Behaingne (c. 1342) and Le Jugement du roy de Navarre (1349). 17 Douglas Kelly, Medieval Imagination: Rhetoric and the Poetry of Courtly Love (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), 190. 18 La Belle Dame sans merci has survived in forty-four manuscripts. See Alain Chartier, The Poetical Works of Alain Chartier, ed. J. C. Laidlaw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 328-329. According to Leonard W. Johnson, La Belle Dame “is by far the one [poem] mentioned most by contemporaries and clearly figures as an important event in the literary consciousness of the time.” Leonard W. Johnson, Poets as Players:

61 Beau sire, ce fou pensement Good sir, will this foolish thought Ne vous laissera il jamais? Never leave you? Ne penserez vous autrement Won’t it ever occur to you De donner à vostre cuer paix? To give your heart some peace?19

Chartier thus transforms the unyielding but idealized lady of the courtly discourse to an

indifferent and realistic one and effects a reversal of fin’amor’s central premise: instead of

causing joy, love is the source of grief that can even lead to death. In the even more extensive Le

Livre des quatre dames (3,531 lines), Chartier amplifies the theme of unhappiness caused by

love. In this poem, four ladies debate their views, presenting four different cases in which love is

the cause of grief, distance, uncertainty, or even shame. The notion of the cynical lady and of

love as the source of pain dominates fifteenth-century courtly literature and also enters the

shorter lyric genres, including those that could be set to music.

The alienation from the principles of idealized love also becomes prominent in Charles d’

Orléans’s late poetry:

Quant j’oy ung amant qui souspire, When I hear a lover sighing, A ha! dis je, vela des tours Aha, say I, there are some tricks Dont usay en mes jeunes jours. I used in my young days. Plus n’en vueil, bien me doit souffire . . . I want nothing more to do with them, enough is enough . . . 20

Furthermore, the Duke’s interest in allegory, evident already in his pre-Agincourt verse, grew

during his years of captivity in London.21 After his release and return to Blois in 1440, Charles

d’ Orléans cultivated a poetic circle (the “Concours de Blois”) of nobility members, visiting

artists, or members of his own retinue, who engaged in friendly poetic competitions (débats) on

Theme and Variation in Late Medieval French Poetry (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), 122. For modern and contemporary views of the poem see ibid., 122-123. 19 Text and translation from John Fox, The Poetry of Fifteenth-Century France, 2 vols. (Valencia: Grant and Cutler, 1994), 1:23. 20 Text and translation from Fox, Poetry, 1:27. 21 Charles d’Orléans played an important role in the battle of Agincourt in 1415. He was left, however, half-dead on the field and was taken prisoner at the Tower of London and elsewhere in England for twenty-five years (1415-1440). He was released in 1440 after reconciling with Philippe “le Bon,” on the condition that he would marry the Burgundian Duke’s sister Marie de Clèves. Charles d’Orléans spent his late years in retirement at Blois.

62 subjects often provided by the Duke himself and which relied heavily on allegory. The outcome

is a long list of responses on themes such as “En la forest de Longue Actente,” “Je meurs de soif

auprès de la fontaine,” “En la montaigne de Tristesse,” etc.22

Francois Villon’s poetry strikes a different tone. Literary historians often regard Villon as

the most modern poet of the fifteenth century. His poetic subjects range from treating the lustful

side of life, the pleasures of physical joy, youth wasted on wine, women, and song, to more

somber themes such as poverty, illness, old age, and the macabre subjects of death and decay. In

his controversial verses, Villon presents himself as a social rebel and a provoker of public

morals. However, he writes in both a conventional and an ironic, mocking tone, assuming at

times “the roles of repentant sinner, disconsolate lover, loyal friend, scourge of vice, gay trickster

and shameless lecher.”23 Due to the breadth of the emotional experiences reflected in his poetry,

Villon has frequently been described as the most sincere and realistic of fifteenth-century poets:

“From the depths of his poetry, Villon does not belong any more to the Middle Ages: he is

absolutely modern, the first who is sincerely and completely modern.”24 Such a stance reiterates

Romantic notions about personal and sincere expression, in which the literary persona is

identified with the actual author and his real experiences.

Treatises on poetry dating from the late fourteenth century and the first half of the

fifteenth century complement the poetic preoccupations of the period. The first comprehensive

French prose treatise on the art of poetry dates from 1392. L’art de dictier by Eustache

Deschamps (1340-1410), disciple of Machaut, provides a general theory of poetry and an

22 For an edition of these poems see Charles d’Orléans, Poèsies, ed. P. Champion, 2 vols. (Paris: Champion, 1971) and Gaston Raynaud, Rondeaux et aultres poèsies du XVe siècle (Paris: Didot, 1889). 23 Calin, In Defense, 18. 24 “Par le fond de sa poésie, Villon n’est plus du moyen age: il est tout moderne, le premier qui soit franchement, complètement moderne.” Lanson, Littérature française, 176-177.

63 account of the different genres of verse, along with rules for their composition. Deschamps treats

extensively the interrelationship of poetry and song, elaborating Machaut’s beliefs on the subject.

According to Deschamps, music can be divided into two branches: “musique naturelle” and

“musique artificielle.” “Musique naturelle” is poetry itself, “because it cannot be taught to

anyone who does not devote himself to it, and it is a music of the mouth in that it utters words in

rhythm,” in other words it requires natural gift for invention.25 Music, strictly speaking, is called

“musique artificielle” because it is an art that can be learned (as can also the skill of

versification), “an art called artificial because with its six notes . . . even the most rude man in

the world can learn how to sing . . . by using notes, clefs and lines.”26 Although the two

“musiques” can exist apart, their combination is the ideal, both gaining from this union.

To the reciprocal relationship between poetry and music, rhetoric adds a third element. In

his six-stanza double ballade on the death of Machaut, Deschamps considers the poet a

rhetorician:

Armes, Amours, Dames, Chevalerie, Arms, Love, Ladies, Chivalry, Clers, musiciens, faititres en françois, Clerks, musicians, writers in French, Toutes sophistes, toutes poëterie, All sophists, all poetry, Tous ceuls qui ont melodieuse voix, All those who have a melodious voice, Ceuls qui chante en orgue aucune fois Those who play the organ from time to time Et qui ont chier le doux art de musique, And who love the sweet art of music, Demenez dueil, plourez, car c’est bien drois, Mourn, weep, it is only right, La mort Machaut, le noble rhetorique. The death of Machaut, the noble rhetorician.27

25 Poetry is natural music “pour ce qu’elle ne puet estre aprinse a nul, se son proper couraige naturelement ne s’i applique, et est une musique de bouche en proferant paroles metrifiées.” Eustache Deschamps, L’art de dictier, vol. 7 of Oeuvres complètes, ed. Queux de Saint-Hilaire and Gaston Raynaud (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1878; repr. New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1966), 270. Deschamps’s definition of poetry also recalls Dante’s statement that poetry “is none other than rhetorical fiction set to music” (nihil aliud est quam fictio retorica musicaque poita), Dante De vulgari eloquentia 2.4.2. 26 Music proper is “appellée artificiele de son art, car par ses .VI. notes . . . l’en puet aprandre a chanter . . . par figure de notes, par clefs et par lignes, le plus rude homme du monde.” Deschamps, L’art de dictier, 269-270. 27 Text and translation from Philip Bennett, “Troubadours, Trouvères, Poëtes,” in Poetry in France: Metamorphoses of a Muse, eds. Keith Aspley and Peter France (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1992), 24.

64 Deschamps’s apostrophe to the sophists (l. 3), the pre-Socratic orators, along with his address to

musicians, poets, and writers, implicitly connects rhetoric, poetry, and music in a general

framework that involves all that poetry sings about: “Armes, Amours, Dames, Chevalerie.”

Poetic treatises of the following century explicitly relate poetry to rhetoric. The

distinction between prose or the première rhétorique and poetry, the seconde rhétorique, is an

important concern in many. Titles such as the anonymous Les règles de la Seconde Rhétorique

(1411-32) and Le traité de l’art de Rhétorique (1450?), or Bauldet Herenc’s Le doctrinal de la

Seconde Rhétorique (1432) betray the growing emphasis on the relationship between poetry and

rhetoric. In L’Archiloge Sophie (1405), the theorist Jacques Legrand even classifies rhyme as one

of the figures of speech. Besides the description of genres and the rules on syllable count and

rhyming, the treatises frequently include rhyming dictionaries of thousands of words.28

The concern with rhyme increases as the century progresses and it becomes the hallmark of the group of poets who came to be known as the Grands Rhétoriqueurs. Although poets had been likened to rhetoricians since the previous century (as in Deschamps’s poem above, for example), the designation Grands Rhétoriqueurs was mainly attached to poets related to the

Burgundian court during the second half of the fifteenth and the first quarter of the sixteenth

century. However, although widely accepted by modern literary criticism, the term

“Rhétoriqueur” had no contemporary application, and in the sixteenth century, it had a pejorative

meaning. Pierre Jodogne has demonstrated that the designation “Rhétoriqueur” or “Grand

Rhétoriqueur” entered literary historiography as a technical term in 1861 through the writings of

the historian C.-D. d’Héricault. In his Histoire de la langue et de la literature française of 1897,

28 For a discussion of early fifteenth-century poetic treatises see Patterson, French Poetic Theory, 114-128.

65 Petit de Julleville consecrated the term, which was subsequently adopted without further questioning.29 De Julleville states that

under the influence of A. Chartier, a school of learned men was formed that flourished at first at the court of Burgundy and a little later in Flanders, under the government of Marguerite of Austria . . . Their group is known with a name that they used among themselves like a title of honor and which well characterizes their ways: they are “the Grands Rhétoriqueurs.”30

For lack of another term, the following discussion will adopt the designation “Grand

Rhétoriqueur,” albeit acknowledging its historical inappropriateness.

Following the lead of Chartier, Georges Chastellain (1405-1475) was one of the most important representatives of the Grands Rhétoriqueurs school in the mid-fifteenth century. He held the position of indiciaire (historiographer or court chronicler) to the Duke of Burgundy and was succeeded by the poet Jean Molinet (1435?-1507) in 1475. Serving the French court, Jean

Meschinot (1415?-1509) and Guillaume Crétin (1472?-1525) adopted the poetical language of the Burgundian poets. To the next generation of Rhétoriqueurs belong the father of Clément

Marot, Jean Marot (1463-1527), Octovien de Saint-Gelais (1466-1502), and Jean Lemaire de

Belges (1473-1525), who became indiciaire after Molinet.

These poets, orators, historians, and chancellors were in the service of princely or royal patrons, who compensated them with social and financial rewards, the highest being the title of indiciaire. According to Lemaire, the duty of “all chroniclers and historiographers is to

29 For a detailed discussion of the history of the term see Pierre Jodogne, “Les ‘rhétoriqueurs’ et l’humanisme: problème d’histoire littéraire,” in Humanism in France at the End of the Middle Ages and in the Early Renaissance, ed. A. H. T. Levi (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1970), 150-159. 30 “Sous l’influence d’A. Chartier il est formé une école savante qui fleurit d’abord à la court de Bourgogne et un peu plus tard dans les Flandres gouvernées par Marguerite d’Autriche . . . Leur group est connu sous un nom qu’ils s’étaient décerné eux-mêmes comme un titre d’honneur et qui caractérise bien leur manière: ce sont “les grands Rhétoriqueurs.” L. Petit de Julleville, Seizième siècle, vol. 3 of Histoire de la langue et de la littérature fançaise des origines à 1900 (Paris: Colin, 1897), 85.

66 demonstrate through their writings and good reasoning, and to make known to the people, the

true and not flattering deeds and merits of their Princes, and their good and righteous wars.”31

The Rhétoriqueurs sought to emphasize the ties between their art and the art of rhetoric, a relationship that facilitated their inclusion in humanist circles. As demonstrated in Chapter I, the emerging class of royal office-holders (to which some of the Rhétoriqueurs belonged) appropriated humanism in order to elevate its social status.32 To this end, the Rhétoriqueurs

cultivated a wide range of genres in prose or verse (or a combination of both) that served the

public affairs of their nation—religious, political, or moral—and its cultural and artistic needs. It

was their firm belief that the vernacular is the only appropriate means to exalt the value of their

nation. Through their fervent polemics and their insistence on using French as the language par excellence, these writers succeeded in elevating French from a vulgar to a national tongue, equal

in status to Latin and Italian.33 Molinet even wrote a poetic treatise titled L’art de rhétorique

vulgaire in 1493, which became the model for other early sixteenth-century treatises on poetry.

The rise of the “popular” lyric during the closing decades of the fifteenth century, explored

below, may be partly explained by the French humanist’s interest in the vernacular.

The insistence of the Rhétoriqueurs on the importance of the French language does not imply lack of knowledge of the classical languages. Most of these writers were bilingual and often well-acquainted with the Latin authors.34 Their erudition found its way into their

vernacular lyrics through references to mythology and ancient history, as well as in the frequent

31 The duty of “tous bons Indiciaires, Chroniqueurs et Historiographes, soit de mostrer par escritures et raisons apparentes, et notifier à la gent populaire, les vrayes, et non flateuses louenges et merites de leurs Princes, et les bonnes et iustes quereles diceux.” Jean Lemaire de Belges, Oeuvres de Jean Lemaire, ed. Jean Stecher, 4 vols. (Louvain: Lefever, 1882-1891; repr. Geneva: Slatkine, 1969), 3:232-233. 32 Chapter I elaborates on the relationship between rhetoric and humanism in France. 33 Such a nationalistic stance is particularly evident in Lemaire’s La concorde des deux langages. Jean Lemaire de Belges, La concorde des deux langages, ed. Jean Frappier (Paris: Droz, 1947). 34 The Rhétoriqueurs translated a number of classical poetical works. For example, Octovien de Saint- Gelais translated the Ovidian Enéiade and Héroides and Jean d’Auton the Metamorphosis. For more details see Jodogne, “Les ‘rhétoriqueurs,’”166-167.

67 use of Latinisms and their reliance on rhetorical forms and gestures. At the same time, the

Rhétoriqueurs continued to advocate the close relationship between rhetoric, poetry, and music.

In Molinet’s view, poetry is “une espèce de musique appelée richmique” (a kind of music called

rhythmic),35 a formulation which reverberates with Deschamps’s “musique naturelle.” In a

similar and frequently quoted statement, Lemaire asserts that “Rhetorique [poetry], et Musique

sont une meme chose” (Poetry and Music are the same thing).36 Furthermore, in La plainte du

désiré, an extensive déploration on the death of Louis de Luxembourg-Ligny, Lemaire’s patron,

the personified “Rhetoricque” requests from poets and musicians (“poetes bons, et bons

musiciens”) to aid the orators to appease the grief, “Pour adoulcir ce deuil qui autre passe,/Et

pour aider mes rhetoricians.”37 Such statements reveal that, in late fifteenth-century France,

rhetoric, poetry, and music were tightly interconnected, which further supports a rhetorically-

informed analysis of the multi-voice chanson repertory.

The most outstanding characteristic of the Grands Rhétoriqueurs poetry, and the source

for many a negative criticism, is their preoccupation with rhyme. They cultivated all kinds of

difficult rhyming, above all favoring the équivoque. In this type, two words sounding or even

written the same way have different meanings. The rime équivoque thus puts emphasis on the

sonorous aspect of the prosody, while at the same time it allows for extended play with words

and their meaning. Other types of rhyme with similar effects are the rime enchainée, in which

there is identity between the last syllable(s) of a line with the beginning syllable(s) of the

following verse; the rime batelée, in which the rhyme in a decasyllabic poem occurs between the

35 Jean Molinet, Art de Rhétorique, in Ernest Langlois, Receuil d’arts de seconde rhétorique (Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1902), 216. 36 Lemaire, Oeuvres, 3:197. 37 Lemaire, Oeuvres, 3:158; quoted in Michael F. Jenkins, Artful Eloquence: Jean Lemaire de Belges and the Rhetorical Tradition, North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, vol. 217 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 169.

68 last syllable of a line and the fourth syllable of the next; and the rime couronée, in which

repetition of the same syllables marks the end of a line (“luxure sur toute noblesse blesse”). In all these different types of rhyme, the phonetic element very often overshadows the semantic, which is thus relegated to a secondary level of importance. The following two stanzas from Molinet’s

Le trosne d’honneur exemplify the use of rime batelée and enchainée in one poem (see the underlined syllables) as well as the overall extreme emphasis on the sound through the use of alliteration and equivocal words (“Sons et/sonnets” in l. 7):

1. Oyseaux des champs, chantans chans et deschans, 2. Changiés vos chans, mués vos gargonnés, 3. Les tenebres de nos coeurs annoyans 4. Noians, fondans, fendans et desplaisans:

5. Plaisans montans, rossignos, cardonnés, 6. Nets sansonnés, sonans sus buissonés, 7. Sons et sonnets, sonnés sans soneries 8. Doeul angoisseux en vos chansonneries.38

Although such extreme examples are never encountered in the multi-voice songs, composers

appear sensitive to the sonorous aspects of the prosody, which they tend to emphasize through

the expanded texture. In addition, the contemporary pre-occupation with rhyme and its

importance for shaping the sonorous and semantic profile of the text possibly led composers

away from musically setting poetry in the formes fixes, in which rhyme is overshadowed by the

repetitive pattern of the verses. Furthermore, the high level of repetition encountered in these

forms was also incompatible with rhetoric’s basic premise that language should imitate everyday

38 Jean Molinet, Les faictz et dictz de Jean Molinet, ed. Noel Dupire, 3 vols. (Paris: Picard, 1936), 39. The line “Doeul angoisseux” refers to Binchois’s homonymous setting of Christine de Pizan’s poem. Molinet frequently incorporated verses from chansons set to music in his poetry. He himself was a musician and was on good terms with musicians of his time. See Carol MacClintock, “Molinet, Music, and Medieval Rhetoric,” Musica Disciplina 13 (1959): 109-121. Molinet exchanged letters and poetry with Busnois and Compère. See Busnois’s rondeau Dictier envoyet a monseigneur and Molinet’s response, Response a monseigneur maistre Anthoine Busnois, in which every strophe ends with a line from Busnois’s rondeau. Molinet, Les faictz, 797-801. See also Molinet’s Lettre a maistre Loys Compere, ibid., 779. Furthermore, Molinet wrote two laments on the death of Ockeghem, one in French, the other in Latin, at the request of Guillaume Crétin, ibid., 831-833. For a list of chanson verses incorporated in Molinet’s poetry see ibid., 1235-1241.

69 speech, where repetition is unlikely, unless it is used as ornament to emphasize a certain point.

Thus by moving away from the formes fixes, composers adopted a more rhetorical approach to

musical composition tightly connected with the rhetoric of the text.

The play with sound and meaning also found expression in the use of other linguistic

acrobatics, some inherited from the Middle Ages. Palindromes and anagrams are common in the

poetry of the Rhétoriqueurs, as well as acrostics, abécédaires (lines starting with the letters of the alphabet in succession), words read backwards, or diagonally, etc. Some of these techniques naturally constitute a visual code, simply shown in the visual équivoque of the following distich:

Et sans avoir par nul moyen tendu Qu’un ouvrier ait à moy entendu . . . 39

Extreme examples of these practices are Molinet’s rondeau Sept rondeaux en ce rondeau and

Meschinot’s notorious religious huitain, D’honneur sentier, confort seul et parfaict, which could

be read in seven and thirty-two different ways, respectively.40 According to Paul Zumthor, such

“jongleuries” disrupt the linear reading of a poem and subsequently displace meaning.41

Besides offering the most common locus for linguistic acrobatics, rhyme also allowed the

Rhétoriqueurs to play with double entendres. Zumthor has demonstrated that obscene syllables feature prominently as the ending points of verses, often repeated to obsessive extents.42 In

Molinet’s Complainte d’ung gentilhomme à sa dame “every other rhyme, beginning with the first, is a compound word with con(-m)- as the first syllable, and every second verse ends in a rime équivoque using the word con plus the other word necessary to complete the rhyme.”43 In their amorous poetry, the Rhétoriqueurs frequently deviated from the courtly mode to indulge in

39 Paul Zumthor, Le masque et la lumière: La poétique des Grands Rhétoriqueurs (Paris: Seuil, 1978), 271. 40 Paul Zumthor, ed., Anthologie des Grands Rhétoriqueurs (Paris: Union Générale d’Editions, 1978), 42. 41 Zumthor, Le masque, 258, 269. 42 Zumthor, Le masque, 139-140. 43 Johnson, Poets as Players, 277. The syllable “–con” had the double meaning of both annus and vagina.

70 the use of implicit or explicit obscenity.44 Molinet’s 281-line poetic debate Le debat du viel

gendarme et du viel amoureux, about the respective merits of love and war, abounds in both

double entendres and outright sexual language. In the beginning of the debate the knight uses a slightly veiled language, adopting chivalric vocabulary to conceal the sexual metaphors:

L’homme armé doibt on redoubter. The man of arms is to be feared Il n’est riens qui tant plaise aux dames There’s nothing that pleases ladies so much Que le behourt et le jouster, As tilting and jousting, Et qui veoeult en glore monter, And whoever wants to gain glory, C’est l’eschielle a sauver las ames; That’s the ladder for saving souls: Rompre bois et quasser hëalmes Breaking lances and sundering helmets Est ung cler bruyt qui toujours dure. Makes a shining reputation that lasts forever.

A little later, however, he abandons all pretense and shatters the lover’s attempts to defend his lady’s reputation:

Nostre amy, vous vous abusés; My friend, you’re wrong; Ung gallant portant grosse mache, A swain carrying a big club, Josne et radde, sans estre usés, Young and erect, not worn out, Jamais ne seroit refuses . . . Would never be refused . . . 45

Molinet’s debate recycles in a humorous and even crude manner the age-old metaphor of

love and war, thus falling within the tradition of “Armes, Amours, Dames, Chevalerie.” Parodies

of traditional genres, such as the poetic debate just discussed, extended even to religious genres

as well.46 Zumthor has labeled such attempts “anti-structures,” since their effect is mainly possible when seen against the tradition of the original genres they tend to parody.47 Although the general framework of the genres and their forms might be retained, the subjects treated and the lexicon to serve them present reversals of traditional elements and the courtly love code.

Such reversals operate as variations on the level of topos, language, voice, and metrical structure;

44 For an account of the use of obscenity and its effects particularly in Molinet’s poetry see Johnson, “Playing Dirty,” in Poets as Players, 231-287. 45 Text and translation from Johnson, Poets as Players, 239 and 241. 46 Molinet’s Sermonde Billouart is explicitly obscene. See Johnson, Poets as Players, 243-244. 47 Zumthor, Le Masque, 136.

71 their ultimate purpose is to shock, amuse, or even liberate. In their exploitation of the linguistic system, and their play with form, genre, and vocabulary, the Grands Rhétoriqueurs de- constructed the traditional poetic language, elevating to the highest position the rhetoric of irony.

While maintaining the traditional genres and forms, their language transgresses the boundaries of the cultural milieu they are called to serve, a transgression apparently most welcome. The play with form also emerges as a rhetorical strategy in the multi-voice chanson settings, most notably in Josquin’s end-oriented structures explored in the following chapter.48

Obscene poetry was not the invention of the Grands Rhétoriqueurs. Bawdy verse permeates the entire fifteenth century as the different poetic anthologies of the period amply demonstrate. Le Jardin de Plaisance, the Rohan manuscript, and the manuscripts gathered together in Marcel Schwob’s Parnasse satyrique abound in poems featuring obscene allusions and outright scurrilous language, often within the traditional forms of the ballade and the rondeau.49 Villon’s Ballade de la grosse Margot might be the first example that comes to mind but obscene allusions are not foreign to the poetry of Eustasche Deschamps and Charles d’Orléans. For example, both poets are concerned with the decline of sexual power with the coming of old age, a very common theme in fifteenth-century poetry.50

Literary historians have often described these excursions to bawdy verse as “bourgeois” or “popular,” in contrast to the poetry in the “courtly” mode. With such juxtaposition, they attach

48 Jonathan Beck draws parallels between the de- and re-constructive manipulation of traditional forms by the Rhétoriqueurs and similar compositional practices in the music of the Franco-Burgundian composers. Jonathan Beck, “Formalism and Virtuosity: Franco-Burgundian Poetry, Music, and Visual Art, 1470-1520,” Critical Inquiry 10, no. 4 (1984): 644-667. 49 Modern editions in Antoine Vérard, ed., Le Jardin de Plaisance et Fleur de Rhétorique, 2 vols. (Paris: Librairie de Firmin-Didot, 1910); Martin Löpelmann, ed., Die Liederhandschrift des Cardinals de Rohan (Göttingen: Gesellschaft für Romanische Literatur, 1923), henceforth referred to as the Rohan MS; and Marcel Schwob, ed., Le Parnasse satyrique du XVe siècle (Geneva: Slatkine, 1969). The Jardin de Plaisance contains 672 heterogeneous pieces (a rhetorical treatise, debates, narrative poems, rondeaux and ballades), some dating from the late fourteenth century. The Rohan MS contains 663 poems, some extending back to the early fourteenth century. Schwob provides only a selection of poetry from ten different manuscripts. 50 Johnson, Poets as Players, 256-259.

72 sociological distinctions to specific kinds of literature, thus suggesting different types of

audiences for the different types of poetry. Assigning such sociological descriptors to the

different poetic registers implies that Charles d’Orléans, Villon, or Molinet were aiming at

different social classes when writing in one or the other register. However, the co-existence of

bawdy verse alongside high-sounding poetry within the same anthologies testifies that “the same

people read both kinds of poetry” and that obscene verse was also produced by and for the

court.51 Anecdotal evidence on the morals of dukes and noblemen confirm that they conducted

licentious lives, which undermines “the notion that assigns to an aristocratic public a literature

uniquely attached to the exposition of the moral values of the chivalric code [emphasis mine].”52

The division between popular and aristocratic poetry is thus a factitious one, according to Italo

Siciliano.53

It is undeniable that with their poetry—whether religious, moral, or bawdy—the

Rhétoriqueurs addressed the multi-faceted audience of the court. Nevertheless, the rejection of

the dichotomy between a “popular” and an “aristocratic” poetry does not negate the possibility of

exchanges between a popular culture (rural or urban) and that of the court.54 The constant

dialogue between the two results in the frequent registral shifts of much medieval poetry. In his

study of the French lyric in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Pierre Bec has emphasized the

“interférances registrales,” that mutual exchange of elements between the two main poetic

51 Stephen Minta, Love Poetry in Sixteenth-Century France (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1977), 22. 52 Johnson, Poets as Players, 283. 53 Italo Siciliano, Villon et les thèmes poétiques du Moyen Age (Paris: Colin, 1934), 421. 54 The cultural critic Aron Gurevich has described the court culture as “official,” taking into account the clerical background of the court authors. For a discussion of Gurevich’s position see Ardis Butterfield, Poetry and Music in Medieval France: From Jean Renart to Guillaume de Machaut (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 126-127.

73 registers, the aristocratisant and the popularisant.55 Such exchanges can take place on the level of function, topoi, genres, structures, or vocabulary. They create a constant dialogue within a particular text, which renders the clear-cut distinction between the constituent elements of the poetry very often impossible. In the following discussion and the analyses of the music, I will adopt Bec’s dichotomous classification since the terms aristocratisant and popularisant, despite their original sociological underpinnings, mainly denote register and are not tinted with qualitative judgments, frequently attached to the terms “burgeois” or “popular.” Furthermore, I will embrace the view that both the aristocratisant and popularisant registers reflect different facets of poetic expression that originated at court. The distinction between the two registers greatly informs the musical analysis since it can be used as a criterion for discerning differing patterns of musical treatment

The exchanges between the two registers notwithstanding, it is evident that in the absence of a recorded corpus of popular poetry, it becomes particularly problematic to precisely define which elements belong to the popular domain. At the same time, if there are any traces of popular culture in the lyric verse of the fifteenth century, these are most likely filtered through the point of view of the court and its writers. John Stevens has coined the term “courtly-popular” for “dance-songs that may have originated ‘below,’ to be later taken up by courtly writers and musicians and given the shapes we know today.”56 These “courtly-popular” works presented “a stylized version of life and love amongst country folk to please a courtly taste.”57 Furthermore, in her study of courtly song in late sixteenth-century France, Jeanice Brooks views elements that recall

55 Pierre Bec, La lyrique française au Moyen Âge (XIIe-XIIIe siècles): Contribution à une typologie des genres poétiques médiévaux, 2 vols. (Paris: Picard, 1977), 1:33-34. 56 John Stevens, Words and Music in the Middle Ages: Song, Narrative, Dance and Drama, 1050-1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 162. 57 Stevens, Words and Music, 175.

74 orally transmitted repertories . . . as devices that signify the rustic . . . conceived for audiences outside the world they purportedly represent. To admit a reading of these songs as mediated by and for courtly and urban actors is not to deny any contact with “real” peasant music. Yet while acknowledging associations with popular or rural music, it is important to separate courtly “rustic” songs and their highly constructed peasantry from any ethnographic enterprise . . . [These] songs have been transformed by the structures of elite culture; and their uses in courtly contexts are different from those of their models in the world of peasants and villagers.58

By adopting such elements, the court could savor the purportedly libertine lives of an extra-

courtly Other and at the same time keep its distance from it, obeying the rules of courtliness and

decorum.

Poetic theory of the second half of the fifteenth century clearly reflects the practices of the Grands Rhétoriqueurs. Molinet himself is credited with one of the most important treatises,

L’art de rhétorique vulgaire (1493).59 Besides defining poetry as a rhythmical music of the words (mentioned above), Molinet provides a comprehensive list of poetic genres and elaborates on matters of elision and masculine and feminine endings, favoring rich and complex rhymes and, above all, the équivoque.60

Molinet’s treatise apparently became the model for other treatises that appeared at the

turn of the century. The anonymous Picard writer of L’art de rhétorique pour rimer en plusieurs

sortes de rimes (1495-1500) relied heavily on L’art de rhétorique vulgaire but fashioned his

theoretical enterprise in verse, the first versified poetic treatise since Machaut’s Prologue.61

L’Instructif de la Seconde Rhétorique is another such treatise that precedes one of the most

important poetic anthologies of the fifteenth century, Le Jardin de Plaisance et Fleur de

58 Jeanice Brooks, Courtly Song in Late Sixteenth-Century France (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000), 376. 59 Scholars have questioned the attribution of the treatise to Molinet. Patterson, however, accepts Molinet’s authorship. See Patterson, French Poetic Theory, 143. 60 Patterson, French Poetic Theory, 143-150. 61 Patterson, French Poetic Theory, 149-151.

75 Rhétorique, published in Paris in 1501 and repeatedly reedited during the first third of the

sixteenth century.62 The anonymous author of the treatise, who names himself “L’Infortuné,”

defines rhetoric and its relationship with poetry, and provides an extensive exposition of figures

of speech and their uses in poetry. His definition of a figure of speech reflects the traditional

view that such gestures fall outside the norms of everyday speech:

Figure est improprieté A figure is impropriety Licenciée et aprouvée Licensed and approved Par us et par auctorité. By usage and authority.

Besides a thorough exposition of rhymes and poetic forms, L’Instructif is the first treatise to deal

with Middle French dramatic genres in a section that culminates with the first reference to

“fureur poétique” (poetic inspiration)—the Neoplatonic doctrine elaborated by Marcilio Ficino

some thirty years earlier—to appear in French literary theory.63

Heavily relying and expanding on L’Instructif and on Molinet’s L’art de rhétorique vulgaire, Pierre Fabri’s Le grand et vray art de pleine rhétorique (1521) is the first complete exposition of French poetic theory of the early sixteenth century. Pierre Fabri (Pierre Le Fèvre) divides his treatise into two books, the first dealing with prose and the second with poetry or

“l’art de rithmer.”64 Fabri takes as modern models Chartier, Molinet, Mechninot, and Crétin. He

places particular emphasis on the rhythm of the line and treats the different types of rhyme found

in the poetry of the Grands Rhétoriqueurs, distinguishing between those for the ear and those for

the eye. He exalts above all others the rime équivoque, “la plus noble et excellente rithme” (the

62 For a modern edition see above fn. 49. 63 Patterson, French Poetic Theory, 157. Marcilio Ficino’s 1469 commentary on Plato’s Symposium became extremely influential during the sixteenth century. The commentary combines Platonist theology with Plotinus’s theory of the soul’s alienation from the divine. Ficino elaborates on the subject of the soul’s attempt to re- unify with God, stimulated by the four Platonist “furies” (inspirations), one of which is the poetic fury. The latter was extended to include the effects of music, as well as the religious, prophetic and erotic furies. 64 Pierre Fabri, Le grand et vray art de pleine rhétorique (Rouen: Simon Gruel, 1521). Modern edition in Pierre Fabri, Le grand et vray art de pleine rhétorique, ed. A. Hamon, 3 vols. (Geneva: Slatkine, 1969).

76 most noble and excellent rhyme).65 He insists on the alternation between masculine and feminine

rhymes, especially in the chant royal, a matter which also concerned Molinet and extended back to the writings of Deschamps. Within his treatment of rhyme Fabri also introduces the use of such rhetorical figures as anadiplosis and epanalepsis, which occur mainly at the end or beginning of lines. According to Fabri, anadiplosis belongs to “the colors of rhetoric called gradatio, in which a line begins the way the previous ends, but it differs from rime enchainée in that the words [involved] are not equivocal.”66 Fabri gives the following example:

Vous amoureux qui requerez le temps, Le temps de mai pour avoir voz plaisirs, Plaisirs et jeux d’accomplir voz desires, Desirs d’amours, quant serez vous contens?

Another figure of repetition is epanalepsis, in which a line begins and ends with the same word:

A l’assault, gallans, a l’assault! Armez vous tost, saillez armez. Charmez vous, soyez tous charmez. Briffault, allez devant, Briffault.67

Thus Fabri appropriates and adjusts rhetorical principles to the demands of the poetic art.

Although only a speculation, it is possible that composers of the multi-voice songs became

equally acquainted with rhetorical theory through their study of the classical treatises as well as

through their contacts with the poetry of their time, an art much closer to musical composition

than any type of prose writing.

To sum up, French poetry of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries relied on a strong

poetic tradition extending back to the eleventh century. In this tradition, love, especially the

65 Patterson, French Poetic Theory, 168-169. 66 Anadiplosis is a “couleur de retorique nommee gradation, qui recommence sa ligne par la fin de l’autre, mais a ce difere a enchainure [rime enchainée], car le terme n’est point equivocque;” quoted in Patterson, French Poetic Theory, 169. 67 Patterson, French Poetic Theory, 169.

77 ennobling kind known as fin’amor or courtly love is the dominant theme. Although the lady is

the inspirer and recipient of the verses, she is rarely aloud a voice of her own. Love is mainly

seen and expressed through the man’s point of view. However, the alienation from courtly idealism, already evident in Le Roman de la Rose in the thirteenth century and Machaut’s poetry in the fourteenth, towards a more realistic view of love becomes prominent in the opening decades of the fifteenth century. Such alienation occurs on the level of theme—love becomes the cause of grief and misery—and on the level of register, as popularisant poetry, often with obscene content, rises in prominence and infiltrates the world of the courtly lyric. Both features also characterize the chanson verses of the multi-voice repertory, although a few texts therein do reproduce the idealized atmosphere of fin’amor poetry.

The Grands Rhétoriqueurs dominate the scene during the second half of the fifteenth century and the early part of the sixteenth century—when multi-voice chanson emerges—and composers at the service of the French royal court, the Burgundian ducal employ, or provincial courts were most likely in close contact with these poets. Although the poetry of the

Rhétoriqueurs is regarded by critics as extravagant and artificial, it should be understood in relation to their humanistic ideal of elevating French to the level of a classical language. Their linguistic acrobatics only occasionally emerge in texts of the multi-voice chanson repertory, but the play with form and convention at which the Rhétoriqueurs also excelled frequently finds expression therein.

The view of poetry as a second type of rhetoric, prominent since the fourteenth century, intensified in the course of the fifteenth century and culminated with the poetic treatises of

Molinet (1493), the anonymous author of L’Instructif (1501), and Fabri (1521). In addition to including detailed discussions on the figures of speech, theorists also elaborate on poetry’s own

78 rhetorical gestures and potential. Among them, rhyme acquires a place of honor and it is even

grouped with the traditional rhetorical figures, as in Legrand’s 1405 L’Archiloge Sophie. The

contemporary preoccupation with rhyme and its rhetorical effect possibly led composers to adopt

it as a major principle of organization for their musical compositions in the newer style.

Chanson verse and the multi-voice song repertory

From the wide and varied repertory of fifteenth-century poetry that has survived in

manuscript and printed anthologies, only a very small portion actually received musical attention. Inversely, chanson verse may have been written for the sole purpose to be set to music and therefore “it may not have been considered worthy of appearing in a collection of poetry as such.”68 The majority of chanson poems remains anonymous and the texts survive mainly

through the musical sources, including those for multi-voice songs. Even with collections that

only include chanson verses, such as the Parisian printed chanson anthologies that will be

considered below, the number of poems with extant musical settings is also small.

Despite the prolific production of poetry by the Grands Rhétoriqueurs, their verses (at

least the ones that circulated with ascriptions) did not attract composers for musical elaboration

except for few occasional poems, as we shall see. This situation leaves open the question of who

authored the chanson verses. Many scholars support the view that composers penned their own

texts according to their needs. Indeed, some of the simpler and shorter texts afford this

interpretation. At the same time, the bifurcation of the dual capacity of poet-musician into two

separate artistic fields had already been established in the course of the fifteenth century. This

leaves us with the possibility that composers collaborated with professional or amateur poets residing at the courts. Indeed, a great number of courtiers practiced the art of verse-writing either

68 Margery A. Baird, “Changes in the Literary Texts of the Late 15th and Early 16th Centuries, as Shown in the Works of the Chanson Composers of the Pays-Bas Méridionaux,” Musica Disciplina 15 (1961): 145.

79 as a pastime or for obtaining a favor. They often engaged in a kind of poetic game, exchanging

their lyrics in the form of envoy and responce. Manuscript Lille 402, an anthology containing

601 rondeaux and dating from the last quarter of the fifteenth century through the first quarter of

the sixteenth, contains over one hundred pairs of rondeaux meant to be read as dialogic

components. Many of these seem to have been penned by women.69 The attributed or

attributable rondeaux in Lille 402 reveal a literary milieu related to the French royal and the

Burgundian ducal courts. The featured poets include Jean Marot, Georges Chastellain, Octovien de Saint-Gelais, André de la Vigne, Jean Picard, Jean d’Auton, Henri Baude, and Louis Ronsard, all reputable poets belonging to the Grands Rhétoriqueurs school. It is possible that the same poets, who signed works ambitious in scope and purpose such as Les lunettes des princes, also provided composers with shorter lyric verses suitable for musical setting.70 These lyrics rarely

found their way in poetic anthologies, possibly because they were considered as belonging to a

different domain, that of chanson verse intimately connected with music. Our main sources of

such chanson poetry are the manuscripts Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fonds fr. 12744

(henceforth referred to as MS 12744), Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fonds fr. 9346 (widely known as Le Manuscript de Bayeux),71 as well as printed editions of chanson verse that made

their initial appearance in the 1520s.

Manuscript 12744 was compiled at the end of the fifteenth century and includes

monophonic settings of 143 multi-stanza poems. The provenance of the chansons covers a wide

69 Françon, Poèmes. Françon has adopted the terms envoy and response, which appear as headings in some of the rondeaux in the manuscript. 70 Written by Jean Meschinot c. 1465, Les lunettes des princes is divided into three parts consisting of 86 twelve-line stanzas, 125 lines of prose, and 2,039 lines of verse, respectively. Les lunettes became a best-seller in the last decade of the fifteenth century and in the early sixteenth century, going through at least thirty editions. See Fox, Poetry, 44. Modern edition in Jean Meschinot, Les lunettes des princes, ed. Christine Martineau-Génieys (Geneva: Droz, 1972). 71 Modern editions in Gaston Paris and Auguste Gevaert, eds., Chansons du XVe siècle (Paris: Librairie de Firmin-Didot, 1875); and Théodore Gérold, ed., Le Manuscrit de Bayeux: Texte et musique d’un recueil de chansons du XVe siècle (Genève: Minkoff Reprint, 1979), henceforth referred to as the Bayeux manuscript.

80 range of regions: Normandy, Lyon, Picardie, Bourgogne, Savoy, Provence, Gascogne, and even

Spain.72 With the exception of a few ballades, the vast majority of the poems reflects the

popularisant tradition. This is manifest in the variety of forms and rhyme structures (as opposed

to the fixed lyrical forms), the heterometric schemes, the topoi, the lexicon, and the presence of a

great number of pastourelles, in which Robin, Marion, and Margot act as the main protagonists.

Among the most common themes are those of the mal mariée (the woman married to a much

older man who usually abuses her), the disturbing presence of the mesdisants (the jealous

slanderers who seek to spoil the lovers’ happiness), or the maiden abandoned by her lover. Erotic

endeavors most often take place in the garden, the prairie, or the forest, and the tone frequently

becomes licentious. The main protagonist is not the noble, unattainable lady of the courtly love

lyric, but the shepherdess, the maiden, or the beautiful brunette often addressed as “belle.” The

songs more often than not feature dialogue and thus the female voice has a strong presence in

this collection. The final strophe is frequently an apostrophe to the nightingale, the ally of the

lovers. Some of the poems adopt vocabulary emulating the typical courtly love discourse to

pretentiously elevate their tone.73 Likewise, others incorporate verses from well-known chansons

seemingly to the same end. An important example is no. 73, which inserts no less than six lines

from such chansons.74 Given Molinet’s tendency to incorporate chanson verses from well-known

musical settings in his longer poems, one only wonders if this song could be penned by him.

It was possibly due to the above features that Gaston Paris called the songs in MS 12744

“chansons populaires anciennes.”75 The intended audience was not, however, the wide public but

72 Paris and Gevaert, Chansons du XVe siècle, x. 73 For example, no. 83 seems to be a parody of Chartier’s Joye me fuit in its rhythmic pace and word- choice. Paris, Chansons du XVe siècle, 81. 74 Paris, Chansons du XVe siècle, 71. The chanson verses are: “Mon seul plaisir, ma doulce joye” as l. 1; “J’ay prins amour a ma devise” as l. 6; “Ma bouche rit et mon cueur pleure” as l. 14; “Comme femme desconfortée” as l. 17; “Terriblement suis fortunée” as l. 19; and “Le souvenir de vous me tue” as l. 32. 75 Paris, Chansons du XVe siècle, vi.

81 some aristocratic milieu. Each chanson bears a golden initial, the parchment is copiously lined,

and the strophes are separated by a blank space of one or more lines. Errors are also rare.76

Although not pointed out by the editors, the compiler of MS 12744 groups together songs with similar subjects or incipits. All of the above show a carefully planned collection with central theme the erotic adventures of an extra-courtly Other for the entertainment of a noble patron.

Whether or not some of these texts originated from or are reminiscent of a popular culture is difficult to determine.

In contrast to the rather homogeneous nature of the poetry in MS 12744 (mostly popularisant songs), the chansons in Bayeux represent a variety of registral types. The manuscript includes songs in the aristocratisant tradition, the popularisant tradition, and often a mixture of both. The Bayeux manuscript was copied for the princely library of Charles de

Bourbon at the end of the fifteenth century (after 1480) and during the early years of the sixteenth, but its poems represent different periods of the fifteenth century, some possibly dating before 1450.77 It contains one-hundred songs, thirty-five being concordant with MS 12744. The

provenance of the chansons is restricted to Normandy and northern France, in contrast to the

wide geographical distribution of the chansons in MS 12744. All chansons are anonymous in

both manuscripts. As in MS 12744, the first strophe of a song in Bayeux is accompanied by a

monophonic melody. Despite the lavish decoration of the manuscript, the scribe of Bayeux was

not as diligent as that of MS 12744. Although he copies the music with care, he frequently

provides only one or two strophes of the text, often omitting lines or entire stanzas and adding

others that are foreign to the poem.

76 Paris, Chansons du XVe siècle, vii. 77 Gérold, Bayeux, xiv-xx.

82 In Bayeux, the chansons in the aristocratisant tradition revolve around the themes of love

complaint and grief caused by the separation of the lovers or by the interference of the jealous

slanderers (the mesdisants or envieux), all in a melancholic atmosphere. Allegorical figures are

nevertheless absent. The subjects of the chansons in the popularisant tradition are the same as

those in MS 12744 described above with the addition of a few drinking and satirical songs.

Bayeux also contains a number of songs that reflect historical events, such as the death of King

Renée d’Anjou in 1480.78 The predominant poetic form is that of the virelai; rondeaux and

ballades are an exception.

The modern editor of the manuscript, Théodore Gérold, believes that the melodies in

Bayeux do not represent original monophonic songs but are voice parts extracted from vocal

polyphonic compositions or from songs for one voice with instrumental accompaniment. Gérold

regards the syncopations, melismas, and repetitions of words as reflecting melodies adapted to an

ensemble. According to him, an original monophonic melody would be devoid of such gestures.

However, he acknowledges that there must have been primitive melodies (“formes primitives”)

that the polyphonists subsequently borrowed for elaboration.79 Musicological scholarship has

refuted Gérold’s hypothesis. Gustave Reese and Theodore Karp have concluded that the

melodies in the two monophonic chansonniers “are the pre-existent bases of [polyphonic

settings] rather than transcriptions arranged from them.”80 Reese and Karp have identified sixty-

eight poetic texts from both manuscripts that have received 114 polyphonic settings. Their main

argument is that the vast majority of these compositions lack the close relationships between the

78 Gérold, Bayeux, xxv. 79 Gérold, Bayeux, xxxviii. Gérold fails to recognize and take into account that since Bayeux contains both aristocratisant and popularisant chansons there would be no need to speculate about the primitive origin of the former. Nor does he differentiate between the two types of register in his account of the melodic features of the chansons. 80 Gustave Reese and Theodore Karp, “Monophony in a Group of Renaissance Chansonniers,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 5, no. 1 (1952): 15.

83 supposedly borrowed monophonic melody and the polyphonic settings, encountered in the

Tournai chansonnier (Tournai, Bibliothèque de la Ville, MS s. n.) and Paris, Bibliothèque

Nationale nouv. acq. fr. 4379, manuscripts which indeed contain melodies extracted from

polyphonic chansons.81 According to Reese and Karp, only two monophonic melodies are

“nearly equivalent to a voice-part found in the polyphonic compositions.”82 Furthermore, in the

absence of sources recording original versions of secular tunes, Gérold’s argument about the

unadorned nature of such music remains speculative.

Although Reese and Karp convincingly established that the melodies of the two

chansonniers are not extracted from polyphonic compositions (at least not any known ones), their

argument that the monophonic tunes “are the pre-existent bases” for polyphonic arrangements is

not as well supported. The widely differing readings of these tunes encountered as voice parts in

polyphonic settings indicate that such tunes were possibly transmitted orally with a number of

variants; that is, they existed in more than one version. Certainly musicians did not need to resort

to written chansonniers when they incorporated such tunes in their polyphonic songs; they could

rely on their own contacts and experiences with oral culture. At the same time, the frequent

absence of any resemblances between the monophonic melodies and the polyphonic settings of

corresponding texts implies that composers of the polyphonic songs were either freely

composing the settings or were resorting to other sources at will.

Howard Mayer Brown also accepts Reese’s and Karp’s hypothesis that the melodies in

the two chansonniers are the pre-existent bases for polyphonic settings. Brown suggests that these melodies were the “popular tunes of their day” and were intended for the entertainment of a

81 Reese and Karp, “Monophony,” 4-5. 82 Reese and Karp, “Monophony,” 7. The two compositions are Josquin’s four-voice Baisés moy and Verbonnet’s J’aimeray bien mon amy.

84 middle class milieu.83 According to Brown, the monophonic song of the esprit gaulois type,

which he labels “chanson rustique,” was almost exclusively used in the plays of the French

secular theater. Furthermore, Brown states that “most of these monophonic melodies . . . were set

time and again by the most distinguished masters.”84 Yet a preliminary examination of Brown’s

list of secular songs for the theater85 reveals that only thirty-six texts or melodies from his 416

entries have concordances with MS 12744 and Bayeux. From these, only twenty-five melodies

have received at least one polyphonic setting, and in many cases Brown admits that the

relationship between the cantus prius factus and its appearance in a polyphonic part is quite

distant. It remains thus unclear what the provenance of the melodies in MS 12744 and Bayeux is,

and exactly what they represent.

Helen Hewitt regards the melodies of the two chansonniers as either having a folk origin

or as monophonic tunes “used on social occasions in more cultivated circles.” She labels the

latter as “court-tunes” or “court-songs.”86 However, if there is indeed some connection with

popular culture (at least in some of the chansons), what has come down to us through the sources

certainly does not faithfully reflect the original; just as the subject matter of these poems seems

to be a representation of the “popular” filtered through the spectacles of a court culture, the

melodies most likely represent a stylized version of tunes originated in an oral tradition. Indeed,

there is no proof that the two manuscripts present faithful transcriptions of their original material.

According to Brian Jeffery,

on the contrary, it seems probable that the two manuscripts do no give us the raw material from which the polyphonists forged their compositions but rather

83 Howard M. Brown, “The Chanson rustique: Popular Elements in the Fifteenth- and Sixteenth-Century Chanson,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 12, no. 1 (1959): 17-18. 84 Brown, “The Chanson rustique,” 20. 85 Howard M. Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater, 1440-1550 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 183-282. 86 Helen Hewitt, ed., Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1942; repr. New York: Da Capo Press, 1978), 95 (page citations are to the reprint edition).

85 material already elaborated and prepared precisely for the two manuscripts. It has not been proven that the two manuscripts are collections of material faithfully transcribed. This has important consequences for the texts: one has then to regard them not as original or even folk material, but as texts that have been subject to alterations.87

Although Jeffery acknowledges the presence of popularisant elements in many of these texts, he

rightfully observes that “it is evident that the chansons about the folk do not necessarily derive

from the folk: most of these chansons demonstrate a conscience of poetic craft that is closer to a

bourgeois or aristocratic milieu.”88 It seems more likely therefore, that the contents of MS 12744

and Bayeux served the purpose of providing their noble recipients with a written record of fashionable poetry and music, possibly tailored according to court aesthetics, for their own consumption.

Our understanding of the function of these poems would be much more complete had we a comprehensive study of the relationships between the two chansonniers, the songs of the secular theater, the first printed anthologies of chanson verse, and the major poetic anthologies of the period such as Le Jardin de Plaisance, the Rohan MS, Lille 402, and the chansons albums of

Marguerite of Austria. The relationship between the contents of the two chansonniers and the polyphonic chanson repertory thus requires further exploration and it is certainly not as well- defined as it is generally thought. The uncertainty about the origins of the melodies in the two chansonniers notwithstanding, the tendency to emulate popularisant features manifest therein

87 “Il semble probable que les deux mss. ne nous donnent pas, au contraire, le matériel brut dont les polyphonistes auraient forgé leurs compositions, mais plutôt du matériel déjà forgé et préparé précisément pour ces deux mss. Il n’est pas prouvé que les deux mss. soient des recueils de matériel fidèlement transcript. Cela a des consequences importantes pour les texts: il faut donc les regarder non pas comme du matériel original ou même folklorique, mais comme des textes qui auraient été sujets au remaniement.” Brian Jeffery, “Thématique littéraire de la chanson française entre 1480 et 1525,” in La chanson à la Renaissance: Actes du XXe colloque d’ études humanistes du Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance de l’Université de Tours, juillet1977, ed. Jean-Michel Vaccaro (Tours: Van de Velde, 1981), 52. 88 “Il est évident que les chansons dans lesquelles il s’agit du peuple ne dérivent pas forcément du peuple: plusieurs de ces chansons-là démontrent une conscience du métier poétique qui est plutôt celle des milieux bourgeois ou aristocratiques.” Jeffery, “Thématique,” 57.

86 seems to have left a strong mark on musical composition. It is possibly due to popularisant influences that the shift from melismatic writing to a more declamatory, text-oriented style occurred toward the end of the fifteenth century. Indeed, the editors of the Mellon chansonnier, which mainly contains repertory from the third quarter of the fifteenth century, discern a direct connection between poetic nature and musical style in the popularisant songs of that manuscript, which subsequently affected musical composition in the aristocratisant register: “This shift,

which can be perceived in the secular polyphony cultivated in territories of French culture during

the closing decades of the fifteenth century, was due at least in part to an emulation of the

popular songs that had penetrated the courtly tradition in arrangements such as those found in the

Mellon Chansonnier.”89 As mentioned in the first part of this chapter, the humanist concern with

the vernacular and the formation of a French, national identity may have also contributed to the

growing importance of the popularisant song.

Publications of chanson verse, that is, of poetry connected with music, did not appear

until the second decade of the sixteenth century. Brian Jeffery has collected eleven printed

anthologies of chanson verse published in Paris during the period 1512-1530. These anthologies

represent two different generations of chansons. The first spans the years c. 1512-1525 but its

contents originally date from twenty or thirty years earlier.90 An additional chanson verse print from 1535 is demonstrably based on a source dating from the period 1515-1525.91 In the second generation, c. 1525-1530, the chansons are contemporaneous with their editions. The present

89 Leeman L. Perkins and Howard Garey, eds., The Mellon Chansonnier, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 1:62. 90 Brian Jeffery, Chanson Verse of the Early Renaissance, 2 vols. (London: Tecla Editions, 1971-1976). The first volume of Jeffery’s edition brings together chanson verse anthologies up to 1530 while the second volume a later generation of chanson anthologies published from c. 1530 to the 1540s. 91 Jeffery, Chanson Verse, 2:127-300 (siglum 1535); Jeffery, “Thématique,” 52-53.

87 discussion mainly concerns itself with the first group, which predates or is contemporary with the multi-voice chanson settings of the first quarter of the sixteenth century.

The physical appearance of these early printed chanson collections testify to their place in the market. In contrast to the luxurious monophonic chansonniers, these prints are small-sized plaquettes (often only 4 leaves each) without binding, separate title page, or publication information. All prints survive in a unique copy and all include the word “chanson” in their titles.

The poetry is anonymous (with the exception of one poem by Jean Marot) and the songs are printed alongside “bogus recipes and cures, popular aids to devotion and poems about the tribulations of marriage.”92 The contents reflect both the aristocratisant and the popularisant

registers, and the subject matter ranges from love songs to drinking songs and historical poems.

Of a total of 112 poems about half have received musical settings. Thirty-seven texts are common with MS 12744 and Bayeux.93 Most of the chansons are strophic; with the exception of

one rondeau and two ballades the most common form representing the older formes fixes is the

virelai.94 According to Jeffery, the function of these prints was “to supply the deficiency of nearly all the musical sources of the time, by making available the full words of chansons.

Perhaps the music printers failed to provide them for economic reasons, so that an opening appeared for an enterprising printer to step in and print them separately. Thus, musicians who so wished could buy them as a supplement to books which they already owned; and those who could not afford the music books at all . . . could perhaps at least afford to buy collections of words whose tunes they might know already.”95

92 Jeffery, Chanson Verse, 1:15. 93 Jeffery, “Thématique,” 52-53. 94 There is a revived interest in the virelai, especially its one-stanza version known as the bergerette, in the closing years of the fifteenth century. This is also confirmed by the contents of the Bayeux manuscript and MS 12744. In contrast, later chanson collections (1525-1530) contain only strophic songs. 95 Jeffery, Chanson Verse, 1:33.

Despite the great number of poetic texts in our main sources of chanson verse (about 281 poems shared among MS 12744, the Bayeux, and the prints of 1512-1525), the number of extant polyphonic settings represents only one third of the surviving poetry. The number of multi-voice

chanson settings is even smaller. Of the 281 chanson texts from these sources, only seven were

set polyphonically for five or six voices. The seven settings are: Baisés moy (from Bayeux), En

douleur et tristesse, Se congié prens, and Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux ont de peine (from MS

12744), and D’amour je suis desheritée, Faulte d’argent, and Vray Dieu d’amour, maudit soit la journée (from the printed chanson anthologies before 1525).96 Josquin set three of these, Mouton

two, and Bauldewyn and Richafort one each (see Appendix 1). Only the first four of the above

seven songs survive with monophonic melodies (in Bayeux and 12744) but the extent to which

the multi-voice settings reproduce the models varies widely. For example, while Baisés moy

closely follows the monophonic melody in Bayeux, the relationship of Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux

ont de peine by Mouton to the homonymous song in MS 12744 is weak; the two only share their

first lines of text, while their melodies are unrelated. The implication is that either polyphonic

songs related to chanson verse sources have not survived due to the accidents of transmission, or

that musicians preferred to turn to other sources of poetry (and possibly music) for their settings.

The composers of multi-voice chansons seem to have favored texts outside the realm of

the Parisian printed chanson anthologies, texts circulating in manuscript sources intended for a

more restricted and elite audience. The manuscript sources mainly include the three albums

compiled for Marguerite of Austria, namely Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MSS 10572, 228,

96 The six-voice Baisés moy, attributed to Josquin in Susato’s 1545 print [RISM 154515], adds another canon to his four-voice homonymous setting. Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux ont de peine appears in both MS 12744 and in one of the early chanson verse anthologies published in Jeffery, Chanson Verse, 1:112-113 (siglum 90(b), no. 12). D’amour je suis desheritée appears in an edition belonging to the second generation of anthologies (c. 1525-1530); Jeffery, Chanson Verse, 1:257-258 (siglum 17, no. 15).

89 and 11239,97 as well as Lille 402 and the Rohan MS.98 Frequently, the poems therein share common incipits and themes, as well as fragments of texts, single but characteristic words, or identical rhymes. These intertextual resonances often reverberate with the related musical settings.99 Such relationships enable multi-layered interpretations of the music and in some cases even offer alternative solutions for problematic attributions.100

Despite the fact that the above collections provide the names of many authors (especially

Lille 402 and the Rohan MS), we rarely know them with certainty for the multi-voice chanson texts. The only poets identified or identifiable within this repertory are those who provided the verses for occasional poetry, mainly déplorations. Molinet is the poet of Nymphes des bois,

Josquin’s lament on the death of Ockeghem, and Lemaire is the possible author of Cueurs desolez, a lament on the death of Louis de Luxembourg-Ligny.101 Octovien de Saint-Gelais could be the poet of Plaine de deuil, a chanson intertextually related to his Tous les regretz qui les cueurs tourmentez, written for Marguerite’s departure from France after the annulment of her betrothal to Charles VIII.102 It is possible that these and other poets connected to the Burgundian

97 The three anthologies contain a total of 171 poems. The majority (111) are rondeaux. BrusBR 228 and 11239 are music anthologies; BrusBR 10572 contains only poetry. While BrusBR 228 and 11239 have many pieces in common, there are no concordances with BrusBR 10572. Marcel Françon, Albums poétiques de Marguerite d’Autriche (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934), 83-84. 98 Lille 402 was compiled for a feminine milieu related to the courts of Savoy and France, of which the main figures are Louise of Savoy, Queen Claude of France, and Marguerite d’Angoulême. The Rohan MS was compiled between 1470 and 1475 for Louis Malet de Graville. “Graville,” a Normandy family name, also appears as acrostic in poems of Lille 402. 99 For example, Lille 402 has many poems in common with BrusBR 228. Intertextual references also abound. The musical settings support the connections between the related poems in the two anthologies. See the discussion on Deuil et ennuy and Cent mille regretz in Chapter VI. 100 See Chapter V, which deals with intertextuality in Josquin’s multi-voice chansons, as well as the discussion on the suggested reattribution of Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit in Chapter VI. 101 For Nymphes des bois see above fn. 38. Osthoff associates Cueurs desolez with Lemaire’s La Plainte du Désiré, a poem written on the death of Louis de Luxembourg-Ligny in 1503, because the phrase “Cueurs desolez” appears in the prose introduction of La Plainte. Helmuth Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2 vols. (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1962-1965), 1:65-67. 102 Octovien de Saint-Gelais’s Tous les regretz qui les cueurs tourmentez contains the phrase “Pour abreger le surplus de ma vie” as its third line. The strophic Plaine de deuil features a variation of the phrase “Me rendre’a toy le surplus de ma vie” as the final line of every strophe. Plaine de deuil appears in BrusBR 228, one of

90 ducal and French royal courts also penned some of the multi-voice song texts in both the

aristocratisant and the popularisant register.103

Besides occasional poems, the themes treated in the multi-voice aristocratisant chansons include the typical laments of unrequited love as well as amorous complaints due to the departure of the lover. The lady of the multi-voice chanson texts often expresses her feelings directly addressing her lover, a feature unprecedented in aristocratisant love lyrics set by composers of the previous generation. For example, in the chansons of the Mellon chansonnier

“the male poems manifest a clear preference for passionate or respectful apostrophe, the female songs of love express reflective resignation or quiet satisfaction.”104 A clear break away from such “reflective resignation” occurs in the five-voice Plaine de deuil, which begins the second stanza with the direct address “Je te requires et humblement supplie.” Furthermore, the allegorical figures so prominent in the aristocratisant songs of the earliest part of the fifteenth century are entirely absent from the multi-voice chanson texts even though the Roman de la Rose was very influential during the years that the multi-voice chansons were composed. For example,

Molinet made a prose adaptation of Le Roman de la Rose, in which he added a commentary on the allegory of the rose within a Christian framework.105

Marguerite’s chanson albums. Osthoff has even ascribed the poem to Marguerite without, however, providing any evidence. Osthoff, Josquin, 1:69. 103 Nineteenth-century scholars also regarded Marguerite of Austria as the possible author of many of the texts in the poetic anthologies that belonged to her. However, only one piece can be securely attributed to her on the basis of her handwriting and not of style. For this poem see Françon, Albums, 70. The three poetic albums were compiled for, rather than by, Marguerite, assembling pieces from other anthologies. On early scholarship supporting the view that Marguerite was the author of many of the poems in her chansonniers see Martin Picker, ed., The Chansons Albums of Marguerite of Austria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), 6-7. Recently, Honey Meconi has drawn parallels between Margaret’s biography and aspects of presentation in BrusBR 228. Honey Meconi, “The Last Chansonnier: Brussels, Bibliotèque Royal MS 228” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society, Quebec City, 1 November 2007). 104 Perkins, Mellon, 75. The bulk of the chansonnier contains works by Tinctoris’s contemporaries. However, its last two gatherings contain a repertory that goes back into the first half of the fifteenth century. 105 Molinet’s Roman de la Rose moralisé was published in Lyons and Paris in 1503 and 1521, respectively.

91 Although the subject of love and its troubles prevails, the aristocratisant multi-voice

chanson texts do not always define the cause of grief, which in many cases can be understood as

a misfortune outside the realm of love. In addition, a few poems stand out by their generalized,

public character, despite the fact that they are often uttered through a strong first-person

narrative. Such poems adopt an elevated vocabulary but their contents are almost proverbial in

nature. For example, the quatrain Quant il advient (discussed in Chapter VI) presents a universal

truth about life’s hardships in the most succinct way:

Quant il advient choses constraintes When hardships come your way Prendre les fault comme’elles sont; You have to take them the way they are; Faire comme les aultres font Face them as everyone else does Pour mieulx venir à ses attaintes. To better come in terms with them.106

Regardless of the poetic theme, most of the chansons in the aristocratisant register have

the structure of rondeau quatrain or cinquain refrains, that is, they are octosyllabic or

decasyllabic stanzas with abba or aabba rhymes, respectively. It remains unclear whether these

single-stanza poems were originally written as such or were extracted from full rondeau texts.107

In the majority of the cases only the refrain survives, mainly through its musical setting. The rhyme scheme of the rondeau refrain is also prevalent with strophic texts as well as with the déplorations, although in the latter category the surviving texts are usually longer.

In contrast to the generally consistent prosodic features of the chansons in the aristocratisant register, the popularisant multi-voice chansons display a wide variety of metric and rhyming structures. The verses are usually asymmetrical in their phrase lengths and they often incorporate narrative combined with dialogue, reflecting the pastourelle tradition. While

106 Other chansons of this type are Pour souhaitter and possibly the pair N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir and Si vous n’avez autre desir. 107 Don Michael Randel has expressed the view that, already since Dufay’s times, composers mainly sought to emphasize the prosodic features of the rondeau refrain even when the entire text was available. Don Michael Randel, “Dufay the Reader,” in Music and Language, Studies in the History of Music, vol. 1 (New York: Broude Brothers, 1983), 46-47.

92 the aristocratisant poems adopt an abstract and generalized form of verbal expression in which

the poetic subject’s state of mind exists in a timeless universe, the popularisant chansons are

more specific in defining their space and time of action; references to “jardin,” “bois,” “le

matin,” “la vesprée,” etc. are very common. The themes range from the amorous encounter of

the shepherd and the shepherdess (Le berger et la bergère) to more topical subjects such as the

lack of money and its unpleasant consequences (Faulte d’argent). The chanson lyrics often incorporate double entendres and licentious vocabulary, emphasized by the expanded texture of the multi-voice settings. However, compared to the amount and level of profanity of the bawdy poetry in circulation at the time, the multi-voice chanson lyrics are rather moderate and use propriety.108 In many cases the popularisant and the aristocratisant features mingle, making it

difficult to categorize a song according to register. For example, Josquin’s Je me complains de

mon amy adopts a dignified courtly atmosphere, but its rhyme scheme, metrical structure, and

vocabulary betray its popularisant origin.

Poetry of the fifteenth century was not a decadent and declining endeavor, as nineteenth-

century literary criticism holds it, but a growing and developing artistic field, culminating in the

idiomatic language of the Grands Rhétoriqueurs with its emphasis on rhyme and word-play.

Although their extravagant language only occasionally finds its way in the texts of the multi-

voice songs, the Rhétoriqueurs’ preoccupation with rhyme and form possibly inspired composers

to manipulate both to rhetorical ends. In treating the subject of love, whether in longer works or

in the shorter chanson lyrics, poets break away from the idealized courtly love discourse to a

108 Scholars have been reluctant to accept the idea that Josquin might have set obscene verses or responded to double entendres. Osthoff, for example, hesitated to accept Allégez moy as Josquin’s because of the trivial nature of the poetry, among other reasons. Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2:219. The musico-rhetorical analysis, however, shows that Josquin often brought attention to double entendres inherent in the poetry. See the discussion on Allégez moy in Chapter IV.

93 more realistic view. At the same time, popularisant elements infiltrate the love poetry, widening

the gamut of themes, voices, and poetic structures. Obscene verses proliferate and they feature

alongside aristocratisant poems in manuscript sources intended for courtly milieus. The two poetic registers offered varied opportunities for rhetorical expression and determined in many respects the compositional strategies employed by multi-voice chanson composers. As contemporary poetic treatises amply testify, the relationship between poetry, music, and rhetoric strengthens during the course of the century, and the following analyses demonstrate how composers took advantage of the expanded textures to further enhance the rhetoric of the poetry set.

CHAPTER III

JOSQUIN’S MULTI-VOICE CHANSONS ON A MELODY OF HIS OWN INVENTION

An overview of Josquin’s five- and six-voice chansons reveals a common compositional

approach: the composer’s reliance on some kind of pre-existent entity, either a melody of his

own invention treated canonically, or a cantus prius factus derived from the secular monophonic repertory, another polyphonic song, or sacred plainchant. Only two multi-voice chansons, Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer and Mi larés vous tousjours languir, are free compositions, that is, they neither incorporate a canon nor rely on a cantus prius factus. Since the projected volumes of the

New Josquin Edition to include Josquin’s multi-voice chansons have not to date been published

(vols. 29 and 30), I rely upon Josquin’s list of works as it appears in The New Grove Dictionary

of Music and Musicians.1 A few chansons therein are considered doubtful or have been

attributed to other composers. For example, both Cent mille regretz and Incessament mon povre

cueur are now accepted as La Rue’s and will be discussed in Chapter VI. N’avez point veu mal

assenée is possibly by Jean Le Brung and I discuss it in Chapter VII. I briefly overview other

doubtful chansons based on pre-existent models at the end of Chapter IV. I will not consider La

Spagna, an instrumental composition that falls outside the scope of this study, and the chansons

Fors seullement and Adieu mes amours (both à 6), which survive incomplete.

Table 3.1 groups Josquin’s multi-voice chansons according to the type of pre-

compositional entity involved. Group 1 (left column) lists all chansons based on Josquin’s own

melodies, that is, on melodies for which no pre-existent model has been identified. Group 2

1 Patrick Macey and Jeremy Noble, “Josquin (Lebloitte dit) des Prez,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, vol. 13 (London: Macmillan, 2001), 240-261. For a complete list of Josquin’s multi-voice chansons see Appendix 1.

95 (middle column) includes chansons on a known cantus prius factus, distinguishing the canonic from the non-canonic ones, and Group 3 (right column) shows the two free chansons. The numbers in parentheses denote the number of voice-parts.

Table 3.1. Multi-voice chansons by Josquin according to the type of pre-compositional material

On Josquin’s melodies (all canonic) On known cantus prius facti Free (Group 3) (Group 1) (Group 2) Canonic Cueur langoreulx (5) Allégez moy (6) Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer (5) Douleur me bat (5) Baisés moy (6) Mi larés vous (5) Du mien amant (5) Faulte d’argent (5) Incessament livré suis (5) Je me complains (5) N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir (5) J’ay bien cause de lamenter (6) Parfons regretz (5) Nymphes, nappés/Circumdederunt me (6) Plaine de dueil (5) Petite camusette (6) Plusieurs regretz (5) Se congié prens (6) Pour souhaitter (6) Non-canonic Regretz sans fin (6) Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit (5) Vous l’arez (6) En non saichant (5) Vous ne l’aurez (6) L’amye a tous/Je ne vis oncques (5) Ma bouche rit (5) Nymphes des bois/Requiem (5) Tenez moy (6)

All of the chansons in Group 1 are canonic and their texts reflect the aristocratisant tradition. The vast majority employ canons at the fifth and are mainly five-voice compositions.

Only four of the twelve chansons in this group are composed for six-voices (see also Table 3.2 below). The division of the chansons of Group 2 into canonic and non-canonic generates two important observations. First, Josquin reserves canonic treatment mainly for the chansons based on melodies from the secular monophonic repertory. Second, Josquin eschews canon when he borrows from Latin plainchant (Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit, Nymphes des bois/Requiem) or from a pre-existent art-song (En non saichant, L’amye a tous/Je ne vis oncques, Ma bouche rit, and Tenez moy). Nymphes, nappés/Circumdederunt me stands out as an exception to this

96 observation, as Josquin treats the cantus firmus canonically, thereby generating a six-voice texture.

As canonic technique characterizes the vast majority of the multi-voice chansons, the following analysis is particularly oriented towards revealing the function and rhetoric embedded in Josquin’s canons. Since Group 1, that is, the chansons on Josquin’s own melodies, is much more homogeneous (all canonic, all aristocratisant) compared to Group 2, I will start my analysis with this specific category. The findings will enable me to create a matrix of rhetorical devices against which I will compare the rest of Josquin’s multi-voice compositions. Table 3.2 provides details about the Group 1 chansons.

Table 3.2. Chansons based on Josquin’s own melodies (Group 1)

Chanson incipit Canonic Canonic Poetic subject Poetic Musical Structure (number of voices) interval voices structure Cueur langoreulx Fifth S/Q Male Rondeau AABCDE (5) cinquain refrain Douleur me bat (5) Fifth T/Q Male/Female Rondeau AABBCC+coda cinquain refrain Du mien amant (5) Fifth T/Q Female Bergerette AABB’B CDEF Incessament livré Fifth T/Q Male Rondeau AABBC+coda suis (5) cinquain refrain N’esse pas ung Unison T/Q Male/Female Rondeau ABABB’B” grant desplaisir (5) cinquain refrain Parfons regretz (5) Octave Q/B Female (?) Rondeau AABBCC’+coda cinquain refrain Plaine de dueil (5) Fifth S/Q Female Strophic AA’BB’C+coda possibly within a strophic setting Plusieurs regretz Fifth T/Q Male/Female Rondeau AABBCC (5) cinquain refrain Pour souhaitter (6) Fifth T/Sx Male Rondeau ABCB quatrain refrain

97 Regretz sans fin (6) Fourth T/Sx Male/Female Rondeau ABA with A: cinquain AA’BCD and B: EE’F Vous l’arez (6) Fourth T/Sx Male Rondeau ABA’CDD’ cinquain refrain Vous ne l’aurez (6) Fifth T/Sx Male Rondeau ABCD quatrain refrain

General observations on the chansons of Group 1

Poetry

With the exception of Du mien amant, a bergerette, and Plaine de dueil, a strophic poem,

all of the remaining chansons of this group are rondeaux or have the structure of rondeaux

cinquains or quatrains refrains with aabba or abba rhymes, respectively.2 The subjects reflect the

aristocratisant tradition of amorous regrets or pleas for the favor of the lover, and the texts bring forth an air of melancholy and despair embodied in the typical courtly vocabulary. In a few cases, the reason of the poetic subject’s distress is some unspecified misfortune (Douleur me bat,

N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir, and Plusieurs regretz) although the sufferings of love should

not be excluded. Only the four-line Pour souhaitter stands out by its generalized, public voice,

expressing wishful thinking about what is most desirable in life. For many of these chansons no

text survives other than the one of the musical setting. As Margery A. Baird has succinctly

observed, the absence of chanson texts from contemporary poetic anthologies suggests that the

stanzas at hand were written for the particular purpose of setting them to music.3

2 The musical structure of a bergerette is AbbaA. The refrain (A) usually follows an aabba or abba rhyme, which often misleads scholars to identify bergerettes as rondeaux in cases in which only the refrain survives. 3 Margery A. Baird, “Changes in the Literary Texts of the Late 15th and Early 16th Centuries, as Shown in the Works of the Chanson Composers of the Pays-Bas Méridionaux,” Musica Disciplina 15 (1961): 145.

98 Canonic melodies

As Table 3.2 indicates, most of the canons are at the interval of the fifth and involve an

inner pair of voices. There are only three chansons in which an outer voice participates in the

canon: the Superius in Cueur langoreulx and Plaine de dueil, and the Bassus in Parfons regretz.

The canonic writing is strict although the comes frequently imitates the dux diatonically rather

than exactly.4 Example 3.11 at the end of the present chapter presents the tonal melodies of the

canons incorporated in the twelve chansons of Group 1.5 A brief overview clearly reveals that

the canonic melodies ensure the syllabic declamation of the text. In addition, all melodies setting decasyllabic verses observe the poetic caesura with a rest at the fourth syllable. Exceptions to this rule occur only when there is a syntactic or semantic imperative that demands some other kind of division (e.g., Cueur langoreulx). Furthermore, the canonic melodies reflect the rhyme structure in several different ways, the most common being the repetition of the same musical phrase for similarly rhyming lines, and the choice of cadential pitches at the end of phrases that parallel the rhyme scheme. In the case of the cinquains refrains, however, the last line (a-rhyme) frequently receives an independent melodic phrase, which is more often than not immediately repeated at the same pitch level or in transposition. The syllabic declamation, the hemistich division, the cadential structure, and the repetitive scheme of the musical phrases all point to the same conclusion: the canonic melodies were devised to reflect the structural, syntactic, and semantic implications of each particular poem.

4 This mainly applies to canons at the fourth and the fifth. In exact imitation, the intervals of the comes can be solmized with the same syllables as those of the dux. On Josquin’s use of diatonic or exact canon see Peter Urquhart, “Susato’s Le septiesme livre (1545) and the Persistence of Exact Canon,” in Tielman Susato and the Music of His Time: Print Culture, Compositional Technique and Instrumental Music in the Renaissance, ed. Keith Polk (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon, 2005), 165-190. 5 The tonal melody of a canon is that which projects the main characteristics of a composition’s mode, as this is defined by the work’s final harmony. Obviously, both canonic voices present the tonal melody in canons at the unison or at the octave.

99 The most outstanding feature of the canons, however, is the lack of internal repetitions,

which stands in sharp contrast to the repetitive nature of the surrounding polyphony. Text

repetition of small units (short phrases or single words) emerges in the chanson repertory at the

end of the fifteenth century. In chansons by Dufay, Binchois, and Ockeghem, text repetition

takes place mainly within the repetitive scheme of the poetic formes fixes, with whole sections of

text repeating according to the formal structure of the respective poetic genre. Otherwise,

repetition of smaller textual units is very rare in this repertory. For example, from all of

Ockeghem’s undisputed chansons in the collected works edition only three could possibly carry

such verbal repetitions.6 However, as Helen Hewitt observes, with the breaking away from the

formes fixes, “came a new kind of freedom, that of text repetition . . . In the new style composers repeat not only entire refrains but single lines, phrases, or even separate words . . . In other words, composers were learning to subordinate text to music, whereas in the older style the music had followed the strict dictation of the poetic form.”7

The textual repetitions that characterize the chanson repertory at the turn of the sixteenth-

century may have served several different purposes. First, breaking away from the formes fixes

towards setting single stanzas of poetry resulted in a considerable shortening of the poetic texts

and, subsequently, of their musical settings. Repetition became, therefore, one way of

lengthening a piece. Second, when a canon is the structural foundation of a work, repetition in

6 Johannes Ockeghem, Collected Works, vol. 3, Motets and Chansons, ed. Richard Wexler and Dragan Plamenac (Boston: Schirmer, 1947-92). The chansons in question are J’en ay dueil, Qu’es mi vida, and Ung aultre l’a. The repetitions involved are brief and occur at the end of musical phrases. 7 Helen Hewitt, ed., Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1942; repr. New York: Da Capo Press, 1978), 56 (page citations are to the reprint edition). Theoretical treatises of the late fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth century regard verbal repetition in plainchant as completely inappropriate, although they do not reject it in secular compositions as long as there are enough notes to accommodate the textual repeats. Lanfranco’s Scintille di musica (Brescia, 1533) is the most important document that contributes to our knowledge of sixteenth-century practice on text placement. Rossetti’s slightly earlier Libellus de rudimentis musices (1529) regards text repetition as a defect and warns against any repetition of words and syllables. See Don Harrán, Word-Tone Relationships in Musical Thought, Musicological Studies and Documents, vol. 40 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1986), 115-156 passim.

100 the surrounding polyphony might be necessary in order to ensure a natural pace for the canonic melodies. Finally, with the change of melodic style from melismatic to syllabic, textual repetition again becomes a means for lengthening the musical phrases.8

In many instances, however, repetition came to serve the rhetorical function of highlighting the meaning of important phrases or words. Josquin’s treatment of repetition in his

Group 1 multi-voice chansons reinforces such an interpretation. The extensive repetitions and melismas over important words in the freely composed voices indicate that Josquin handles the non-canonic voices as a commentary to the text of the canon, the function of which is to accommodate and persuasively deliver the poetry at hand. Devoid of repetitions, the canons thus assume the role of a declamatory straightforward oration. This interpretation is further reinforced by the fact that it is especially with the canons on his own melodies—where Josquin would be free to incorporate repetitions at will—that he chooses to eschew with such treatment. Therefore,

Josquin’s canons have not only a structural but also en expressive function. The result is a multi- layered “text” where direct delivery and commentary are juxtaposed, enriching the single- dimensional, linear character of reciting poetry. Polyphony functions at the same time as reading aloud and reading silently, the latter function allowing for inner thoughts to unfold simultaneously through the freely composed voices of the polyphonic texture. Therefore, while the canonic melody “recites” the poetry, the surrounding voices highlight and comment upon its meaning. I argue that the expanded texture of the multi-voice chanson facilitates such treatment since there are more voices available to contribute to this “polyphony” of readings.9 In this

8 The change to a more syllabic style is associated with humanistic influence (see “Introduction” and Chapter II). 9 I borrow Margaret Bent’s metaphorical application of the word “polyphony” to describe multiple levels of meaning that emerge from the interaction of texts and music in the polytextual fourteenth-century motet. Margaret Bent, “Polyphony of Texts and Music in the Fourteenth-Century Motet: Tribum que non abhorruit/Quoniam secta latronum/Merito hec patimur and Its ‘Quotations,’” in Hearing the Motet: Essays on the Motet of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Dolores Pesce (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 82-103.

101 respect, Josquin’s treatment of canonic technique in his multi-voice chansons differs radically

from that of his contemporaries and could serve as an important index in style criticism related to

authenticity. La Rue’s canons more often than not incorporate internal text repetitions while

Mouton eschews canon altogether in his multi-voice chansons.

Structure

The twelve Group 1chansons represent three basic categories of musical structure. The

first includes chansons built around two musical phrases, A and B, a process possibly

reminiscent of the formes fixes, but without the repetitive scheme of the older musico-poetic

structures. Chansons of this type are Du mien amant, N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir, and Pour

souhaitter.

The second category includes chansons with an end-oriented structure, that is, chansons

that follow a repetitive scheme but also place emphasis on the last line of the text, which is

usually stated twice, e.g., AABBCC (with or without coda).10 Josquin uses such structures to set

five rondeaux cinquains refrains: Douleur me bat, Incessament livré suis, Parfons regretz, Plaine

de dueil, and Plusieurs regretz. Although the rhyme of the last line of the rondeau cinquain

invites a return to the melody of the first part, Josquin instead composes a distinct melodic

phrase, observing the semantic content of the poem. The result is a balanced composition of

three sections of two musical phrases each, for a poetic structure of five lines. It can be argued

that Josquin observes in this treatment of the structure the three-fold division of the rhetorical

expositio into exordium, medium, and finis, a division that Gallus Dressler described in his

10 Lawrence F. Bernstein introduced the term “end-oriented” to describe musical structures that place emphasis on the last line or section of a chanson through synthesis of motivic material, clarification of tonal ambiguity, or repetition. Such strategy usually parallels the epigrammatic character of the poetry. Lawrence F. Bernstein, “A Canonic Chanson in a German Manuscript: Faulte d’argent and Josquin’s Approach to the Chanson for Five Voices,” in Von Isaac bis Bach: Festschrift Martin Just zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Frank Heidlberger, Wolfgang Osthoff, and Reinhard Wiesend (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1991), 64, 66, 68, and idem, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” in The Josquin Companion, ed. Richard Sherr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 400, 422.

102 Praecepta musicae poeticae of 1563.11 The separate musical phrase for the fifth line of the text,

which stands out by successive repetitions and often a distinct musical texture, further intensifies

the last part. Josquin thus strengthens his musical argument in the last part of his composition,

creating a pathopoeia that captures Quintilian’s suggestion, “it is at the close of our drama that

we must really stir the theatre.”12

The last formal category encompasses through-composed settings with a separate

melodic phrase for every line of text. Depending on the length of the poetry, they can be

described with the general scheme ABCD or ABCDE for four or five lines of text, respectively.

Nevertheless, Josquin often incorporates a return to musical phrase A at some point in the chanson, testifying to the importance the opening musical phrase holds within these compositions. Chansons of this type are Cueur langoreulx, Regretz sans fin, Vous l’arez, and

Vous ne l’aurez pas.

Rhetorical figures

Rhetorical figures similar to the ones pointed out by Patrick Macey in his study of

Miserere mei, Deus frequently appear in the Group 1 repertory, proving that such gestures were not exclusively reserved for the sacred repertory.13 Instances of musical anaphora, anadiplosis,

epanadiplosis, interiectio, etc. are common.14 In general, however, these figures do not represent

the homonymous gesture in the poetry, but are rather used as markers that point to a syntactic or

semantic prosodic feature that demands attention. For example, Josquin frequently uses figures

11 Gallus Dressler, Praecepta musicae poeticae, ed. B. Engelke, in Geschicthsblätter für Stadt und Land Magdeburg 49-50 (1914-15), 243-8; quoted in Patrick Macey, “Josquin and Musical Rhetoric: Miserere mei, Deus and Other Motets,” in The Josquin Companion, ed. Richard Sherr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 521. This essay is an excerpted and revised version of his dissertation “Josquin’s Miserere mei Deus: Context, Structure, and Influence” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1985). 12 Quintilian Institutio oratoria 6.1.52; quoted in Macey, “Josquin and Musical Rhetoric,” 523. 13 Macey, “Josquin and Musical Rhetoric,” 495-530. 14 See the description of these figures in Chapter I.

103 of repetition, such as anadiplosis and epanadiplosis, to relate phrases with parallel syntactic

construction or with similar meanings. It remains a matter of question, therefore, whether we can

assign a rhetorical nomenclature to many of these figures. I have used the oratorical terminology

to describe a gesture when it seems to be justified by the text, the importance of the position of

the gesture in relation to the text, and its effect.

Aside from figures derived from classical oratory, music can express a rhetorical gesture

inherent in the poetry by using its own expressive means. Musico-rhetorical figures that have no

literary equivalent, such as the anabasis, the catabasis, the circulatio, and the fortuna motifs,

make their appearance in many subtle ways as well. Josquin generally assigns both literary and

musico-rhetorical figures to the Superius to make them as audible as possible. Regardless of the

origins of the gestures, the music constantly provides a reading of the text, allowing us to

glimpse ways in which it was understood and interpreted by its composer.

Melodic articulation

In addition to the rhetorical figures of repetition, which Josquin applies as connectors for

textually-related phrases, he also tends to relate the two hemistichs of a decasyllabic verse or two

consecutive phrases by a characteristic descending/ascending gesture. This gesture spans the

range of the same interval in opposite directions: the descending motion marks the end of the

first hemistich or phrase while the ascending gesture the opening of the second hemistich or

following phrase. Such melodic and rhythmic links again usually appear in the Superius, the

voice that stands out, or, less often, in the canonic voices.15

15 Teofilo Folengo, writing a few years after the publication of the Odhecaton, admitted that although “the tenor is the guide and ruler . . . the soprano is the voice to which the audience pay most attention.” Quoted in Hewitt, Odhecaton A, 95.

104 In the generally syllabic framework of the multi-voice chanson, melismatic writing also

acquires rhetorical significance. Josquin reserves melismas for the non-canonic voices, mainly

over important words. The only melismatic passages that appear in the canonic melodies are

cadential in nature, and this seems to be a hallmark of Josquin’s style.

First person representation

Poetic identity and the tension often created between the poet-narrator and the poet-actor has occupied an important place in recent literary criticism.16 Such studies reveal that fifteenth-

century poets chose to project the poetic persona in complicated and subtle ways.17 The majority

of the chanson verses set to music employ an indirect address to the poetic “I.” More often than

not the poet/lover uses the pronouns “me,” “mon,” “moy,” etc. instead of speaking directly with

“Je.” In a few instances, however, the poetry turns to first person speech either in the beginning

or in the middle of the poetic line. Such changes of emphasis on the poetic persona do not escape

Josquin’s attention. He treats such instances in an almost consistent manner, which usually involves the manipulation of texture. Therefore, when setting a song, the composer enters into the game of self-representation, transforming the traditional poet-lover dichotomy into a complex triangle, that of the poet-composer-lover.

Intertextuality

Music scholarship has quite extensively explored allusive quotations in masses based on chansons,18 but the matter has only recently received attention within the genre of the polyphonic

16 For literature on the issue of poetic identity see “Introduction,” fn. 24. 17 See, for example, the discussion on authorial self-representation in the poetry of Pizan, Chartier, and Meschinot in Leonard W. Johnson, Poets as Players: Theme and Variation in Late Medieval French Poetry (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990). 18 Some recent studies include Michael Long, “Symbol and Ritual in Josquin’ s Missa Di Dadi,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 42, no. 1 (1989): 1-22 and Christopher A. Reynolds, “The Counterpoint of Allusion in Fifteenth-Century Masses,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 45, no. 2 (1992): 228-260.

105 song. Existing studies focus mainly on the repertories of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries (see related literature in the Introduction and Chapter V). Within the multi-voice chanson repertory, the cross-referential nature of many of the texts serves as a conduit for seeking musical intertextual relationships not only within the oeuvre of a single composer but also across the genre. The poetic relationships take the form of shared texts or fragments of texts, single words, identical rhyming, or common rhetorical topoi, and their presence often signals musical interconnections on the level of melodic, rhythmic, or structural detail. These intertextual connections further allow us to speculate with greater certainty on the chronological proximity and provenance of groups of compositions, especially in the cases in which the proposed relationships are supported by both shared compositional strategies and poetic themes.

Since intertextuality seems to occupy a particularly important place in Josquin’s musical rhetoric, it will be examined separately in Chapter V.

Analysis of the chansons based on Josquin’s own canonic melodies

The following analyses focus on the different ways the polyphonic fabric ensures a

successful delivery of musical speech. I concentrate on a core group of five chansons from Table

3.2 that best exemplify the range of Josquin’s rhetorical techniques. These are, in the order they

are discussed: Cueur langoreulx, Douleur me bat, Plusieurs regretz, Incessament livré suis, and

Regretz sans fin. The remaining chansons of Table 3.2 will be considered briefly at the end of

this chapter. At the center of all analyses stands the premise that the understanding of the text

enlightens our understanding of the music and, inversely, that the musical choices elucidate our

understanding of the composer’s reading of his text. Consequently, I consider melodic, rhythmic,

canonic, cadential, and modal manipulation in relation to the features of the text. For every poem

106 I provide the text and its English translation, the poetic sources when important to the analysis, and a brief discussion of the prosodic features that serves as a conduit in analyzing the music.

Cueur langoreulx

Cueur langoreulx is a rare example among the multi-voice chanson settings because it does not display the air of melancholy or despair but resolves in a happy note since the “don,” the favor, will be granted finally.

music 1. Cueur langoreulx qui ne fais que penser, Languishing heart that you only ponder, A 2. Plaindre, gémir, plourer et souspirer Lament, bemoan, cry and sigh A 3. Resiouys toy! Car ta belle maistresse Rejoice! For your fair mistress BC 4. Par sa pitié te veult donner liesse, By her mercy wishes to give you happiness, D 5. Ioye et plaisir pour te reconforter. Joy and pleasure to comfort you.19 E

A very similar text is included in the anthology Jardin de Plaisance, fol. 74, fashioned as a rondeau quatrain. The text in the Jardin de Plaisance reads:

Cueur douloureux qui ne fait que pleurer, Plaindre, gemir et demener tristesse Apaise toy! Car ta belle maistresse Par sa pitie te veult reconforter.

Pense tousiours de son honneur porter Et humblement de la servir ne cesse. Cueur douloureux etc.

Elle te veult son seul amy clamer Car loyaulment luy a tenu promesse. Pource envers toy ung doulx espoir s’adresse Qui ta ioye fer a renouveller. Cueur douloureux etc.20

19 The translation is partly based on Jennie Lou Congleton, “The Chansons of Josquin des Prez” (Ph.D. diss., Washington University, 1981), 139. Unless otherwise indicated, translations are my own. 20 The line “Par souspirer, plourer, gemir et plaindre” appears in Molinet’s Oraison a Nostre Dame, a poem which abounds in verses derived from known chansons. Jean Molinet, Les faictz et dictz de Jean Molinet, ed. Noël Dupire, 3 vols. (Paris: Société des Anciens Textes Français, 1935-39), 2:474, line 165. Dupire, the editor of Molinet’s works, has identified this line as a chanson verse. A rondeau quatrain starting with “Par soupirer, plorer, gemir et plaindre” appears as no. 283 in the Rohan manuscript; Martin Löpelmann, ed., Die Liederhandschrift des Cardinals de Rohan (Götingen: Gesellschaft für Romanische Literatur, 1923), 199. The overall mood of this rondeau quatrain, however, is different than that of Cueur langoreulx. The same or slightly different succession of words appears in many poems of the time, and it was probably a conventional line, featuring the rhetorical

107

The similarities of the quatrain refrain to the chanson stanza are obvious. The five-line stanza appears to be a reworking of the above rondeau refrain, in which a fifth verse has been added and particular features have been amplified. For example, the rhetorical figure amplificatio is especially prominent in the chanson stanza in lines 2 (“plaindre, gémir, plourer et souspirer”) and

5 (“liesse, ioye et plaisir”). In amplificatio, similar words are placed in successive order to intensify the emotional effect.

There is a sharp contrast between the two opening, gloomy lines and the change of tone that occurs in the third line. This change of mood is marked not only by the words “Resiouys toy” (“Rejoice”), but also by the syntactical division of the stanza into two units of two and a half verses each, the second starting with “Car ta belle maistresse.” Both halves involve an enjambment, which moves the emphasis from the individual lines to the two longer, syntactically and semantically independent units.

Josquin underlines the importance of l. 3 as the breaking point that reflects the change of mood on several different levels (see Example 3.1). First, a change of treatment occurs on the structural level, beginning with l. 3. While the chanson opens with the repetition of phrase A for l. 2 (possibly also reflecting the aa rhyme pattern), it changes to a through-composed form with the words “Resiouys toy.” The overall phrase structure of both the canonic melodies and the freely composed voices thus follows an AABCDE scheme (see also the music scheme next to the translation above). Further changes occur at the same point in the treatment of the canon: l. 3 is the only verse for which the canonic melodies have textual repetitions (Ex. 3.1, Superius and

Quinta, mm. 21-29; for better illustration see the canonic melody in Ex. 3.11). Unlike the

amplificatio (see discussion below). On the nature and dating of the anthology Jardin de Plaisance and the Rohan manuscript see Chapter II.

108 surrounding canonic phrases, the use of repetition here attracts attention to this poetic juncture, which separates the two emotionally differentiated segments of the poetry. Josquin’s gesture has a rhetorical equivalent in the figure of articulus, which aims at creating emphasis by repetition and distinct figuration. This figure is perfectly justified by the exclamatory tone of the poetry.

Indeed, in addition to its repetitive character, the canonic melody for the text “Resiouys toy” is particularly distinct when compared to all preceding and subsequent melodic phrases (Ex. 3.1,

Superius, mm. 21-25). The ascending melody contrasts with all the other phrases and reaches the highest point in the entire composition here. In addition, Josquin introduces a lively rhythmic figuration and abandons the syllabic style of the previous phrases for a more melismatic utterance. The change in the treatment of the canonic melody serves, therefore, a double purpose: a structural and semantic one, marking the change of poetic tone, and a rhetorical, almost pictorial one, underlying the exclamatory passage.

The emotionally contrasting second segment of the stanza (second half of l. 3 through l.

5) also receives special treatment by Josquin, particularly in the canonic voices. While for ll. 1 and 2 the canon pauses at the hemistich, ll. 4 and 5 unfold as an unbroken melody. With such treatment, the canonic melody not only observes the enjambment in the poetry but also musically represents the tone of the poem: the lines do not break, reflecting the lover’s hurry to pour out the happy news. One would expect l. 3, which also expresses the joyous feeling, to be treated the same way. However, l. 3 also marks the division of the whole stanza into two separate units, and this feature is reflected in the wide distance (seven breves) that separates the two hemistichs (Ex.

3.1, Superius, mm. 26-29.2 and Quinta, mm. 30-33.2).

The freely composed voices in Cueur langoreulx exhibit many of the features that characterize Josquin’s approach to multi-voice chanson composition. First, they enjoy a great

109 degree of textual repetition, common to all Josquin’s chansons. Second, they introduce at the

opening of the song an “initial motif,” a short phrase that appears only as an opening gesture and

is omitted in subsequent repetitions of the first musical phrase. In Cueur langoreulx, Josquin

introduces the initial motif in the Contratenor and the Bassus (Ex. 3.1, mm. 1-7.1 and 1-4,

respectively), while he omits it at the repetition of phrase A.21

Another characteristic feature of the freely composed voices is that they bear most of the

melismatic passages of the chanson, contrasting with the syllabic, declamatory style of the

canon. Frequently, it is the Contratenor that bears most of the melismas. In Cueur langoreulx, the

Contratenor sings a long, ascending melisma over the word “maistresse” (Ex. 3.1, mm. 30-32),

briefly imitated by the Tenor (m. 35), thus paying tribute to the object of the chanson. The

melisma spans an octave with its completion (the eighth note) provided by the Superius over a

temporary dissonance (Ex. 3.1, mm. 31-32.1). The Contratenor also bears a melisma over

“donner liesse,” an appropriate place indeed to sing melismatically. These melismatic passages

derive their musical inspiration from the ascending motion of the canonic melody over

“Resiouys toy” (Ex. 3.1, Superius, mm. 21-25) and could be related to the musico-rhetorical

figure of anabasis, appropriate for the expression of high and distinguished things.22 Although

ascending motions naturally abound in musical works and we could not label each one of them

as anabasis—unless we seek a purely technical term to describe a musical feature—the

21 Other instances of initial motifs appear in the chansons Douleur me bat (Superius, Contratenor, and Bassus for their opening three measures); Incessament livré suis (Bassus, mm. 1-3); Petite camusette (Sexta and Bassus, mm. 1-5 and Superius and Quinta, mm. 1-6 are not replicated at the repetition of the phrase at the end of the chanson); and Se congié prens (Superius, Contratenor, Tenor, and Bassus for their opening three measures). In some cases the initial motif draws its features from the opening of the canonic melody, anticipating its entrance. This is further confirmation that the canonic melody was composed before the other voices. The issue here is compositional process rather than the unfolding of the piece in real time. 22 Anabasis is one of the three new figures introduced by Athanasius Kircher in his Musurgia Universalis (Rome, 1650). For a facsimile edition see Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia Universalis. Mit einen Vorwort, Personen-, Orts- und Sachregister von Ulf Scharlau (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1970), B 145.

110 ascending gestures in the above instances seem to have a rhetorical provenance and are

particularly appropriate to express in musical terms the poetic content.

Scholars have observed Josquin’s technique of creating a synthesis of motivic material at the last section or phrase of a work.23 Cueur langoreulx is no exception. As mentioned above,

Josquin frequently connects the hemistichs of the Superius through a descending/ascending motif that involves the same notes in reverse order. The first phrase of the Superius in Cueur

langoreulx, which also is a canonic voice, is fashioned this way (Ex. 3.1, motif x, mm. 2-3 and 4-

5). This motif, along with the cadential semitone of the first phrase (motif z) and the initial motif of the Bassus, a descending sixth (y), are combined to form the canonic phrases C, D, and E and to create compositional unity. Phrases C and D (Superius) end and begin respectively with motif x, while phrase D combines in one long gesture motifs x and y (Ex. 3.1, mm. 37-43). Phrase E starts the same way as phrase D, immediately followed by motif z. In addition to being a

compositional strategy that brings together material heard earlier in the chanson, this motivic

synthesis also serves a rhetorical function: it forges relationships between the phrases, much like

in an oration, where the reiteration of some words in strategic parts of sentences creates a

persuasive impression on the listener. To this end, phrases C and D are related through the descending/ascending gesture, while phrases D and E with an instance of anaphora. In rhetoric,

anaphora is the repetition of the same word(s) at the beginning of successive sentences. The

motivic relationship among phrases C, D, and E could further reflect the enjambment that

characterizes the second segment of the poetry. Finally, motifs x, y, and z, originally associated

with notions of languish and suffering, are now transformed to express “joye et plaisir.” That

23 For example, Bernstein emphasizes this point, particularly with reference to Faulte d’argent, in his “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 399-400.

111 phrases D and E start with the ascending instead of the descending x motif might be an indication

of this reversal of mood.

As in the majority of Josquin’s chansons, the last line receives special attention through

repetitions in both the canonic and the non-canonic voices. Although Josquin usually repeats the

last phrase in its entirety, in Cueur langoreulx he focuses only on the second hemistich, “pour te

reconforter.” In its first utterance, this half line appears in a homorhythmic texture (Ex. 3.1, mm.

48-49) by four out of the five voices (the Quinta being silent at this point), with the syllable “-

con-” occurring on the downbeat and given to a breve. In all subsequent repetitions (see the

dashed lines), the same syllable always falls on the downbeat, thus acquiring a punctuating

effect. The Superius, one of the two canonic voices, is unusually silent for ten whole measures

while the other voices sing the same segment repeatedly, apparently to stress the joyful feeling of

the lover. The emphasis on the syllable “-con-” could actually hide a double entendre, especially

since the favor to be granted often involves some kind of sexual intimacy.24 Although scholars

have been reluctant to accept that Josquin would respond to such poetic features, we should

always remember that sexual innuendos were very much part of the game of social interaction.25

Double entendres abound in the poetry of the period and poets and courtiers alike seem to have enjoyed and approved of them.26 We should not be hindered by our time’s prejudices about

propriety. A sexual innuendo might even have been regarded as a form of compliment.

24 For literature on the double meanings of such syllables see Chapter II, especially fnn. 42, 43, 44, and 46. The word “reconforter” receives similar treatment in another five-voice chanson, Plaine de dueil. See the discussion of this chanson below. 25 Osthoff, for example, has been reluctant to accept Allégez moy as Josquin’s because of the bawdy nature of the poetry, among other reasons. Helmuth Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2 vols. (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1962- 1965), 2:219. 26 See the discussion about the presence and function of double entendres in Chapter II.

112 Example 3.1. Josquin, Cueur langoreulx

113 114 115 116 117

118 Cueur langoreulx is a representative example of Josquin’s interpretation of his poetic text. His musical choices reflect both conventional and innovative treatments of the poetic features. The canon follows the syntactic and semantic structure of the text, and acquires a rhetorical function by delivering a comprehensive and direct version of the poem. The division of the canonic melody (or lack thereof) into hemistichs reflects the internal rhythmic pace of the text and underlines in musical terms the semantic implications of the syntactical structure of the poem. With the unexpected repetition of the first hemistich of l. 3, the canonic melody demarcates the two poetic sections and emphasizes through a rhetorical figure (articulus) the importance of the particular passage. The surrounding polyphony enriches the musical texture and provides commentaries, reinforcing with additional gestures the reading of the poem by

Josquin.

In contrast to the joyful character of the poetry in Cueur langoreulx, the chansons

Douleur me bat, Plusieurs regretz, and Incessament livré suis are settings of rondeaux cinquains

refrains on somber themes. All three incorporate canons at the fifth between the Tenor and

Quinta parts, embedded in similar, end-oriented structures. The rhetorical analysis further

suggests that they comprise a network of compositions, composed in close chronological proximity and possibly for the same patron.

119 Douleur me bat

Douleur me bat is one of the most affective poems set by Josquin. Unlike the typical aristocratisant poems on amorous regrets, the desperate tone of Douleur me bat seems to be derived from a misfortune other than unrequited love, although this possibility cannot be denied.

1. Douleur me bat et tristesse m’afolle, Grief strikes me and sorrow maddens me, 2. Amour me nuyt et malheur me consolle, Love annoys me and misfortune comforts me, 3. Vouloir me suit mais aider ne me peult, Desire follows me but cannot help me, 4. Jouyr ne puis d’ung grant bien qu’on me veult. I cannot enjoy the great good that [she] wishes me, 5. De vivre ainsi, pour dieu, qu’on me décolle! From such a life, for God’s sake, may I be released!27

The poem unfolds as a series of independent sentences, the first three of which share parallel construction (two main clauses connected by the conjunctions “et” or “mais”). The syntactic structure of the stanza and the appearance of personified abstractions such as

“Douleur,” “Tristesse,” and “Malheur” have deep roots in the fifteenth-century poetic tradition.

In fact, Douleur me bat recalls Alain Chartier’s Joye me fuit et desespoir me chasse,28 which provided the inspiration for Busnois’s setting Joye me fuit et doleur me ceurt seure.29

The musical form of Douleur me bat is AABBCC and coda for all voice parts.30 This scheme partly reflects the rhyming of the stanza (the aabb rhyme of the first four lines) and partly the semantic content of the poem (the importance of the final verse). By assigning two musical phrases to the last line of the text, Josquin creates a balanced ternary structure of

27 The translation is partly based on Congleton, “The Chansons of Josquin des Prez,” 141. I have replaced “harms me” with “annoys me” in l. 2 and “aid me” with “help me” in l. 3. 28 For Chartier’s poem see Martin Löpelmann, ed., Die Liederhandschrift des Cardinals de Rohan (Göttingen: Gesellschaft für Romanische Literatur, 1923), no. 152. The technique of parallel construction of verses is common with Chartier. Another example, albeit projecting a completely antithetical atmosphere than that of Joye me fuit, can be found in Le debat des deux Fortunés d’amour: “Desir le maine et Espoir le conforte/Et Plaisance le soustient et supporte.” Alain Chartier, The Poetical Works of Alain Chartier, ed., J. C. Laidlaw (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 170. 29 For Busnois’s text see Leeman L. Perkins and Howard Garey, eds., The Mellon Chansonnier, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 2:307-311. 30 Patrick Macey describes the form as AA’BBCC and coda, but I believe the initial motif obscures the structure and prevents him from seeing the repetition of phrase A as an exact replication of its first appearance. Parick Macey, “An Expressive Detail in Josquin’s Nimphes, nappés,” Early Music 31, no. 3 (2003): 407.

120 approximately equal lengths. This structure places emphasis on the last verse, the culminating

point of the poem.

The prosodic features determined many of the musical decisions. Josquin matches the

syntactic independence of the lines and the steady rhythmic pace—a poetic caesura occurs at the

fourth syllable of every line and there is no enjambment—in the melodic articulation of his

canonic melody. Indeed, every phrase of the canon pauses at the hemistich, and the declamation

is extremely syllabic, with one note singing each syllable. In addition, Lawrence Bernstein has

noted that the canonic melody reflects the syntactic independence of the individual verses by

ending every phrase on the same pitch (E).31 As in Cueur langoreulx, the canon unfolds as a

straightforward oration without text repetitions until the final line. Possibly to underscore the

solemn character of the text, the Superius and Bassus also eschew repetition (except for the

verbal repetition over the initial motif), perhaps competing with the function of the canonic

melodies, a very unusual treatment among the multi-voice chansons. In Douleur me bat, only the

Contratenor incorporates verbal repetitions.

As the main bearers of the text, the canonic voices reflect the syntactic structure of the

chanson also on the level of melodic articulation. Josquin constructs the Tenor part (and

subsequently the Quinta, since they move in canon at the fifth) in such a way so that its

beginning is identical to its ending (Ex. 3.2, Tenor, mm. 5-12, motif a). The same feature also

characterizes the Superius. Following the initial motif (which is not repeated with the second

statement of the phrase), phrase A begins and ends with a melodic cadence on A (Ex. 3.2,

Superius, mm. 4-11, motif b). Thus Josquin forges a motivic link between poetic lines 1 and 2, as phrase A is immediately repeated. Such procedure recalls the rhetorical figure of repetition known as epanadiplosis. In epanadiplosis, the opening word(s) of a phrase is repeated at the end,

31 Bernstein, “A Canonic Chanson,” 66-67.

121 following the scheme x…x/ x…x. By repeating the first musical phrase, Josquin manipulates the

(intended) similarity of beginning and ending to relate, through the gesture of epanadiplosis, two

phrases of similar structure, rhyming, and expressive tone (“Douleur . . . et . . . m’afolle/ Amour

. . . et . . . console”).

Free from the restrictions of a pre-existent melody Josquin constructs his individual parts

with an eye toward the expressive content of his text. Josquin chooses the Phrygian mode to

express this doleful song. The Superius, Tenor, Bassus, and Quinta open with the mournful

semitone E-F-E (B-C-B in the Quinta) over “Douleur me bat” (Ex. 3.2, mm. 1-9). To reinforce

the affective power, a cadential gesture on A (motif b in Superius and Bassus) follows

immediately after the inflected semitone. In studies on the rhetorical aspects of the modes in the

Renaissance, E mode, and especially the plagal, are considered extremely mournful and this is definitely the affect here.32 Zarlino, writing some fifty years later, said of the third mode:

If the third mode were not mixed with the ninth mode [the Aeolian on A], and were heard by itself, its harmony would be somewhat hard, but because it is tempered by the diapente of the ninth mode [A-E] and by the cadence made on a, which is very much in use in it, some have been of the opinion that the third mode moves one to weeping. Hence they have accommodated to it words which are tearful and full of laments.33

Zarlino’s description finds a perfect application in the opening measures of the Bassus in

Douleur me bat. The semitone E-F-E is followed by a cadence on A and then by the diapente A-

E, clearly establishing the tone of the chanson.

32 Bernhard Meier, “Rhetorical Aspects of the Renaissance Modes,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 115, no. 2 (1990): 182-190. 33 Gioseffo Zarlino, Le institutioni harmoniche (Venice: Franceschi, 1558); trans. of Part IV as On the Modes by Vered Cohen, ed. with an introduction by Claude V. Palisca (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 64.

122 Example 3.2. Josquin, Douleur me bat

123 124 125 126

127 In contrast to the canonic melody, which constantly underscores the Phrygian character of the piece by ending on E for all of its musical phrases, the surrounding polyphony displays a much differentiated tonal design. Cadences involving the free-composed voices occur on A (mm.

10-11 and 19-20 between S/CT), G (mm. 22-23 between CT/B), D (m. 54-55 between CT/T), and E (mm. 15-16 between CT/T and 27-28, 34-35, and 58-59 between S/T). The only clausula vera occurs late in the chanson (mm. 56-57 between S/Q) and falls on A. The most striking moment of this varied tonal agenda occurs at the very important point of the transition from section B to C, where Josquin introduces a new and distinct musical motif (Ex. 3.2, Superius, mm. 37-39, motif c). This motif stands out by reaching the highest pitch of the entire composition and its melismatic character contrasts the preceding syllabic style of the musical phrases (Ex. 3.2, Superius, mm. 37-39; the highest pitch is marked with an asterisk). The moment is underlined by the introduction of B-flat in the Tenor (m. 38), which not only forces the Superius to also sing a B-flat (to avoid both the cross-relationship and the melodic tritone) but also creates a pungent, albeit brief dissonance, contrasting G, B-flat, and A (Ex. 3.2, m.

38.4).34 The introduction of B-flat, the repeated D in the Contratenor (mm. 38-39), and the G in the Bassus, followed by the characteristic diapente G-D of the G-Dorian mode (Ex. 3.2, mm. 37-

39) introduce an instance of commixtio (the blending of Phrygian and Dorian modes). This striking moment of modal varietas attracts the listener’s attention before the climactic repetitions of the concluding C section.35

34 The two earliest sources of Douleur me bat, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Musiksammlung, MS Mus. 18746 (olim A.N.35.H.14), henceforth referred to as VienNB Mus. 18746, and Le septiesme livre contenant vingt & quatre chansons a cincq et a six parties (Antwerp: Tylman Susato, 1545) [RISM 154515], do not include a B-flat in the Superius at this point. 35 Johannes Tinctoris emphasized the importance of variety in music in his last rule of counterpoint: “Wherefore, according to the opinion of Tullius [Cicero], as variety in the art of speaking most delights the hearer, so also in music a diversity of harmonies vehemently provokes the souls of listeners into delight.” Johannes Tinctoris, The Art of Counterpoint, trans Albert Seay, Musicological Studies and Documents, vol. 5 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1961), 139.

128 The combination of the Phrygian and the Dorian modes is rather common within

Josquin’s oeuvre. Bernhard Meier has identified a number of Josquin’s motets (Dulces exuviae,

Miserere mei, Deus, Domine, in furore tuo) featuring such commixtio.36 Meier regards the

combination of the two modes in a single work as one of Josquin’s techniques to enhance the expressive power of his music, and, therefore, as tightly connected to the content of the text.

Specifically for the motet Domine, in furore tuo, Meier sees this technique as finely suited to the

“representation of unusual occurrences or states of mind.”37 Douleur me bat is certainly a chanson in which such a state of mind is projected by the poetry (“tristesse m’afolle”), further justifying Meier’s claim, albeit for a work outside the sacred repertory.

The point of transition from section B to C offers the perfect example to demonstrate how rhetorical analysis can illuminate decisions on text underlay. In his edition of Douleur me bat,

Smijers omits the text under motif c and instead begins the fifth line in the Superius at m. 39, while the other voices enter with the text from m. 37.38 In Susato’s 1545 edition, the first

occurrence of this melisma is textless (motif c), whereas its second appearance (mm. 45-47) bears the words “me décolle.”39 Such a reading treats motif c in two different ways: in its first

appearance, as marking the end of section B, while in its second as belonging to C. In addition,

Susato’s text underlay for mm. 45-47 does not fit nicely under the available notes. I have

included the text in parenthesis under the Superius (mm. 45-47) although I concur with Smijers’s

vocalized interpretation. Furthermore, a comparison between the beginning of section C (m. 37)

with its repetition (beginning m. 45) reveals that in Smijers’s edition the repetition of the

36 Bernhard Meier, “The Musica Reservata of Adrianus Petit Coclico and its Relationship to Josquin,” Musica Disciplina 10 (1956): 67-105. 37 Meier, “The Musica Reservata,” 104. 38 Josquin des Prez, Werken: Wereldlijke Werken, ed. Albert A. Smijers (Amsterdam: G. Alsbach, 1922- 1969), no. 18. 39 Le septiesme livre [RISM 154515].

129 Contratenor seems to be misplaced, starting one measure earlier. Smijers follows Susato’s

edition at this point, but the Contratenor in VienNB Mus. 18746, the earliest source for Douleur

me bat, provides a different reading (Ex. 3.3). In VienNB Mus. 18746, the Contratenor maintains a space of four breves before repeating phrase C. Both the Susato and the VienNB Mus. 18746 readings work contrapuntally but pose different problems: in Susato’s edition, the Contratenor deviates from the repetitive scheme of the harmonic structure, which has been remarkably consistent until this point (all voices follow the AABBCC form). In VienNB Mus. 18746, the spacing maintains the repetition of the harmonic structure but disrupts the horizontal symmetry of the Contratenor, who presents a truncated melody at the repetition of phrase C (in Ex. 3.3, mm. 44-45 do not repeat with the next statement of phrase C). My proposed reading, maintains the harmonic structure because it appears to be more important than the Contratenor’s melodic deviation, from a musico-rhetorical point of view.

Example 3.3. Josquin, VienNB Mus. 18746, Douleur me bat, Contratenor, mm. 38-53

The last musical section of Douleur me bat, which carries the affective load of the stanza, stands out not only by the brief deviation to a different mode (G-Dorian) but also by introducing

130 a homorhythmic passage, which punctuates the repetitive epikleisis for relief of the last line

(“pour dieu, qu’on me décolle”). Such homorhythmic writing at the last section of the chanson, along with the non-repetitive nature of the canon, and the motivic links between phrases all become hallmarks of Josquin’s musical rhetoric in the service of a heightened form of musical expression.

Douleur me bat stands out as a highly rhetorical work in which formal design, melodic rhetorical gestures, and modal manipulations are all combined in effective ways to project and enhance the affective character of the poem. It shows how musical means can have an endless expressive potential, matching or even surpassing the power of words.

Plusieurs regretz

Plusieurs regretz is a decasyllabic rondeau cinquain refrain, constructed of two main syntactical units (ll. 1-3 and 4-5). As in Douleur me bat, the poetry brings forth a doleful, desperate tone.

1. Plusieurs regretz qui sur la terre sont The many sorrows that exist on earth 2. Et les douleurs qu’hommes et femmes ont And the sufferings that men and women endure 3. N’est que plaisir envers ceulx que je porte; Are nothing but pleasure compared to those I bear; 4. Me tourmentant de si piteusse sorte They torment me in such a woeful manner 5. Que mes espris ne schavent plus qu’ilz font. That my spirits don’t know how to go on.40

The complete rondeau text, extant in a manuscript that belonged to Marguerite of Austria, is as follows:

Tous les regretz qui sur la terre sont Et les doulleurs que hommes et femmes ont N’est que plaisir envers ceulx que je porte; Me tourmentant de si piteuse sorte Que mes esperitz ne scevent plus qu’ilz font.

40 Translation from Macey, “An Expressive Detail,” 407.

131 Craincte, plaisir et honneur me osteront Car pour le veul ilz m’en emporteront. Venez a moy, je vous ouvre la porte. Tous les regretz.

Puisque je pers celle par qui seront En moy sans fin leur demeure y feront. Amour le veult et aussi m’y enorte Et que de sens et raison me deporte. Conlusion: ilz me demeureront. Tous les regretz.41

Plusieurs regretz has an end-oriented structure, AABBCC for all five parts, and the canonic melodies (Quinta and Tenor at the fifth) bear no verbal repetitions until the full reprise of the last line by all voices.42 In addition, the six musical phrases of the Tenor (the tonal canonic voice) end on the degrees DDEEDD, thus reflecting both the rhyming of the poetry (the aabba rhyme pattern) and the symmetrical lay-out of the chanson (the AABBCC form). Unlike Douleur me bat, the freely composed voices bear extensive text repetitions, whose repetitive patterns seem also to reflect the rhyme scheme of the text: the Superius repeats the first hemistich for the two a-rhymes, the second hemistich for the two b-rhymes, and the whole line for the final a- rhyme, thus projecting the rhyme scheme in yet a different way.43 This process reinforces the argument that the individual voices assume different rhetorical functions that complement, reinforce, or undermine the rhetoric of the canonic voices.44 Josquin’s treatment in Plusieurs regretz shows us that there are indeed endless possibilities to achieve this aim.

41 Marcel Françon, Albums poétiques de Marguerite d’Autriche (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934), 271. 42 With the exception of the Contratenor all voices observe the hemistich division with a rest after the fourth syllable. 43 A similar process takes place in the Contratenor of Incessament livré suis a martire. Here, the Contratenor repeats the second hemistich for lines 1 and 2, the first hemistich for lines 3 and 4, and both hemistichs for line 5. 44 The tight correspondence among rhyme, cadential pitches, musical form, and repetitive pattern indicates that Plusieurs regretz is a carefully planned and balanced chanson. Thus I have altered Smijers’s editorial underlay in the last phrase of the Contratenor from “ne schavent plus qu’ilz font” to “que mes esprits” (Ex. 3.4, Contratenor, mm. 51-54). This change maintains the symmetrical character of the AABBCC form for this voice as well.

132 The melancholic tone of this chanson becomes immediately apparent in the opening

descending melodies of the non-canonic voices. The Superius, Contratenor, and Bassus outline

consecutive descending tetrachords, setting the mood of the poem (Ex. 3.4, mm. 1-8). Although

abandoned in section B, this descending gesture returns in the canonic melodies of section C, this

time outlining a descending minor sixth (Ex. 3.4, Tenor, mm. 46-49 and Quinta, mm. 48-51) and

a full descending octave (Ex. 3.4, Bassus, mm. 56-58).

The emphasis on the last line is one of the characteristic features of the end-oriented

chansons. In Cueur langoreulx and Douleur me bat, Josquin emphasized the last verse by

extensive text repetitions, and by introducing a contrasting homorhythmic passage. In Plusieurs

regretz the effect is achieved by introducing a triple division of the beat (Ex. 3.4, Bassus, m. 49

and Contratenor, mm. 57-58 over the words “ne schavent plus qu’ilz font”), which creates a sense of disturbance to the rhythmic flow. As a feature outside the norm it could be described with the rhetorical term hyperbaton. As mentioned in Chapter I, hyperbaton is a figure that

describes dislocations of normal word order. It has a psychological effect reflecting a disorder of

the psyche. The dislocation of the regular division of the beat seems to be perfectly fitting a text

in which the “spirits don’t know how to go on.”

Josquin’s most important technique, however, to attract the audience’s attention to the

last line is by anticipating it. In Douleur me bat, Josquin disrupts the textural and formal

structure of the chanson at exactly the point of transition from B to C section. A similar process

takes place in Plusieurs regretz, although here the disruption occurs immediately before the repetition of phrase B (l. 4), that is, before the entrance of the second syntactical unit of the

refrain, and affects the repetitive scheme of the musical phrases. When one expects an exact

repetition of all melodic parts—according to the exact repetition of phrase A previously—the

133 Bassus deviates, imitating the cadential passage of the Superius, thereby reinforcing a cadence

on A (Ex. 3.4, Bassus, mm. 34-36, figure x). After this unexpected passage, the Bassus continues by repeating phrase B as was initially expected (B1 and B2 are the two phrases separated by figure x). Several questions arise regarding the interpretation of this deviation. First, it poses a

problem for text underlay. Although the text in Susato’s edition clearly reads “me tourmentant” under this cadential gesture, it is not evident musically whether figure x is an extension of phrase

B1 or it belongs to the beginning of B2. Even though there are not enough notes to accommodate the second hemistich of the third poetic line, the motif could perfectly fit the fragment “que je porte.” Since the insertion also imitates the cadential gesture of the Superius over the same words

(mm. 32-34) it seems more reasonable to adopt the latter version of text underlay.

Regardless of which reading proves to be correct, the insertion of figure x has an equivalent in the rhetorical gesture interiectio. In literary rhetoric, interiectio is the insertion of a sentence in the midst of another. In Plusieurs regretz, this insertion emphasizes the high point of the text by interrupting the expected pattern of repetition in the middle section of the chanson. As a figure outside the norm, a property of all rhetorical gestures, it calls attention to itself and serves as a preparation for the climactic character of the upcoming last line. Finally, this insertion signals a musical allusion, which will be explored in Chapter V.

134 Example 3.4. Josquin, Plusieurs regretz

135 136 137 138

139 Incessament livré suis à martire

Belonging to the network of multi-voice chansons with an end-oriented structure,

Incessament livré suis displays many of the features we have encountered in Douleur me bat and

Plusieurs regretz. The structure is AABBC and coda and it differs from the above two chansons in that it does not repeat the last line of the poetry.

1. Incessament livré suis à martire, I am incessantly delivered to martyrdom, 2. Triste et pensif tousiours mon mal empire, Sad and pensive my suffering ever worsens, 3. Ainsi dolent me conduit desplaisir, Thus grieving sorrow leads me, 4. Celle qui peult ne me veult secourir, She who can, does not want to help me, 5. Mon malheur est de tous aultres le pire. My misfortune is worse than any other.45

Lawrence Bernstein suggests that Josquin reflects the syntactic independence of the

individual lines of the poem by closing the lines of the canonic melodies on the same cadential

degree, save for the very last verse (EEEEA and D for the coda).46 This process clearly recalls

Douleur me bat. In addition to the independence of the verses, I argue that it is also the rhyming

homogeneity that invites such treatment: in fact, all poetic lines end on the similarly sounding

syllables “-ire” or “-ir.” Ending each line on the same cadential degree brings out the verbal pun

on the word “ire” (suffering, sadness), which reinforces the sorrowful content of the stanza.

As in Douleur me bat and Plusieurs regretz, the canonic voices in Incessament do not

bear text repetitions. The syllabic character of the canon is disrupted only at the end of the two

middle phrases, BB, with the melismatic motif z’. This gesture spans a descending fourth and it

appears at the end of musical phrases in a number of Josquin’s multi-voice chansons. It forms the

end of the first and second phrases of the canonic melody in Plusieurs regretz and marks the

ending of all voices except for the Contratenor in the first two phrases in Cueur langoreulx. It

also reappears in the beginning of Du mien amant, Parfons regretz, and N’esse pas ung grant

45 The translation is partly based on Congleton, “The Chansons of Josquin des Prez,” 168. 46 Bernstein, “A Canonic Chanson,” 66.

140 desplaisir (see Ex.3.11). Although it seems like a conventional gesture to end a musical line, the

frequency of its appearance in Josquin’s multi-voice chanson settings turns it into a hallmark of

his style.47

It is around this descending tetrachord that Josquin creates another instance of

epanadiplosis similar to the one encountered in Douleur me bat. In Incessament, epanadiplosis

serves to relate the two middle phrases of the chanson, which are further demarcated by changing

the texture from contrapuntal to homorhythmic (over the words “Ainsi dolent” and “Celle qui

peult”).48 Josquin fashions phrase B of the canonic melodies and the Superius so that their

beginnings are similar to their endings (Ex. 3.5, figures z and z’ in the canonic voices and y in the

Superius). It should be noted that the similarity between the opening and closing figures

concerns the melodic content and not the rhythmic profile. This is expected since they

correspond to different poetic segments with different numbers of syllables (the first hemistich

comprising four syllables, while the second six). With the repetition of phrase B, Josquin creates

an audible link between the two B phrases, while he further emphasizes this moment with

another striking gesture.

Although the Superius, Tenor, and Quinta repeat their phrases exactly, the Bassus and

Contratenor deviate from this scheme by introducing a gesture outside the melodic profile of

phrase B (Ex. 3.5, Contratenor, mm. 39-41 and Bassus, mm. 38-40). More specifically, the

47 Patrick Macey has noted the use of ascending and descending cascading figures in Josquin’s motets and used them as a criterion to determine the chronological proximity of compositions. The descending figure of the multi-voice chansons is one of the various cascading figures that can be found in many of Josquin’s motets such as Absolve, quaesumus, Alma Redemptoris mater, Illibata Dei virgo nutrix, Misericordias Domini, Pater noster, qui es in caelis, and Vultum tuum deprecabuntur. Patrick Macey, “Josquin, Good King René, and O bone et dulcissime Jesu,” in Hearing the Motet: Essays on the Motet of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, ed. Dolores Pesce (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 213-242. The only difference is that in Josquin’s motets this figure occurs frequently in the middle of a musical phrase, while in the chansons it is invariably a cadential gesture. 48 A homorhythmic texture also characterizes the last line of the poetry, especially at the words “de tous aultres le pire” (Ex. 3.5, mm. 55-59), but this is expected as homorhythm features in most last sections of Josquin’s multi-voice chansons.

141 deviation in the Bassus is a melodic interjection between the two B phrases. It recalls the

interiectio encountered by the same voice and in the same structural position in Plusieurs

regretz. Although it could be considered as merely a harmonic filler, its positioning, along with

the deviation in the Contratenor, affirm its rhetorical significance. The disruption of the formal

and textural expectations occurs at the point where the reason for the poetic persona’s misfortunes is finally revealed. Indeed, in both voices, the deviating passage occurs over the words “Celle qui peult.”

Incessament livré suis bears an intriguing modal profile. The tension among E, A, and D dominates the melodic and harmonic landscape of this chanson. As mentioned above, the cadential notes for the canonic melodies are the same for the first four musical phrases. For the

Quinta, the tonal canonic melody, this note is E. However, for the last line and the repetition of its second half, the final notes in the Quinta are A and D, respectively. This tension is also obvious from the outset. The Quinta opens with a motif that outlines a falling fifth from A to D imitated by the Contratenor, while the Superius, Tenor, and Bassus imitate the same gesture a fourth lower, singing a descending fifth from E to A. In the Superius and Bassus, furthermore, this fifth is immediately followed by the diapente A-D, thus presenting in succession both fifths,

E-A and A-D (Ex. 3.5, mm. 1-13). This highly imitative texture, in addition to reflecting in musical terms the word “Incessament,” defines the modal landscape of the entire composition.

The emphasis on triads based on A and E for the first four musical phrases (Ex. 3.5, mm. 14, 27,

35, and 49), as well as numerous melodic cadential gestures on A reinforce a Phrygian modal profile. As we have seen in Douleur me bat, the combination of the third mode with cadences on

A and the melodic diapente A-E was considered particularly effective in conveying a mournful tone. In Incessament, the combination of all of the above features is most striking in measures

142 45-51, where the diapente E-A-E (mm. 45-46) in the Bassus is followed by the inflected

semitone E-F-E (mm. 49-51) and the cadence on A in the Superius (mm. 49-52). In fact, this passage directly recalls the opening of Douleur me bat, where all of these features appear as

well.

While the tension between the Phrygian and the Dorian modes is evident throughout the

chanson, the change of modal focus to D-Dorian, the final sonority of the chanson, is only

clearly effected at m. 53 with the introduction of B-flat in the Bassus. The insertion of a flat at

this point seems inevitable to avoid the harmonic tritone between Quinta and Bassus. Josquin

further reinforces the upcoming modal change by switching from a contrapuntal to a

homorhythmic texture (Ex. 3.5, mm. 55-59) and seals the chanson with a clausula vera on D.

The rhetorical analysis of Douleur me bat, Plusieurs regretz, and Incessament livré suis

reveals that the three chansons share common compositional strategies, an indication that they

were possibly composed in close chronological proximity. In addition to incorporating canons at

the fifth between the Tenor and Quinta parts, they are all end-oriented structures and they all

include a deviation at the transition from the middle to the last section. They have somber themes

expressed through the co-mingling of the Dorian and the Phrygian modes. The canons in

Plusieurs regretz and Incessament feature a descending cascading figure, and in Douleur me bat

and Incessament they end on the same cadential degree to reflect the syntactic independence of

the lines and the homogenous rhyming features. Finally, Douleur me bat and Plusieurs regretz

are directly connected through an identical musical passage, a feature which will be explored in

Chapter V.

143 Example 3.5. Josquin, Incessament livré suis

144 145 146 147

148 Regretz sans fin

This rondeau cinquain is one of the few formes fixes set by Josquin. The most salient feature is the way the poetic voice differentiates itself between the refrain and the stanza: the indirect representation of the poetic voice (“me”) in the refrain changes to direct speech (“ie”) at the opening of the stanza.

music 1. Regretz sans fin il me fault endurer Endless regrets I must endure A 2. Et en grant dueil mes doulans iours user. And live out my sad days in great mourning. A’ 3. Par ung rapport meschant dont fuz servie Because of a wicked report which I was served B 4. Mieulx me vouldroit de brief finner ma vie It would be better for me to end my life quickly C 5. Qu’ainsi sans cesse telle douleur muer. Than to suffer incessantly from such pain. D

6. Tout plaisir doncqs ie veulx habandonner, I wish therefore to abandon all pleasure, E 7. Plus nulx soulas ie ne requirs donner Neither do I seek to give solace E’ 8. Puis qu’il me fault souffrir par seulle envie. Since I must suffer from envy alone. F Regretz san fin... Endless regrets…49

Josquin does not treat the rondeau in the traditional way but instead creates a ternary

ABA macro-form. Section A comprises the refrain and section B the stanza. As Josquin repeats the refrain at the end, Regretz sans fin becomes one of the longest multi-voice chansons, spanning 130 measures. In contrast to the closed form of the macro-structure, the individual sections are through-composed. After a varied repetition of its first phrase, the canonic melody unfolds with the through-composed scheme AA’BCD, for part A, and EE’F, for part B (see also the structure next to the translation above and in Table 3.2). Within this varied scheme, however,

Josquin strategically positions several melodic links to ensure the meaningful transition between sections, or to connect syntactically- and semantically-related verses.

The six-voice setting incorporates a canon at the fourth between the Sexta pars and the

Tenor, but the canonic voices infrequently overlap, thus allowing for a thinner texture of four to five melodic voices. Canons at the fourth are rare among Josquin’s multi-voice output but they

49 The translation is partly based on Congleton, “The Chansons of Josquin des Prez,” 223.

149 abound in his four-voice chansons.50 As in the chansons already examined, the canon in Regretz

sans fin carries no text repetition, and the cadential degrees of the canonic melody follow the

rhyme scheme of the poetry. Thus for the refrain the tonal canonic melody ends its five musical

phrases on AAGGA, observing the aabba rhyme of the poetry, while the three lines of the stanza

end on the notes AAD, corresponding to the aab rhyme.

Josquin reflects the various prosodic features with different musical means. In the refrain,

ll. 3 and 4 exhibit a kind of “internal” enjambment, a carrying-over of the meaning of the verses

towards the end of their respective poetic lines, a feature which renders the typical pause at the

fourth syllable impossible. Josquin responds to this poetic feature by fashioning the first two phrases (A and A’) of the canonic lines with a pause of six breves at the point of the poetic

caesura, while the phrases for ll. 3 and 4 (B and C) unfold without interruption. To strengthen the

effect of the enjambment, all voices state l. 3 without pausing, while they follow the weaker

enjambment of l. 4 with varying degrees of faithfulness to this prosodic feature (Superius and

Tenor unfold uninterruptedly, while Contratenor and Bassus pause at the fourth syllable).

Moreover, ll. 3 and 4 are each clearly demarcated from the rest of the poetry by a full cadence on

G. The fact that the last line of the refrain (phrase D) returns to the structure of the first two lines,

incorporating a pause at the fourth syllable, reinforces this interpretation.

The three-line stanza that comprises section B contrasts sharply with the refrain. In the

poetry, there is a clear change of focus from an indirect representation of the poetic subject in the

refrain to a direct speech emphasizing the poetic “I.” The change to a clear declamatory style

with one syllable per note fits the self-reflective character of section B and contrasts the looser

50 Josquin’s multi-voice chansons with canons at the fourth are Je me complains, Regretz sans fin, and Vous l’arez. The four-voice chansons that incorporate canons at the fourth are Adieu mes amours, Baisés moy (double canon at the fourth), En l’ombre d’ung buissonnet (double canon at the fourth), Se congié prens (double canon at the fourth), Una musque de Buscgaya, and Vive le Roy.

150 and, at times, slightly melismatic melodies of section A. Complete absence of text repetition and

of the pause at the fourth syllable for both canonic and non-canonic voices, along with the

declamatory style, create an instance of verisimilitude so much sought for by the composers of

the early Baroque Italian vocal genres.51 In addition, the tessitura becomes lower and the texture is divided into three pairs of voices: Superius/Sexta, Contratenor/Tenor, and Quinta/Bassus.52

This dramatic change in the musical texture emphasizes the direct authorial utterance that characterizes the opening lines of the stanza. Josquin dramatizes the change to a more direct, internal expression of thoughts and emotions through the homophonic presentation of ll. 6 and 7 by the two highest pairs of voices (Ex. 3.6, mm. 56-69). In addition, he reflects the similar syntactic structure of these two verses in the melodic proximity of the individual melodic lines.

Besides the replication of the musical texture, all melodic lines of phrase E are repeated with subtle variations in phrase E’. The similarity is more apparent when one compares the second hemistichs of the individual melodic phrases.

Closer examination of the individual melodies for l. 6, “Tout plaisir doncqs ie veulx habandonner,” and l. 7, “Plus nulx soulas ie ne requirs donner,” reveals that the note over the word “ie” [je] in each individual voice-part is the same for both lines. For example, the Superius for both ll. 6 and 7 sings an E over “ie,” the Sexta a C, the Contratenor a B, and so forth.

Furthermore, the melodic lines of the two upper pairs open and end with the same note.

Reflecting the position of the word “ie” in the middle of the poetic line (it is the fifth syllable of the decasyllabic verse), Josquin creates mirror melodic structures in which the word “I” serves as an axis of symmetry, with the second half of every melody being a retrograde of the first half

51 The absence of text repetition, the syllabic declamation, and the short melodic range of the passage bring forth a recitative-like quality of singing. 52 One could argue that we are dealing with two pairs of three voices each since Contratenor, Tenor, and Bassus introduce sections E, E’, and F and Superius, Sexta, and Quinta follow. However, the individual features of the two lowest voices lead me to regard them as a separate pair.

151 (albeit a slightly inexact one). This is especially evident in the Superius, Sexta, Contratenor, and

Tenor of phrase E’. The treatment of l. 8 (phrase F) reinforces this interpretation: once the poetic

“I” resumes to an indirect representation (l. 8 reads “Puis qu’il me fault souffrir”) many of the

above features vanish. The homophony dissolves gradually, the symmetry disappears, and the

declamatory style gives way to a more melismatic writing, amply punctuated by the long old-

fashioned melisma of the Contratenor before the return to the refrain (Ex. 3.6, Contratenor, mm.

72-76).

Despite these contrasting features between phrases E’ and F (that is, ll. 7 and 8), Josquin

relates the two through an instance of anaphora in the canonic melodies. The beginning of

phrase F is the same melodically as the beginning of phrase E’ (this holds true for both Sexta and

Tenor), although the rhythms are not as exact (compare mm. 65-67 and 72-73 of the Sexta in Ex.

3.6). The connecting gesture between the two canonic phrases ensures in musical terms the

continuity of thought that runs through the two poetic lines: “Plus nulx soulas ie ne requires

donner, puis qu’il me fault souffrir par seulle envie.”

The treatment of the canonic voices in Regretz sans fin further testifies that they are the

ones mainly responsible for carrying the syntactic and semantic features of the poetry. The

construction of the canonic melody to ensure the continuity of speech and to subtly reflect prominent prosodic features, such as the direct self-representation of the stanza, demonstrate the varied ways in which a composer could read his text and project its individual features. Regretz sans fin offers yet another example of the multiplicity of ways that this could be accomplished.

152 Example 3.6. Josquin, Regretz sans fin, section B

153 154

The analyses of the remaining chansons from Group 1 further illustrate and complement the picture of Josquin’s musical rhetoric in his secular multi-voice compositions. As the songs N'esse pas ung grant desplaisir, Vous l’arez and Vous ne l’aurez pas will be discussed in Chapter V on intertextuality, the following discussion will concentrate on Plaine de dueil, Parfons regretz, Du mien amant, and Pour souhaitter.

Plaine de dueil and Parfons regretz belong to the group of chansons with end-oriented structures along with Douleur me bat, Plusieurs regretz, and Incessament livré suis (see also

Table 3.2). Despite the fact that Plaine de dueil and Parfons regretz share multiple common features with the above three end-oriented chansons, I consider them separately since they incorporate canons that involve the outer voices, and because they also share strategies other than the ones encountered in Douleur, Plusieurs, and Incessament.

155 Plaine de dueil

Plaine de dueil survives in BrusBR 228, one of the poetic albums of Marguerite of

Austria, with two additional five-line stanzas, indicating that a strophic setting is possible.53

Although the fourth line of the second stanza is missing in the manuscript, it is obvious that the three stanzas have very similar semantic content and that their last lines are almost identical, which facilitates a strophic setting without discrepancies between music and text.

1. Plaine de dueil et de mélancolye, Full of grief and melancholy 2. Voyant mon mal qui tousiours multiplye Seeing my pain, which ever multiplies 3. Et qu’en la fin plus ne le puis porter, And which, in the end, I can no longer bear, 4. Contraincte suis pour moy reconforter I am compelled, in order to comfort myself, 5. Me rendre’à toy le surplus de ma vie. To render myself unto thee for the rest of my life.

6. Je te requires et humblement supplie I ask of you and humbly implore 7. Pour les douleurs de quoy je suis ramplie For the sorrows that I have suffered 8. Ne me vouloir jamais habandonner Do not ever wish to abandon me 9. [lacking] 10. Puisqu’à vous suis la reste de ma vie As I render myself unto thee for the rest of my life.

11. Il ne me chault quy quy en pleure ou rie I do not care who cries or laughs about it, 12. A vous je suis besoing n’est que le nie I need you and I cannot deny it. 13. Plus n’est possible a moy dissimuler It is not possible to hide it any more, 14. Parquoy je dis en parlant de cueur cler Thus I say it speaking with a clear heart 15. Qu’à vous me rens la reste de ma vie That I render myself unto thee for the rest of my life.

The musical setting incorporates a canon at the fifth between the Superius and Quinta, and, according to Josquin’s practice, there is no internal repetition in the canonic voices. Typical also is the hemistich division with pauses in almost all voices. In contrast, however, to the other end-oriented chansons, in Plaine de dueil the repetitions of phrases A and B are not exact but transpositions of the preceding phrases: phrase A’ transposes phrase A a fifth higher, while phrase B’ transposes phrase B a fifth lower.54 Also, unlike the other end-oriented chansons,

53 Françon, Albums poétiques, 239. 54 Other multi-voice chansons in which Josquin generates musical phrases by transposition are N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir and Du mien amant.

156 Josquin places the canon in the two highest voices, and creates contrast between a thick five- voice texture for the first hemistich of each line and a thin three-voice texture for the repetition of the second hemistich by the three lowest voices. Both gestures are unusual within the chansons of Group 1 and possibly serve as registral markers to denote the female voice.55

Bernstein has noted Josquin’s sensitivity to both the surface details of the poetry and to its semantic content.56 Although the end-oriented structure of the chanson runs contrary to the

return to the a-rhyme for the final verse, Josquin mitigates this discrepancy by bringing material

presented earlier in the chanson at the song’s closure. In addition, he demarcates the first three

lines, a syntactic unit that expresses grief and melancholy, from the final two expressing comfort,

by a clear cadence on A at the end of l. 3. This cadence becomes even more prominent by the

outdated under-third gesture and the fauxbourdon passage that precedes it (Ex. 3.7, mm. 29-

31).57 The archaic treatment of the cadence at the end of l. 3 is possibly reminiscent of the

medial cadences occurring at the same point (the third line) in five-line stanzas of the older

formes fixes. However, while Josquin delineates the two units antithetical in sentiment with the

cadence, the transposition of phrase B a fifth higher for the fourth line (phrase B’) ensures the

continuity of thought within the text.

The second part of the strophe, after the medial cadence, is strongly punctuated by the

presence of the syllable “-con-” both in the opening (“contraincte”) and closing of the fourth line

(“reconforter”). The music audibly reinforces this syllable through the successive entrances of

55 There is some speculation that Plaine de dueil was composed by Marguerite of Austria herself, although there is no substantial evidence for such a claim. Osthoff, Josquin des Prez, 1:69 and 2:210. See also the discussion about Marguerite’s chansonniers in Chapter II. 56 Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 400-405. 57 I believe that the word “surplus” of the last line of the first stanza resonates with older meanings of the word found in troubadour repertory, denoting the ultimate favor to be granted by the lady. Notably, only the first stanza uses this word, the other two displaying a different word choice. Compare “Me rendre’à toy le surplus de ma vie” (last line of first stanza) to “Puisqu’à vous suis la reste de ma vie” (last line of second stanza) to “Qu’à vous me rens la reste de ma vie” (last line of third stanza).

157 the word “contraincte” (Ex. 3.7, mm. 31-34), and by subsequently placing it on the downbeat

within a homorhythmic passage that further underscores the individual syllables (mm. 35-41).

The emphasis on such a syllable in the text and its musical treatment by Josquin, similar to the

one that occurred over the same word (“reconforter”) in Cueur langoreulx, invite an obscene interpretation of the passage. The dignified character of Plaine de dueil, however, is antithetical to such an interpretation. We might as well negate the assumption that Josquin had a double entendre in mind when setting this line. However, I am inclined to accept the latter assumption even for a solemn chanson like Plaine de dueil. The association would not have escaped the audience’s attention, especially with the punctuating effect that the syllable “-con-” acquires in the musical setting.58

58 The agglomeration of obscene syllables frequently occurs in the poetry of the period. For example, Jean Molinet fashioned the seventy-six line Complainte d’ung gentilhomme à sa dame (Faictz, 2:731) so that every rhyme uses the syllable “-con(-m)-” either in a compound word or as part of a rime équivoque. For a detailed presentation of Molinet’s play with rhyme and obscene meaning see Johnson, Poets as Players, 231-287.

158 Example 3.7. Josquin, Plaine de dueil

159 160 161 162 163 164 Parfons regretz

Parfons regretz incorporates a canon at the octave between Quinta and Bassus. Both the

imitation interval and the deployment of the canonic melody by an outer voice are unusual

among the multi-voice chansons. The engagement of the lowest voice in the canon possibly

serves the rhetoric of the opening line (“Profound regrets”). The vocabulary and imagery of the

poem reveal its courtly provenance by evoking the old topos of hiding to avoid the mensongiers, the personification of heart that drowns in a sea of tears, and the almost Petrarchan oxymoron of

“lamentable joye.”

1. Parfons regretz et lamentable ioye Profound regrets and lamentable joy 2. Venez à moy, quelque part que ie soye. Come to me wherever I might be. 3. Et vous hastez sans point dissimuler, And hasten without delay [from hiding], 4. Pour promptement mon cueur executer To promptly execute my heart 5. Affin qu’en dueil et larmes il se noye. So that it finally drowns in [a sea of] tears and pain.

Parfons regretz displays many of the features already encountered in the Group 1

chansons (the canonic chansons based on his own melodies). The straightforward character of

the canonic melodies, the initial motif that is not replicated at the repetition of the A phrase (for

Superius, Contratenor, and Tenor, that is, the freely composed voices), and the

descending/ascending motif that ties the first hemistich of the opening phrase to the second (Ex.

3.8, Superius, Quinta, and Bassus, mm. 5-16) are typical of Josquin’s treatment. Furthermore, the

cascading motif that characterizes Cueur langoreulx, Du mien amant, Incessament livrés suis,

N'esse pas ung grant desplaisir, and Plusieurs regretz also forms the ending of the canonic

voices in phrase B of Parfons regretz (Ex. 3.8, Quinta, mm. 34-36 and Bassus, mm. 31-33).

As in the other multi-voice chansons explored so far, there is a close relationship between

the structure and meaning of the poetry and the musical treatment. For example, while the music

observes the hemistich division with a rest between the two halves of the first two lines, it does

not follow the same pattern for the last three lines of the poetry, at least in the canonic voices.

165 The syntax and the meaning of these lines justify such treatment. Not only the situation described appears urgent (“And hasten without delay”), but also ll. 4 and 5 do not easily avail themselves to a poetic caesura (notice, for example, the internal enjambment of l. 5) and the music does away with it as well. Although l. 3 could incorporate a rest at the hemistich, the inciting character of the prosody possibly guided Josquin to eschew with the caesura at this point; indeed, it would have been awkward to incorporate a rest after the words “et vous hastez” (“and hasten”). Such treatment clearly recalls the uninterrupted canonic melodies in the final two lines of Cueur langoreulx.

While Parfons regretz is one of the end-oriented chansons, the treatment of its last line differs from the others. Instead of exactly repeating phrase C, Josquin generates the repetition by transposing phrase C a fifth lower (see phrases C and C’ in Ex. 3.8 and also in Ex. 3.11). This type of phrase repetition by transposition also occurs in Plaine de dueil (where phrase A’ is a transposition a fifth higher of phrase A and phrase B’ starts off like phrase B only a fifth lower) and finds its most extreme expression in N'esse pas ung grant desplaisir (discussed in Chapter

V). The transposition of the last phrase in Parfons regretz graphically reflects the meaning of the desperate final line. The melody sinks a fifth lower, just like the heart drowns in a sea of pain and tears. Josquin does not miss the opportunity to further portray in musical terms the metaphorical depiction of the heart. The ascending/descending melisma over the word “noye” in the Superius (Ex. 3.8, mm. 59-60) recalls the musico-rhetorical figure of circulatio. Athanasius

Kircher was the first music theorist to describe circulatio as a motion that includes upper and lower neighbor tones of a different central note in order to express a circular action or notion.59

Warren Kirkendale has demonstrated that composers used the circulatio figure to represent ideas

59 Kircher, Musurgia, B 145.

166 such as the royal crown, eternity, waves, etc. Here, it particularly fits the metaphorical

representation of a heart floating amidst tears.60

What is most unusual in Josquin’s last section, however, is the extension of the canonic

melody by the Bassus in the coda, which is not imitated by the Quinta pars (Ex. 3.8, mm. 60-67).

The continuation of the canonic melody by only one member of the canonic pair at the closing of

a composition was typical in late fifteenth-century chansons, but unique within Josquin’s multi- voice song settings. Most of the canonic chansons in Odhecaton A, such as Adieu mes amours,

one of Josquin’s earliest settings of monophonic songs, Mon mignault, Cela sans plus non sufi

pas, and Ung franc archier, feature such extensions.61 The presence of the same feature in

Parfons regretz possibly points to an early date of composition for this five-voice chanson, and demonstrates how rhetorical analysis across a genre can inform the relative chronology of compositions.

60 Warren Kirkendale, “Circulatio-Tradition, Maria Lactans, and Josquin as Musical Orator,” Acta Musicologica 56 (1984): 69-92. 61 Adieu mes amours survives in Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 2794 (FlorR 2794), a manuscript copied during the 1480s at the French royal court.

167 Example 3.8. Josquin, Parfons regretz

168 169 170 171 172 173 Du mien amant

Du mien amant is one of the two chansons of Group 1 that are not settings of rondeaux, or rondeaux refrains (the other being the strophic Plaine de dueil). The poetry of Du mien amant has the overall structure of a bergerette. It consists of a five-line refrain with rhyme scheme aabba, two four-line couplets (each rhyming cddc), and the strophe or tierce (aabba). The musical form is AbbaA, where A represents the music for the refrain, b the music for the couplet, and a the music for the tierce.

1. Du mien amant le depart m’est si grief The departure of my lover is so painful 2. Que de la mort certaine suis en brief. That death is most certainly near. 3. Mon cueur en est le vray pronosticqueur My heart is the true prognosticator 4. Car la prison d’amoureuse licqueur For the prison of amorous liquor 5. Sans nul respite me cause ce mischief. Causes me without respite this misfortune.

6. Or au facteur de toute creature To the maker of every creature 7. Je rendz mon ame’et la mectz en ses mains; I render my soul and place it in his hands; 8. Touchant ce corps mortel, c’est bien du moins Touching this mortal body, it is at least good 9. Qu’il aille’enterre’attendre pourriture. That it will go in earth to be purified.

10. Mais quant au cueur i’eslis sa sepulture But when I choose for my heart to be buried 11. Avecq celluy que entre tous humains With him whom among all humans 12. J’ay mieulx aymé, selon le dict de maintz, I have most loved, according to many, 13. Dont en douleur je fais fin à nature. Then in pain I finish my days.

14. En moy n’y a ny resort ny relief. Within me there is neither succor nor relief. 15. Adieu amy, adieu seigneur et chief, Farewell friend, farewell lord and ruler, 16. Fort triumphant et illustre vaincqueur. Strong triumphant and illustrious conqueror. 17. Par testament ie te laisse mon cueur I declare that I leave you my heart 18. Et vois morir et adieu derechief. And I am going to die and farewell again.

Du mien amant, etc.62

The imagery and lexicon of this chanson betray the flamboyant writing of a Grand

Rhétoriqueur. The description of love as the prison of amorous liquor (l. 4), and the dense alliterations emphasizing the letter -m- (l. 7), and -t- and -r- (l. 9) all point to such an origin. In addition, the words “creature” and “sepulture,” frequently encountered in the poetry of Jean

Molinet, could point to the author of the poem.

62 The translation is partly based on Congleton, “The Chansons of Josquin des Prez,”145.

174 In Du mien amant, the music does not parallel the rhyming but follows an independent plan. The non-repetitive canonic melody (there is a canon at the fifth between Quinta and Tenor) consists mainly of two musical phrases for the refrain (A and B), following the scheme AABB’B

(where B’ transposes the first and the second hemistichs of B a tone and a fourth lower, respectively; see also Ex. 3.11). The couplet unfolds as a through-composed structure of four independent phrases (CDEF). Typical of Josquin’s treatment are the pauses at the poetic caesura in the decasyllabic verses of the refrain, culminating with the by now recognizable descending cascading figure (Ex. 3.9, mm. 5-7, 8-10, 11-13). Also typical is the way the Superius establishes melodic relationships among the different musical phrases. Josquin constructs the Superius of phrase A so that its opening spans the same intervals as its ending, moving in opposite directions.

Thus, with the repetition of phrase A, the composer melodically relates two similarly rhyming verses (Ex. 3.9, Superius, G-D, mm. 9-11, D-G, mm. 11-12). A little later, Josquin changes the ending of the second A phrase to create yet another link with the upcoming B phrase (compare mm. 20-22 to mm. 25-27 of the Superius). However, the B phrase and its two varied repetitions contrast sharply with the character of the A phrases. The contrast is made evident in the change of texture which becomes homorhythmic, dividing the polyphonic web into groups of two to three voices that alternate antiphonally their musical phrases (a treatment that recalls Regretz sans fin). The use of similar melodic and rhythmic material (BB’B), as well as the consistency in the treatment of texture, reflects the syntactic unity of the last three lines of the refrain, effected by the enjambment that runs across them.

In contrast to the text of the refrain, the couplet displays an air of humility. As the poetry changes to address the maker of every creature, the music assumes a slower moving pace assigning longer notes to all voice parts. The individual voices stretch in long melodies lines

175 without any pauses, revealing a plainchant-like quality. Josquin emphasizes the rich alliterations of ll. 7 and 9 by distributing the respective syllables among the voices so that they sound either simultaneously or in close succession (see the boldfaced syllables in mm. 69-72 and 88-91 of Ex.

3.9).

Du mien amant displays many of the features encountered in Josquin’s other multi-voice chanson settings in different guises. On the one hand, typical are the non-repetitive canonic melody, the descending cascading gestures, and the melodic links of the Superius. On the other hand, transposing a musical phrase (phrase B) and manipulating the polyphonic texture to create a unit that reflects the syntactic structure of ll. 3 to 5 is an innovative yet not unprecedented way to respond to the poetry. Transpositions of musical phrases to the same end also occur in Plaine de dueil, Parfons regretz, and N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir. Antiphonal treatment of the texture also characterized the six-voice Regretz sans fin to project the differentiated authorial voice of the three-line stanza. The treatment of Du mien amant shows us the wealth of resources that a composer had in his disposal to express the subtle nuances of the poetry in musical terms.

176 Example 3.9. Josquin, Du mien amant

177

178 179 180 181 182 183

Pour souhaitter

The poetic theme of Pour souhaitter stands in sharp to contrast to the melancholic and amorous subjects of the other chansons of Group 1.63 The optimistic quatrain features the poetic

persona’s point of view about what is desirable in life:

music 1. Pour souhaitter ie ne demande mieulx To wish for I demand nothing more A 2. Qu’avoir santé et vivre longuement; Than having good health and to live a long life; B 3. Tousiours ioyeulx et des biens largement Always happy and with great wealth C 4. Et en la fin le royaulme des cieulx. And in the end the kingdom of heaven. BDB

In the six-voice Pour souhaitter, we encounter a different type of an end-oriented

structure. The canonic melody corresponds to the four lines of the poetry with the structure

ABCBDB, where BDB reflects the three-fold repetition of the last line that is thus expanded to

match the length of the preceding three lines. With this treatment, Josquin relies on previous

63 The subject of Pour souhaitter and its intertextual significance will be explored in Chapter V on intertextuality.

184 material for the final verse, yet places emphasis on it with extensive repetition and the interjection of a new phrase, phrase D. Although I have marked phrase C, the music for l. 3, as a distinct phrase, in actuality it is constructed from the material of phrases A and B. Its first half is a transposition a fifth higher of the first half of phrase A (figure A), while its second half a variation of the second half of phrase B (figure B).64 The similarity with phrase B is particularly evident in the last four notes, which correspond to the similarly sounding and rhyming words

“longuement” and “largement” of ll. 2 and 3, respectively. Therefore, with the exception of the brief interjection labeled as phrase D, Pour souhaitter mainly consists of two melodic phrases, A and B, a feature that reveals Josquin’s penchant for economy of material, also encountered in other multi-voice chansons of Group 1. In addition, the construction of the second half of phrase

C from the second half of phrase B also serves a rhetorical purpose: it connects the two middle rhyming words, “longuement” and “largement,” thus emphasizing their centrality in the meaning and structure of the poetry.

Other musical features underscore the importance of the two b-rhyming words. The canon at the fifth between the Tenor and Sexta unfolds in a straightforward manner, observing the hemistich division at the fourth syllable. However, an internal repetition occurs over the text “et vivre longuement,” possibly an audible extension to represent the poetic content. To reinforce the notion of longevity the Superius breaks off twice with a melisma over

“longuement” (Ex. 3.10, mm.15-17 and 18-20). At this point, and while all voices are still singing the second line, the Contratenor interrupts with the third line of text, “Tousiours ioyeulx et des biens largement.” Although interpenetration of poetic lines is not an unusual phenomenon in this repertory, the extent to which this feature is carried out here is peculiar and it serves a

64 I consider that phrase B ends with figure B and not by the extension of mm. 16-18 because this is how it concludes in its twofold reappearances for the last line of poetry. The extension of mm. 16-18 serves a different purpose which is explored below.

185 rhetorical function. The Contratenor is paced so that its ending on the word “largement” is placed against the word “longuement,” thus emphasizing the audible and conceptual similarity of the two words. Positioned right after the animated triplets of m. 17, the long note values that graphically represent the word “largement” reinforce the poetic effect even further.

The treatment of the Contratenor and the Superius at this point demonstrates how the surrounding polyphony assumes a multifaceted rhetorical function that runs parallel to the straightforward oration of the canonic voices. The Superius emphasizes the word “longuement” by its melisma while the Contratenor provides a juxtaposition with the similarly sounding word

“largement” of the third phrase. The freely composed polyphony, therefore, not only provides a musical embellishment of important words, but also generates a subtext by engaging ll. 2 and 3 in direct competition.

The appearance of similar sounding words in close proximity is an established gesture in classical oratory. Through the rhetorical figure known as polyptoton, the orator would manipulate different inflections of the same word to present two syntactically distinct perspectives. The conceptual and audible common ground that the words “longuement’ and

“largement” share, facilitates their juxtaposition, which almost takes the shape of a rhetorical question in musical terms: one cannot but be tempted to compare the relative merits of the two versions of wishful thinking, simultaneously presented by the music. What is indeed more desirable? Being healthy and living a long life, or always being happy and enjoying great wealth? If we take the Contratenor’s three-fold repetition of the entire third line seriously, it is obvious that the latter option was more appealing to the composer.

The circular motif in the Superius of the final verse also serves an expressive end.

Josquin underlines the words “le royaulme des cieulx” with an instance of circulatio, particularly

186 fitting to express perfect notions such as “kingdom” and “heaven” (or the skies) with a pictorial representation that features the circle (Ex. 3.10, Superius, mm. 33-34). With such treatment, the melodic figure of circulatio becomes very closely associated with the oratorical figures belonging to the category of hypotyposis, the function of which was to make the meaning of the text come alive before one’s eyes.65 Although Kirkendale was able to identify only two instances of circulatio combined with appropriate words in Josquin’s works, the present analysis has demonstrated that other instances exist within Josquin’s oeuvre. It is thus possible that the application of circulatio was far more widespread than previously suspected.66

Example 3.10. Josquin, Pour souhaitter

65 For the figure of hypotyposis and the tradition of writings that refer to making the oration come alive before one’s eyes, see Chapter I. 66 Kirkendale, “Circulatio-Tradition,” 83. For another instance of circulatio, see also the additional discussion of Pour souhaitter in Chapter V on intertextuality.

187

188

189

190

191 The chansons examined in this chapter comprise a distinct group with specific

characteristics. They are all canonic chansons for which, in the lack of any contrary evidence,

Josquin invented his own melody to generate a five- or six-voice texture. In addition, their texts

adopt the language and imagery of the courtly poetic tradition that indulged in the expression of

the old topos of unrequited love, or of melancholic sentiments caused by the misfortunes of life.

Even Pour souhaitter, in its highly wishful thinking and anything but modest expectations,

escapes the realm of public domain and becomes another artifact to express the aspirations of the court and its members. None of these chansons sets a text that betrays the more popular kind of entertainment that the court enjoyed in verses like Allégez moy or Petite camusette, even if in some cases we detect a tendency to flirt with the obscene. The settings of poetry in the popularisant tradition, all based on pre-existing melodies, is the focus of the following chapter.

192 Example 3.11. Canonic melodies of Josquin's own invention (Group 1 chansons), including the non-canonic Je ne me puis tenir d'aimer

193

194

195

196

197

198

199

200

201

202

203

204

205

206

CHAPTER IV

JOSQUIN’S MULTI-VOICE CHANSONS ON A CANTUS PRIUS FACTUS

The present chapter will explore Josquin’s multi-voice chansons based on a cantus prius factus. In contrast to the homogeneous character of the chansons on Josquin’s own melodies (all are canonic and all belong to the aristocratisant tradition; see Chapter III), the chansons on a cantus prius factus display a wide range of compositional structural techniques and poetic registers. Eight of the fourteen chansons in this group, henceforth referred to as Group 2, treat the borrowed melody canonically. Whereas the chansons of Group 1 are all amorous or melancholic, the ones based on a cantus prius factus bring forth a variety of emotions and themes. In addition to chansons in the aristocratisant tradition, Josquin also sets texts in the popular register and, in a few occasions, texts in which the two registers mix. Table 4.1 presents

Josquin’s chansons on a known cantus prius factus divided into two sections: the top section lists the canonic chansons and the bottom section the non-canonic ones. In addition, the table includes the two “free” multi-voice chansons, Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer and Mi larés vous, for which no cantus prius factus has been identified. However, the Tenor of Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer behaves as a cantus prius factus, while Mi larés vous is built around a different pre- compositional device, the solmization syllables mi la re. Table 4.1 provides the chanson incipit and number of parts, the provenance of the borrowed material, the poetic structure, the nature of the poetic subject and the poetic register, the musical structure, and the canonic interval and voices for the canonic chansons.

207 Table 4.1. Chansons on a known cantus prius factus (Group 2) showing the provenance of the borrowed material (cpf stands for cantus prius factus; mixed poetic register denotes a mixture of aristocratisant and popularisant elements)

Chanson incipit Borrowed Poetic structure Poetic subject/ Musical Canonic Canonic (number of melody register structure interval voices voices) Canonic chansons Allégez moy (6) Secular cpf (also Asymmetrical 5- Male/ ABA’ Octave S/CT survives as line stanza popularisant monophonic tune) Baisés moy (6) Secular cpf (also Asymmetrical 7- Male-Female Intro ABAB Triple S/CT, survives as line stanza dialogue/ + coda canon at T/B, monophonic popularisant fourth Sx/Q tune) Faulte d’argent Secular cpf Rondeau Public/ ABCA + coda Fifth T/Q (5) quatrain refrain popularisant Je me complains On the secular Two 3-line Female/ mixed ABC’ABC’’C Fourth S/Q (5) cpf “La tricotée stanzas and a est par matin final couplet levée” J’ay bien cause S from Rondeau Female/ Through- Unison S/CT de lamenter Pietrequin’s quatrain refrain aristocratisant composed (not Mais que ce fust strict canon) Nymphes, Latin plainchant Rondeau Male/Female/ Through- Fifth Q/Sx nappés/ in Q quatrain refrain aristocratisant composed Circumdederunt me (6) Petite camusette CT of 4-line stanza Male/ ABA unison T/CT (6) Ockeghem’s with 2-line popularisant S’elle refrain m’amera/Petite camusette Si congié prens Secular cpf (also 1st strophe of Male/ ABAB Fifth Q/Sx (6) survives as ballade aristocratisant CDAB + coda monophonic tune) Non-canonic chansons Cueurs Latin plainchant Rondeau Public/ Through- N/A N/A desolez/Plorans in Q cinquain aristocratisant composed ploravit (5) En non saichant S of anonymous 6-line stanza Male/ Through- N/A N/A (5) four-part setting with ababab aristocratisant composed on same text rhyme L’amye a T of Dufay’s Je Rondeau Male/ mixed Through- N/A N/A tous/Je ne vis ne vis oncques cinquain composed oncques (5) refrain/rondeau quatrain refrain Ma bouche rit S of Manifold aristocratisant Through- N/A N/A (6) Ockeghem’s Ma repetition of 1 composed bouche rit line of poetry

208 Chanson incipit Borrowed Poetic structure Poetic subject/ Musical Canonic Canonic (number of melody register structure interval voices voices) Nymphes des Latin plainchant 3-stanza lament Public/ Through- N/A N/A bois/Requiem in T by Molinet aristocratisant composed (5) Tenez moy (6) Secular cpf (also 5-line stanza, Female/ ABA’ macro- N/A N/A survives in two with 3-line popularisant structure three-voice refrain homonymous settings) Free chansons Je ne me puis None identified Two 4-line Male/ ABA’B’ N/A N/A tenir d’aimer (5) stanzas; aristocratisant CDC’E + heterometric coda Mi larés vous None identified; Rondeau Male/Female/ Through- N/A N/A (5) opening mi la re quatrain refrain aristocratisant composed motif

General observations on the chansons of Group 2

As Table 4.1 demonstrates, Josquin derives his melodies from monophonic secular tunes,

Latin plainchants, or an individual voice from polyphonic chansons by other composers. The

musical treatment depends both on the nature of the poetry and the provenance of the borrowed

melody. The four canonic chansons in the popularisant tradition (Allégez moy, Baisés moy,

Faulte d’argent, and Petite camusette) have possible ties to the monophonic repertory and are the only humorous chansons in Josquin’s multi-voice output.1 In all four, the polyphonic setting

maintains the form of the original tune. In addition, Josquin treats the two six-voice chansons

similarly: Allégez moy incorporates a canon at the unison and Petite camusette a canon at the

octave, and both chansons maintain the original closed tripartite form. The canonic Se congié

prens is also based on a monophonic tune but the serious nature of the poetry prompted Josquin

to treat it in the manner of the chansons of Group 1, as we shall see below. The idiosyncratic Je

me complains de mon amy on the popular tune La tricotée est par matin levée mixes the courtly

1 As explained in Chapter II, it is not always clear whether a melody incorporated in a polyphonic setting started life as a monophonic tune or was extracted from another polyphonic work to serve as a cantus prius factus. For the four canonic popularisant chansons see the individual discussions below.

209 and the popular registers, but the unusual treatment of the borrowed melody better avails itself for exploration in the following chapter on intertextuality.

Three compositions are motet-chansons, combining a French text, usually in a fixed form, with Latin plainchant placed in an inner voice.2 All three are laments mourning the death

of an important person. In Nymphes, nappés/Circumdederunt me (à 6), Josquin treats the plainchant canonically, while Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit (if by Josquin) and Nymphes des bois/Requiem, both five-voice works, are free of canon.3

In five instances Josquin extracted a melodic line from a polyphonic setting by another

composer: En non saichant, J’ay bien cause de lamenter, L’amye a tous/Je ne vis onques, Ma

bouche rit, and Tenez moy en voz bras (see Table 4.1 for the provenance of the borrowed

material). In four of these, Josquin eschews canon altogether. J’ay bien cause de lamenter uses

the Superius of Pietrequin’s Mais que ce fust secretement in canon at the unison. However, the

free treatment of the canon (not strict, reverses the canonic order, etc.) and the weak source of

attribution speak against Josquin’s authorship.4

It is apparent that when Josquin composed chansons on a melody of his own invention

(Group 1) he invariably favored the use of canon, whereas when relying on borrowed material

(Group 2) he proceeded with a variety of compositional strategies. Furthermore, in the chansons of Group 1, Josquin exclusively applied the use of strict, straightforward canons, devoid of internal repetitions. In contrast, in the eight Group 2 canonic chansons, Josquin experiments

2 For an overview of the motet-chanson in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries see Honey Meconi, “Ockeghem and the Motet-Chanson in Fifteenth-Century France,” in Johannes Ockeghem: Actes du XLe colloque international d’études humanistes, Tours, 3-8 février 1997, ed. Philippe Vendrix (Paris: Klincksieck, 1998), 381- 402. 3 On the attribution of Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit to Josquin see Chapter VI, where I examine the chanson in connection to Cueurs desolez/Dies illa, possibly by Pierre de La Rue. 4 J’ay bien cause de lamenter is attributed to Josquin in Selectissimae necnon familiarissimae cantiones (Augsburg: M. Kriesstein, 1540) [RISM 15407], a rather unreliable source for Josquin’s chansons. See also the discussion of this print in the “Introduction.”

210 more freely, incorporating often extensive internal text repetitions in the canonic voices. Since

most of the canonic chansons of Group 2 are of a humorous or lighter character (exceptions are

Je me complains, Nymphes, nappés, and Se congié prens), it appears that the internal repetitions in the canons fulfill a rhetorical function put in the service of comical effect. This interpretation is reinforced by the fact that the most restricted use of internal repetition occurs in Je me complains de mon amy and Se congié prens, both of which partly belong to the discursive world of courtly love poetry. In Je me complains (discussed in Chapter V), the canon at the fourth proceeds in a straightforward and strict manner throughout the work. In Se congié prens, Josquin restricts text repetition in the canonic voices only for the end of ll. 2 and 4. The limited degree of repetition recalls Josquin’s practice in the chansons of Group 1 and affirms the supposition that it was to a great extent the nature of the poetry that defined the behavior of the canon in terms of internal repetitions.

The chansons of Group 2 feature a variety of musical forms, many of which are through- composed (see Table 4.1). The poetic structure is often the defining factor in shaping the musical form, whether or not a canon exists. Melodic links between adjacent musical phrases and rhetorical figures, such as the ones encountered in the chansons of Group 1, occur only rarely in the Group 2 chansons. The only pronounced instance of such treatment occurs in Se congié prens, which, as mentioned above, is related both poetically and musically to the canonic chansons on Josquin’s own melodies.

The rich palette of themes, poetic registers, and poetic structures of the borrowed material in the chansons of Group 2 inspired a wide range of compositional techniques. In the following analyses, I will explore Josquin’s responses to the textual and musical features of his models by sampling his rhetorical treatment in the different subgroups of Group 2. The discussion will

211 mainly focus on the canonic popularisant chansons, which form the largest sub-category, and subsequently on Josquin’s treatment of the borrowed material in both the courtly and the popular registers, with or without a canon. Thus, I examine Faulte d’argent, Allégez moy, and Petite camusette, three canonic, popularisant chansons on a monophonic melody; Se congié prens, a canonic, aristocratisant chanson on a monophonic melody; Tenez moy en voz bras, a non- canonic chanson on a cantus prius factus extracted from another polyphonic setting; and Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer, a “free” chanson whose musical treatment shares various common features with other chansons of Group 2. The rhetorical treatment of the motet-chansons is explored in Chapters V and VI, in relation to their intertextual content.

Faulte d’argent, Allégez moy, Petite camusette

Faulte d’argent, Allégez moy, and Petite camusette appear in some of the earliest sources containing multi-voice chansons by Josquin. The five-voice Faulte d’argent is attributed to

Josquin in AugsS 142a (compiled between 1505 and 1514), the earliest attribution of any multi- voice chanson to the composer.5 It is also ascribed to Josquin in FlorC 2442 (c. 1508 to1527), where it appears as the opening piece in an anthology possibly prepared for the Florentine banker

Filippo Strozzi.6 Petite camusette appears anonymously in VatP 1980-1 (c. 1518-23)7 but is attributed to Josquin in a contrafact in BolC R142 (c. 1530-1550),8 a manuscript particularly reliable in ascribing works to Josquin.9 Allégez moy has the weakest record of attribution. The earliest source is Kriesstein 15407, in which the name of Antoine Barbé appears over the music

5 Augsburg, Staats- und Stadtbibliothek, MS 20 142a (olim Cim. 43 ; = SchlettKK #18). 6 Florence, Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica Luigi Cherubini, MS Basevi 2442 (“Strozzi Chansonnier”). 7 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MSS Palatini Latini 1980-1981. 8 Bologna, Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale, MS R142. 9 Lawrence F. Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” in The Josquin Companion, ed. Richard Sherr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 405.

212 but the piece is assigned to Jean Le Brung in the contents.10 The 1572 Mellange de chansons

further confuses the picture: it attributes the song to Josquin over the music but to Willaert in the

contents.11

The following discussion will start with Faulte d’argent, most securely attributed to

Josquin, and will proceed to the songs with weaker attributions. This strategy will enable the

comparison of the compositional techniques in Faulte d’argent with those of the other chansons,

and the evaluation of their similarities and differences in order to define the stylistic traits of this

subcategory.

Josquin’s five-voice Faulte d’argent is a humorous complaint on financial worries:

1. Faulte d’argent, c’est douleur non pareille. Lack of money is sorrow unequalled. 2. Se ie le dis, las, ie sçay bien pourquoy: If a say this, alas, I well know why: 3. Sans de quibus il se fault tenir quoy; Without money, one must remain silent; 4. Femme qui dort pour argent se resveille. A woman who sleeps will awake for money.12

This quatrain refrain enjoyed a long literary tradition. The earliest appearance of the line “Faulte d’argent, c’est douleur non pareille” in literary sources seems to be the ballade “Faulte d’argent, la douleur nonpareille,” in MS. fr. 5727, fol. 1 (c. 1483).13 The ballade consists of six eight-line

stanzas which account for the miseries one has to face from the lack of money. Besides the

opening lines, the ballade has two more elements in common with the above quatrain. Line 34

reads “Si de quibus ne vient prouchenement,” and l. 45 “C’est le soucy qui par nuyt me reveille.”

The use of the Latin word quibus for “money” cannot have been a coincidence, nor could the

idea that financial worries can wake someone up in the middle of the night. In addition, a seven-

10 Selectissimae necnon familiarissimae cantiones. 11 Mellange de chansons tant des vieux autheurs que des modernes, a cinq, six, sept, et huict parties (Paris: Le Roy & Ballard, 1572) [RISM 15722]. 12 The translation is by Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 397. I have only altered the punctuation to better represent the syntax and meaning of the poem. 13 Marcel M. Schwob, ed., Le parnasse satyrique du quinzième siècle: anthologie des pièces libres (Paris: H. Welter, 1905; repr. Geneva: Slatkine, 1969), 302. Schwob’s edition is a selection of poems derived from ten different manuscripts, MS fr. 5727 being one of them.

213 stanza chanson in one of the earliest printed chanson anthologies, dating from c. 1515-1520, incorporates the quatrain as its third stanza. The text set by Josquin (as it survives in the earliest texted source, FlorC 2442) consists of ll. 1-3 from the first stanza of the printed chanson and a reworking of the last three verses of stanza three as its final line.14 Furthermore, the ballade and the seven-stanza poem in the chanson anthology share an additional common element: the half line “ce n’est pas merveille” appears as l. 14 in the former and in ll. 8 and 26 in the latter. It is possible that the ballade served as a model for both the seven-stanza chanson and the quatrain.

Of course the subject of lack of money was not new in literature. “Faulte d’argent” was a common personification in literary works and poets frequently included references to the pain one has to endure due to the lack of money.15

Pierre Gringore’s sottie titled Le jeu du Prince des Sotz, performed in Paris on February

24, 1512, also included the song Faulte d’argent, c’est douleur non pareille.16 It is important to note that the earliest musical sources containing a polyphonic setting of Faulte d’argent, c’est douleur nonpareille (c. 1505-1515), as well as the earliest printed edition of the chanson text

(1515-1520) and the performance of the sottie (1512) coincide admirably, a point hitherto

14 For the seven-stanza poem see Brian Jeffery, ed., Chanson Verse of the Early Renaissance, 2 vols. (London: Tecla, 1971-76), 1:55-57. The anthology was titled S’ensuivent plusieurs belles chansons nouvelles but has no indication of printer, date, or place. See Jeffery, Chanson Verse, 1:39-40. Later editions of the same poem reappeared in 1535, 1537, 1538, and 1543. See Howard M. Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater, 1440-1550 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 218 no. 131c and Jeffery, Chanson Verse, 2:282 for the subsequent editions. For a discussion of the early printed chanson anthologies see Chapter II. 15 See, for example, the fifteenth-century farce Faulte d’argent, Bon temps, et les troys gallans in Gustave Cohen, ed., Receuil de farces françaises inédites du XVe siècle (Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America, 1949), 379-384, in which “Faulte d’argent” is a personified character. For poetic references to the subject see John Fox, The Poetry of Fifteenth-Century France, 2 vols. (Valencia: Grant and Cutler, 1994), 1:38-39. For Michault Taillevent, for example, “Povreté est pire que Mort” (“poverty is worse than death”). Ibid, 39. 16 One of the two printed sources of the sottie situates its performance on Mardi gras of 1511: Le ieu du prince des sotz et mere sotte. Ioue aux halles de paris le mardy gras. Lan mil cinq cens et vnze [Paris, 1512]. With the modern calendar the performance took place in 1512.

214 unnoticed in the literature.17 This coincidence is testimony to the popularity that the theme and the tune must have held in Paris at the time.

The historical record provides further support for such a hypothesis. The period 1510-

1512 was the climax of the confrontation between Louis XII and Pope Julius II. Following the

Treaty of Cambray in 1508, the allied forces of the French King (Louis XII), the King of Naples

(Ferdinand of Aragon), the Roman Emperor (Maximilian), and the pontiff (Pope Julius II) formed a league to invade Venice, a threat to all involved. However, the pope reconciled with

Venice the following year and replaced the League of Cambray with a Holy League, this time against France. The subsequent confrontation between the French King and the pope attuned the

French middle classes to the economic consequences of an impending Italian war. Pierre

Gringore’s above-mentioned sottie aimed to support the King’s war against the pope and, at the same time, provide a satire of the monarch’s deafness to his subjects’ needs. In her study of the political dimension in the works of the Rhétoriqueurs, Cynthia Brown concludes that

in the Sottie du Jeu du Prince des Sotz, Gringore seeks not only to justify the point of view of the French king and his allies in their fight with the Roman pontiff but to provide a forum for the voice of the people whose concerns and interests are not always coincident with those of the French monarch. The opinion of the French Estate, which has rarely been expressed at length in other Rhétoriqueur compositions, is here given an equal airing with that of the king.18

17 The manuscript sources are AugsS 142a, dated 1505-14, and FlorC 2442, also known as the “Strozzi Chansonnier.” The dating of the latter is still in question. Howard M. Brown dates the manuscript between 1518 and 1528, probably c. 1527 in “The Music of the Strozzi Chansonnier,” Acta Musicologica 40, no. 2-3 (1968), 115-129. More recently, Joshua Rifkin suggested an earlier date, c. 1510-5, and denied the Florentine origin proposed by Brown. Joshua Rifkin, “Scribal Concordances for Some Renaissance Manuscripts in Florentine Libraries,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 26, no. 2 (1973): 305-326. In his recent edition of Josquin’s four-voice chansons, David Fallows accepts the earlier dating for the Florence manuscript. Josquin des Prez, The Collected Works of Josquin des Prez, vol. 28, Secular Works for Four Voices, ed. David Fallows (Utrecht: Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Musiekgeschiedenis, 2005), xiv. FlorC 2442 contains two Faulte d’argent settings: Josquin’s five-voice chanson that opens the manuscript and Nicolas de Beauvoys’s four-voice arrangement. For a musical discussion of the latter see Jacques Barbier, “Faulte d’argent: Modèles polyphoniques et parodies au XVIe siècle,” Revue de Musicologie 73, no. 2 (1987): 183. The appearance of the two Faulte d’argent settings in FlorC 2442 seems to further justify Rifkin’s dating of the manuscript and its connection with a French venue instead of a Florentine one. This interpretation is aligned with the possible Faulte d’argent vogue in Paris proposed here. 18 Cynthia J. Brown, The Shaping of History and Poetry in Late Medieval France: Propaganda and Artistic Expression in the Works of the Rhétoriqueurs (Birmingham, AL: Summa Publications, 1985), 113.

215

It is evident that within such a crisis in the political and economical affairs, the subject of lack of

money was a central one, thus justifying the presence of the poem and its related musical settings

in poetic and musical anthologies produced during this time period.

It is possible that the performance of the sottie triggered the inclusion of “Faulte

d’argent” in the poetic anthology mentioned above. Brian Jeffery dates this print c. 1515-1520.

Its last poem, no. 40, hints at the Battle of Ravenna, which took place on Easter Sunday (April

11) of 1512.19 In combination with the inclusion of “Faulte d’argent,” it appears that this printed anthology boasts an excellent record in reflecting the most recent events in the social and political life of Paris. This interpretation has important implications for the creation of the various polyphonic settings of Faulte d’argent and for the dating of their earliest sources. If indeed the music and the performance of the sottie were inspired from the same cultural and

political events—and the absence of other polyphonic settings prior to this time period reinforces

this supposition—then the years 1510-1512 would serve as a terminum post quem for both the

Augsburg and the Florence manuscripts. This hypothesis also suggests that, at least during this

time period, Josquin must have been well aware of the social, political, and musical events taking

place in Paris.

Lawrence Bernstein formulated a similar hypothesis in his 1996 essay “Josquin’s

Chansons as Generic Paradigms.” In this study, Bernstein connects the genesis of the five-voice

chanson with the French royal court and emphasizes Josquin’s contribution to the diverse

character of secular polyphony at the court of Louis XII. Indeed, two of the earliest surviving

five-voice chansons, Jean Richafort’s D’amour je suis desheritée and Johannes Prioris’s Entré je

suis en grant pensée (known also as Par vous je suis), stem from the orbit of the French royal

19 See Jeffery, Chanson Verse, 1:40, 96. The Battle of Ravenna was the last victory of the French forces, after which they were chased out of Italy by the Holy League.

216 chapel (see Chapter VII for a discussion of the two chansons). Richafort’s setting is the only

five-voice chanson in CambriP 1760,20 compiled between 1509 and 1514, and, according to

Bernstein, “the only five-voice chanson to survive in a source linked to the royal chapel from

that time.”21 Prioris’s Entré je suis is preserved in FlorC 2439, compiled between 1505 and1508,

and during a period when he was known to have served at the royal chapel.22 It is thus possible,

that another five-voice chanson, Faulte d’argent, could have originated from the same milieu. In

this context, it is intriguing to note that Févin’s three-voice Faulte d’argent, which Bernstein

believes is modeled on Josquin’s homonymous chanson, is also included in CambriP 1760, and

thus may have been written during the same time period as Josquin’s version. Taking into

consideration that Févin died in late 1511 or early 1512, and that he was in the service of the

royal court from 1507 until his death makes the connection even tighter. Could Févin have

composed his Faulte d’argent in response to the current vogue in Paris as was possibly the case

with Josquin? Or did he model his work on the most recent accomplishment of an established

master, engaging in a kind of friendly competition, albeit in a different medium, the popular

three-voice arrangement? In any case, Févin could not have composed his work later than 1512 and it is possible that he attended or heard about the performance of the sottie in February of

1512, shortly before his death (if we accept the death date of early 1512).

Amidst this accumulation of facts and hypotheses, one thing becomes clear: that the popular monophonic melody known as Faulte d’argent either originated or was revived at the

French royal court of Louis XII. Since no tune or polyphonic setting survives from earlier than this period, it can only be suggested that one of the two composers (Josquin or Févin) either

20 Cambridge, Magdalene College, Pepys Library, MS 1760. 21 Lawrence F. Bernstein, “Josquin’s Chansons as Generic Paradigms,” in Music in Renaissance Cities and Courts: Studies in Honor of Lewis Lockwood, ed. Jessie A. Owens and Anthony M. Cummings, Detroit Monographs in Musicology, vol. 18 (Warren, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 1997), 47. 22 Florence, Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica Luigi Cherubini, MS Basevi 2439 (“Basevi Codex”).

217 invented the melody on which the subsequent polyphonic settings, timbres, nöels, and chansons spirituelles were based, or revived an older ditty by arranging it polyphonically and, thereby, created a tradition that persisted well into the seventeenth century. The absence of musical sources from before c. 1500 recording a “Faulte d’argent” tune does not necessary preclude the possibility that it existed in oral tradition before then. However, the rich concentration of testimonies from the first two decades of the sixteenth century—especially when considering the scarcity of French sources from this time period—suggests that this topos became particularly popular around this time, prompting a vast array of musical and literary responses, which were related with varying degrees of faithfulness (and playfulness) to the “original” tune and its text.23

In his five-voice Faulte d’argent, Josquin places the cantus prius factus in canon at the

fifth between the Tenor and the Quinta parts.24 The musical structure, ABCA with coda, retains

the closed design of the pre-existing melody. However, Bernstein has argued that its closed form

clashes with the epigrammatic character of the text, bringing back previously heard music

(phrase A) for the last line, the high point of the quatrain. According to Bernstein, Josquin

responds to the end-oriented emphasis of the poem by initiating a “tonal ambiguity” in the A

section, which he does not clarify until the last phrase of the chanson.25 Josquin thus mirrors the

form of the poetry in an end-oriented musical scheme that emanates from the manipulation of the

tonal design. This emphasis on the last, epigrammatic line is further punctuated by a synthesis of

previously presented motives in the close proximity of the last musical phrase.26

23 For a comprehensive account of chansons related to Faulte d’argent see Jacques Barbier, “Faulte d’argent: Fortune d’un thème littéraire et musical à la Renaissance,” 3 vols. (Thèse et Doctorat, Université de Tours, 1985). 24 For how Susato’s edition mixes the voices see Bonnie Blackburn, “Josquin’s Chansons: Ignored and Lost Sources,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 29, no. 1 (1976): 50. 25 Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 398. 26 Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 396-400.

218 Example 4.1. Josquin, Faulte d'argent

219 220 221 222 223

224 Preference for end-oriented structures is a general characteristic in Josquin’s multi-voice

chansons and Bernstein likens the compositional strategy of Faulte d’argent with that of Plaine

de dueil (discussed in Chapter III). The use of a strict canon also complies with Josquin’s

treatment of canon in general. In contrast, however, to the chansons examined in Chapter III, in

Faulte d’argent Josquin incorporates extensive internal repetitions both in the canonic voices and the surrounding polyphony, a trait responsible for the relatively great length of this chanson.27

The repetitions are particularly prominent in the opening and closing sections of the composition.

While it is not unusual for a closing section to incorporate extensive repetitions, this treatment of

an opening line is unique in Josquin’s multi-voice chansons. It can be explained, however, when

one considers the lexicon and expressive tone of the text. While the vocabulary of the first line

clearly evokes the discourse of courtly love poetry (“c’est douleur non pareille”), the constant

reiteration of the same words gradually dilutes the serious tone, infusing the composition with a

humorous element. The scaffolding of entrances for the second hemistich, from lower to higher

registers and back to low (Ex. 4.1, mm. 12-24), further reinforces this effect. The first section

finally culminates with a series of passing dissonances produced by cadential suspensions (Ex.

4.1, mm. 22-24) to the same expressive end: the excessive succession of dissonances and

resolutions, a feature otherwise very uncommon with Josquin, to depict a “sorrow unequalled”

creates a comico-dramatic effect.

With the change to first-person speech in the second line, “Se ie le dis, las ie scay bien

pourquoy,” Josquin divides the texture into pairs of voices that alternate the first hemistich,

producing an antiphonal effect (Ex. 4.1, Tenor and Contratenor, mm. 24-27; Quinta and Bassus,

mm. 27-30). The division of the choir into pairs of voices is common in places where poetry

27 While Josquin’s setting spans 73 measures, Févin’s three-voice arrangement lasts only 25, almost one third of Josquin’s. This is due to the virtual absence of any text repetition in Févin’s chanson with the exception of the full reprise of the final line.

225 turns to first-person representation, as the discussion of Regretz sans fin in Chapter III has

shown. Such division has the potential of a semi-dramatized performance with possible roots in

the French theatrical tradition. According to Howard Mayer Brown, a Faulte d’argent song was

performed in plays of the French secular theater.28 In Faulte d’argent, the “I” does not represent

the view of a single author, but a common experience about the sufferings caused by the lack of

money.29

A similar division of the choir into two groups that alternate their line antiphonally occurs

in Allégez moy, another chanson based on a pre-existent monophonic melody. In this song,

Josquin places the cantus prius factus in the Superius and in canon at the octave with the

Contratenor. As in Faulte d’argent, the canon incorporates internal textual repetitions. The text is

of a humorous nature with obscene allusions, spotlighting the beauty of a pleasant brunette and,

therefore, by implication, not of a noble lady, who is almost always fair.

music 1. Allégez moy, doulce plaisant brunette, Relieve me sweet, pleasant brunette, A 2. Dessoubz la boudinette. Under the belly-button. B 3. Allégez moy de toutes mes douleurs. Relieve me of all my pains. C 4. Vostre beaulté me tient en amourette, Your beauty keeps me enamored, A’ 5. Dessoubz la boudinette. Under the belly-button. B

The opening of the chanson features successive entrances of the individual voices from low to high, similar to the ones encountered in Faulte d’argent, which culminate with the

entrance of the Superius carrying the borrowed melody. The chanson retains the closed ternary

structure of the original tune. More precisely, the structure can be described as ABCA’B, where

A and B represent the sub-phrases for ll. 1-2 and 4-5 (see also structure next to the translation

above).

28 Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater, 116-118, 125, 218-19. 29 In the performance of the Jeu du Prince des Sotz, the song Faulte d’argent, c’est douleur non pareille was sung by the chorus, representing a public view. See Émile Picot, Recueil general des sotties, 3 vols. (Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1904), 2:152.

226 Example 4.2. Josquin, Allégez moy

227 228 229 230 231

Bernstein expressed reservations about Josquin’s authorship of Allégez moy. He considered both the undifferentiated character of the harmony and the opening obsessive repetition of a single motif in the two lowest voices as uncharacteristic of Josquin’s style: “It

[Allégez moy] opens with a blatant, almost obsessive repetition of a single motif. The flagrantly conspicuous nature of its phraseological articulation actually obscures the canonic structure of the counterpoint. And its harmonic language is remarkably undifferentiated.”30 Although

Bernstein is sensitive to issues of poetic syntax and articulation, he largely bypasses the impact

that poetic themes and registers—such as the use of a popularisant theme and tune—could have

on the compositional decisions and style of a chanson. In the case of Allégez moy, he confronts

with skepticism the repetitive opening gesture, without taking into account the obscene nature of

the verses and the rhetorical comic effect that such a repetition could produce.31

30 Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 411. 31 Multi-voice chansons of the first quarter of the sixteenth century frequently employ ostinato motifs. As will be discussed in Chapter VII, part II, this device is common with the multi-voice settings of Le Brung to whom

232 The compositional planning of the opening lines of Allégez moy reflects Josquin’s

humorous reading of the text. The Bassus, Sexta, Tenor, Quinta, and Superius enter in imitation

of the opening motif of the borrowed melody at the distance of two breves (Ex. 4.2, mm. 1-5). In

addition, the Bassus and Sexta proceed in canon at the unison until the end of the first line, with

the reiteration of a melodic cadential motif (mm. 3-12). The imitative counterpoint of the

opening is, however, wholly abandoned for a homophonic texture with the entrance of the refrain

“Dessoubz la boudinette.” The opening scaffolding entrances, the presence of the canon, and the

ostinato-like repetitions in the two lowest voices serve to foreshadow the obscene rhetoric of the

chanson.

While the poem starts with the learned style of a courtly love song, the word “brunette” at

the end of the first line signals that something different is at stake. It is only at the second line,

which functions as a refrain, that the poem reveals its true identity. The music, similarly, imitates

the learned style of the text by the successive imitative entrances, mentioned above, until the

refrain reveals the obscene nature of the poem. The repetitive motif of the two lowest voices undermines the sophisticated opening, providing an ironic commentary and preparing the audience for the moment of revelation. It is not a coincidence that such gesture is entrusted to the two lowest voices. Although such a comparison is anachronistic, one is here reminded of the buffo bass, with his frequent pattering, in comic opera. A similar pattering effect in the lowest voices also characterizes the closing gesture of Je me complains de mon amy, an ironic chanson on a popular borrowed melody, which will be discussed extensively in Chapter V.32

Allégez moy is ascribed in Kriesstein 15407. Nevertheless, the overall contrapuntal treatment and the rhetorical function of the ostinato pattern in Allégez moy complies better with Josquin’s style than Le Brung’s. 32 The two chansons further share the same mode and a common motif (compare the Superius of Allégez moy, mm. 8-10 and that of Je me complains, mm. 19-22). This motif features an ascending minor sixth that unfolds through two interlocking ascending minor thirds and resolves at the fifth above the starting pitch. Such melodic gestures might have been common stock in popular melodies of the time.

233 Josquin takes advantage of the common alliterative qualities of the first two lines of

Allégez moy to ensure a canny transition from the courtly-gallant to the purely obscene. Both lines feature the same consonants in almost identical positions within the syllables of their component words, marked in bold typeface:

Allégez moy, Doulce plaisant brunette Dessoubz la boudinette

In fact, “dessoubz” is the phonetic palindrome of “doulce,” which allows for a subtle interplay of sound and sense. Josquin seizes the opportunity offered by the sonorous qualities of the two lines and introduces the second verse in the Superius while the other five parts still sing “doulce plaisant brunette.” The two lines mingle inconspicuously, undermining momentarily— but only for the attentive listener—the apparently serious tone of the poem, before its identity is explicitly unmasked by the antiphonal passages that deliver the refrain.

It is exactly at this point that the polyphony is divided into two choirs that alternate the refrain in a plain and crystal clear declamatory and homophonic fashion (Ex. 4.2, mm. 13-19).

With its repeated note (G), and the rhythmic prolongation of the accented syllables (dotted semibreve over “-soubz” and breve over “-net-”), the borrowed melody imposes a recitative-like utterance (Superius, mm. 11-13) imitated by almost all voice parts. As in Faulte d’argent, one could easily imagine a semi-dramatized performance where the singers would possibly further enhance the comic effect with some theatrical telling gesture.33

Antiphonal effects are not absent from the chansons of Group 1, as demonstrated in

Chapter III, but the rhythms and textural differentiation are not as succinct as in these popularisant chansons. Furthermore, whereas canons at the unison or at the octave occur only twice in the twelve chansons of Group 1, they account for two of the four humorous or light-

33 Allégez moy was also associated with the French secular theater. Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater, 185.

234 character chansons based on a borrowed melody. Although there are not enough chansons with these qualities to allow for generalizations, it seems that Josquin preferred canons primarily at the fifth and secondarily at the fourth when dealing with serious and melancholic subject matters, and canons at the unison or octave when dealing with lighter ones. Petite camusette, the third chanson in this latter group, also incorporates a canon at the unison and shares other common features with Allégez moy and Faulte d’argent.

The canon in the six-voice Petite camusette unfolds between the Tenor and the

Contratenor, an unusual combination of structural voices (see Table 4.1). The chanson is based on Ockeghem’s S’elle m’amera/Petite camusette, a four-voice combinative chanson, in which the Superius presents the rondeau cinquain “S’elle m’amera je ne sçay” and the Tenor a chanson rustique with the text “Petite camusette.” However, no such popular tune predating Ockeghem’s setting has survived, and thus we cannot exclude the possibility that Ockeghem composed what eventually became a popular melody that inspired many subsequent polyphonic settings.34

1. Petite camusette, Little snubnose, 2. À la mort m’avez mis. You have brought me to death’s door. 3. Robin et Marion Robin and Marion 4. S’en vont au bois ioly, Are going to the greenwood, 5. Ilz s’en vont bras à bras, They are going off arm in arm, 6. Ilz se sont endormis. They have fallen asleep. 7. Petite camusette, Little snubnose, 8. À la mort m’avez mis. You have brought me to death’s door.35

According to the most commonly held view, Josquin derives his material from

Ockeghem’s Tenor. Bernstein states: “the same melody that appears in the Tenor of Ockeghem’s combinative chanson . . . supplies motifs for Josquin’s chanson.” 36 Although this may be true to

34 The editor of Ockeghem’s chanson states that “the Tenor presents what is probably [emphasis mine] a chanson rustique, a popular melody of the day, the text of which begins ‘Petite camusette.’” Johannes Ockeghem, Collected Works, vol. 3, Motets and Chansons, ed. Richard Wexler and Dragan Plamenac (Boston: Schirmer, 1947- 92), xcviii. 35 Translation from Ockeghem, Motets and Chansons, xcvi-xcvii. 36 Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 407-408.

235 a certain extent, it seems that Ockeghem’s Contratenor is a more definitive source of material for

Josquin’s reworking. Better acquaintance with the model will thus enable us to better understand

Josquin’s six-part arrangement.

Close examination of Ockeghem’s chanson reveals that the most important part is the

Contratenor, for a number of reasons. First, this part sings the entirety of the text “Petite camusette” while the Tenor skips the phrase “s’en vont au bois joly.” Second, both the Superius, which carries the rondeau text, and the Bassus imitate the music of the Contratenor not only during the opening phrase (Ex. 4.3, Superius, mm. 1-4, Bassus, mm. 7-16) but at various other points. The editor of Ockeghem’s chansons has noted: “One interesting touch is the repetition of the melodic material of the Superius (mm. 7-9) that occurs at the conclusions of the contra” (mm.

44-45).37 Furthermore, the Bassus in mm. 30-34 imitates the Contratenor phrase of mm. 29-33.

Thus the polyphonic voices imitate or interact more with the Contratenor than the Tenor. Since

the Contratenor carries the most important thematic material of the “Petite camusette” melody, it

is more likely the direct source for the borrowed material in Josquin’s setting. The fact that

Josquin sets the canon at the unison at the same pitch with Ockeghem’s Contratenor supports this

hypothesis.38

37 Ockeghem, Motets and Chansons, xcviii. Despite their obvious rhythmic differentiation, the Superius melody that carries the rondeau text in Ockeghem’s chanson is not independent from the “Petite camusette” melody. In fact, it seems that Ockeghem either composed the rondeau melody to bear resemblances to the pre-existing popularisant tune or, in the case he composed both, he ensured that they share melodic material. It is possibly due to the musical affinity among all polyphonic voices, that Ockeghem’s chanson was transmitted only with the text “Petite camusette” in later sources. 38 Josquin’s Petite camusette is among the very few multi-voice chansons that end on A, which prompted Helmuth Osthoff to call it an aeolian work. There is an anachronism in Osthoff’s assignment of the chanson to the aeolian mode and its dating c. 1500, when very few pieces could have been composed in such a mode around this time. Helmuth Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2 vols. (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1962-1965), 2:219. Other chansons that end on A are Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer and N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir.

236 Example 4.3. Ockeghem, S'elle m'amera/Petite camusette

237

238 Example 4.4. Josquin, Petite camusette

239 240 241

In contrast to Faulte d’argent and Allégez moy, the canonic voices in Petite camusette bear limited repetitions (only the second line is repeated twice). This is possibly an indication that when Josquin borrowed from another art-song he restricted repetition to a minimum, as he did with the chansons based on his own melodies. Such treatment of the canon reinforces the hypothesis that the “Petite camusette” melody was newly composed by Ockeghem. In all other chansons based on polyphonic settings by other composers (En non saichant, J’ay bien cause de lamenter, L’amye a tous/Je ne vis onques, Ma bouche rit, and Tenez moy en voz bras), Josquin treats the cantus prius factus similarly: he maintains the melodic features of the borrowed part and restricts repetition to a minimum.

As in Allégez moy, Josquin adds a second, free canon at the unison, which similarly stops after the statement of the first line (Ex. 4.4, Superius and Quinta, mm. 1-9). In addition, he incorporates a third one at the same interval between the Sexta and Bassus. For this low pair the free canon continues throughout the work. As we have seen in other chansons, Josquin opens

242 Petite camusette with initial motifs (see Ex. 4.4, Sexta, mm. 4-5 and Bassus, mm. 1-5).

Particularly striking are the triplet rhythms in the middle part of the song (Ex. 4.4, Quinta, m. 14,

Sexta and Bassus, mm. 17-21). Although these rhythms occur from time to time in other Josquin multi-voice chansons, they are especially prominent in this work and Bernstein compares them

with similar gestures in the six-voice Se congié prens.39 With the triple division of the beat and

the almost hocket-like treatment of the word “Robin” (Ex. 4.4, mm. 15-16), Josquin gives an archaic patina to this middle section, possibly to invoke older settings related to the famous pair

of “Robin and Marion” and their amorous endeavors.40

The analyses of the above canonic, popularisant chansons reveal Josquin’s varied

approaches when borrowing material from the secular monophonic repertory. Thus, in both

Faulte d’argent and Allégez moy he incorporated extensive text repetitions in the canonic voices,

unlike the chansons on his own melodies. These repetitions combined with successive imitative entrances underscore a particular poetic moment, in this case, with a humorous intent. The

manipulation of texture also serves to punctuate a poetic juncture, either a moment of self-

reflection or a comic/obscene allusion. Josquin seizes the opportunity to amplify the phonetic

features inherent in the poetry by their projection through the polyphonic fabric, as an additional

means of playing with sound and meaning. Poetic references to antiquated themes or vocabulary

invite similar old-fashioned musical techniques, such as the pervasive use of triplets and hocket

39 Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 408. 40 Paul Newton relates this chanson to the play Le jeu de Robin et de Marion of Adam de la Halle. See Paul G. Newton, “Florence, Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica Luigi Cherubini, Manuscript Basevi 2439: Critical Edition and Commentary” (Ph.D. diss., North Texas State University, 1960), 1:103-108. There is no evidence that Josquin knew of Adam’s play but it is almost certain that he would have been acquainted with the age-old literary topos of “Robin and Marion.” For a view of the tune Petite camusette as a sort of dance-game song, lending itself to pantomime see Leeman L. Perkins and Howard Garey, eds., The Mellon Chansonnier, 2 vols. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), 2:202-203.

243 in the middle section of Petite camusette.41 The differentiated poetic registers and the varied

origins of the borrowed material in the second subcategory of chansons from Group 2 reveals an

even wider array of compositional rhetorical strategies.

Se congié prens

Despite its existence as a monophonic melody, the aristocratisant character of the poetry

in Se congié prens prompted a much different treatment compared to that of Faulte d’argent,

Allégez moy, and Petite camusette. The borrowed melody and text survive in Paris, Bibliothèque

Nationale, MS fonds fr. 12744, one of the most important sources of monophonic songs.42 The original poem is a four-strophe ballade without envoy and the text has the stately melancholy of a typical departing song. The play with rhyme and the equivocal use of the words “tant l’aymer,”

“tan amer,” and “entamer” in ll. 5 and 7 of the first strophe betray the style of a Grand

Rhétoriqueur.

1. Se congié prens de mes belles amours, If I take leave of my fair love, 2. Vray amoureulx, ne m’en veuillez blasmer. True lovers, please do not malign me. 3. J’en ay souffert de plus griefves douleurs I have suffered from it the most grave sorrows 4. Que ne font ceulx qui naigent en la mer; Not endured even by those who sail in the sea; 5. Car tant l’aymer m’est tousiours tant amer For loving her so has always given me such grief 6. Qu’avoir ne puis delle’ung tout seul regard That I cannot get even a single glance from her 7. Fors que rigueur pour mon cueur entamer; Except for cruelty that daunts my heart; 8. Si prens congié avant qu’il soit plus tard. So I take leave before it is too late.43

Josquin places the borrowed melody in the Sexta pars, imitated by the Quinta a fifth

above and at the distance of four breves. He retains the closed form of the original melody,

ABABCDAB, but structures the surrounding polyphony, especially the Superius, to underline the individual prosodic features. As in the other chansons on a cantus prius factus, there is some

41 Another example of outdated musical techniques occurs in Plaine de deuil, discussed in Chapter III. 42 For a discussion of this source, henceforth referred to as Paris 12744, see Chapter II. For a modern edition of the song see Gaston Paris and Auguste Gevaert, eds., Chansons du XVe siècle (Paris: Librairie de Firmin- Didot, 1875), no. 52. 43 The translation is partly based on that of David Fallows in Josquin des Prez, New Josquin Edition, vol. 28, Critical Commentary, 392.

244 text repetition in the canonic voices. In Se congié prens, the repetitions are restricted only to the

second hemistichs of ll. 2 and 4, possibly an index of differentiation with ll. 5 and 7, which

rhyme similarly but not identically (see the difference between “blasmer”/“la mer” and “tant

amer”/“entamer”). Also, as in Allégez moy and Petite camusette, the two lowest voices unfold in

free-canon until the end of the first line (Ex. 4.5, mm. 5-14). Initial motifs are also present here

in the Contratenor, Tenor, and Bassus (see the opening of Ex. 4.5). Unlike the other chansons of

Group 2, however, Se congié prens adheres more closely to the features of the chansons of

Group 1, possibly due to its poetic theme and character.

Despite the fact that the borrowed melody determines to a great extent the general

structure of the polyphonic design, Josquin manipulates the Superius to create links between

related phrases, such as the ones encountered in the chansons of Group 1.44 In two cases the

Superius melody connects two consecutive lines with the descending/ascending gesture. The first

instance occurs in mm. 14-15, where l. 1 ends with a descending fifth (A to D) over the words

“belles amours,” while l. 2 starts with an ascending fifth (mm. 16-17) over “Vray amoureulx.”

This gesture further reinforces the sonic relationship between the words “amours” and

“amoureulx.” Thus through the descending/ascending fifth, the polyptoton figure in the poetry

also finds expression in the music.45 The second such instance connects ll. 3 and 4, which are poetically related by an enjambment (Ex. 4.5, Superius, mm. 37-38 and 39-40). Such connecting gestures are also present in the borrowed melody: the words “amours” and “amoureulx” are thereby related with an instance of anadiplosis (see, for example, the Quinta, in mm. 12-14 and

44 Bernstein considers Se congié prens an early attempt to six-voice composition because the replication of the closed form of the borrowed melody betrays a lack of sophistication in melodic design. Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 407. Without explicitly stating it, Bernstein here compares the treatment of the closed form of Se congié prens with that of Faulte d’argent and finds it inferior. 45 In polyptoton, the same word is inflected differently to give two syntactically distinct perspectives.

245 17-20). Josquin was possibly inspired by this gesture in the pre-existent material to melodically

connect ll. 1 and 2 in the Superius.

Another instance of a melodic bond, albeit absent from the borrowed melody, connects the first half of the strophe with the beginning of the second half. Applying once more the principle of the oratorical figure anadiplosis, Josquin starts l. 5 with the same melodic gesture with which he ended l. 4 (Ex. 4.5, Superius, mm. 45-47 and 51-53, motif x). Such a gesture is particularly fitting in this instance, since the second half of the strophe starts with “car”—a common conjunction in lyric verses—creating a sentence of logical progression that greatly depends on the preceding phrase. Furthermore, the ending of l. 4 and the beginning of l. 5 share a very similar sonorous quality between the words “la mer”/“l’aymer,” further emphasized by the common motif x. As with Allégez moy, here Josquin takes advantage of the phonetic relationship and the expanded polyphonic texture to blend the two common-sounding words vertically. This blending underscores the metaphorical similarity between the sea, as the locus of grief for sailors, and love, as the source of the poet’s suffering.

246 Example 4.5. Josquin, Se congié prens

247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 Tenez moy en voz bras

While in the six-voice chansons explored so far (Allégez moy, Petite camusette, and Se congié prens), Josquin generates the expanded texture by incorporating a canon, he builds the six-part Tenez moy en vos bras around a single voice that carries the cantus prius factus. In addition to Josquin’s six-part arrangement, two different three-voice settings of the tune “Tenez moy” also survive: one that places the melody in the Superius and another one that places the melody in the Tenor.46

The melancholic chanson consists of a four-line refrain and a two-line stanza, possibly an excerpt from a strophic poem that has not survived.47

music 1. Tenez moy en voz bras, Hold me in your arms, A 2. Mon amy, ie suis malade. My beloved, I am sick. B 3. Tenez moy en voz bras, Hold me in your arms, A’ 4. Vostre’amour me guérira. Your love will cure me. C

5. C’est à Paris ou par delà, In Paris or beyond, D 6. Une clère fontaine’y a. There is a clear fountain. E

7. Tenez moy en voz bras, Hold me in your arms, A 8. Mon amy, ie suis malade. My beloved, I am sick. B 9. Tenez moy en voz bras, Hold me in your arms, A’ 10. Vostre’amour me guérira. Your love will cure me.48 C

The image of the fountain is a common one in medieval narrative and lyric poetry as the locus of poetic or amorous happiness. The fountains usually possess special powers and in this context the relationship between the refrain and the two-line stanza in Tenez moy, although at first glance

46 For the different settings see David Fallows, A Catalogue of Polyphonic Songs, 1415-1485 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 384. 47 Brian Jeffery, “The Literary Texts of Josquin’s Chansons,” in Josquin des Prez: Proceedings of the International Josquin Festival-Conference Held at The Juilliard School at Lincoln Center in New York City, 21-25 June 1971, ed. Edward E. Lowinsky with the collaboration of Bonnie J. Blackburn (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 420. 48 Translation from Martin Picker, ed. Josquin des Prez: Parody Chansons (Hackensack, NJ: Jerona Music Corporation, 1980), 7.

257 not directly obvious, acquires a new meaning.49 The poem evokes a dream-like atmosphere in which the female lover, possibly sick from love, imagines the clear waters of the fountain, craving the effect of their healing powers.50 Reflecting the poetic structure, the tune has a closed ternary macro-form, in which the musical phrases of the three individual main sections follow the scheme ABA’C DE ABA’C (see structure above).

In Josquin’s six-voice setting the borrowed melody is sung by the Tenor in a syllabic, straightforward manner devoid of text repetitions. The Superius also completely eschews text repetition but is differentiated by its highly melismatic character, quite unusual for Josquin’s multi-voice chansons.51 The range of the Superius further contrasts with the generally low tessitura of the other voices.52 Although composers do not generally use high tessitura to denote the female voice, the markedly differentiated character of the Superius, both in the three- and the six-voice settings, serves this purpose. The melismatic nature of the Superius, its straightforward delivery of the text, without text repetitions, and its positioning against five low-range voices identifies the Superius with the female poetic voice of the text. A closer look at the melodic phrases of the upper part further reveals that it follows the phrases of the borrowed melody in their outline, sequence, and cadential notes (Ex. 4.6).

49 The six-voice version also appears as a contrafact with the text “Vidi speciosam” in BolC R142, where it is attributed to Josquin. It is probably not a coincidence that the sacred text refers to water, thereby tightening its relationship to Tenez moy, which refers to the clear waters of the fountain. “I have seen the fair one ascending above streams of water and her (sweet) odor was as of snow upon her vestments; the flowers of roses and lilies of the valley surrounded her as the days of spring” (“Vidi speciosam ascendentem desuper rivos aquarum, cuius odor erat nivis in vestimentis eius; sicut dies verni circumdabant eam flores rosarum et lilium convallium”). I am grateful to Dr. Edward Nowacki for the English translation. 50 For notions of lovesickness in the Middle Ages see Mary F. Wack, Lovesickness in the Middle Ages: the Viaticum and Its Commentaries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990), 41, 46. 51 The melismatic Superius is also characteristic of the three-voice setting, attributed to Josquin by Van Benthem. Jaap van Benthem, “Zur Struktur und Authentizität der Chansons à 5 & 6 von Josquin des Prez,” Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 21, no. 3 (1970): 185. 52 In a variant reading of the latter version, the Superius reaches a high g, which also features as the cadential pitch of the entire chanson. This version survives in Gdánsk (Danzig), Biblioteki Polskiej Akademii Nauk (Library of the Polish Academy of Sciences), MS 4003 (olim Mus. q.20), copied between 1554 and 1563. See Picker, Parody Chansons, 7.

258 Example 4.6. Josquin, Tenez moy en vos bras. Superius/Tenor phrase structure

259 The melismatic utterance, however, conceals the direct resemblance to the borrowed melody, transforming a disembodied melodic line to a highly charged dramatization of the female voice.

260 The close resemblance of the Superius to the Tenor line, the borrowed melody, and the

alternating delivery of their corresponding phrases suggest a conception of this chanson as a

dialogue. Superius and Tenor exchange the lines “Tenez moy en voz bras” and “Mon amy ie suis

malade” in an erotic dialogue, conjoining forces only at the end of the refrain. Deviation from

this pattern comes only in the middle section, section B, where the direct address of the refrain

gives way to a narrative, descriptive utterance referring to the clear fountain. During this section

the two voices sing simultaneously, with the Tenor always syllabic, while the Superius is always

melismatic. Moreover, all the cadences in this chanson are formed between the Superius and the

Tenor, reflecting their close relationship and the character of the work as a dialogue.

The semi-dramatic nature of this chanson is indicated by yet another feature. Unlike any

other multi-voice chanson by Josquin, here the individual voices do not sing the entirety of the

text from beginning to end but omit some of their phrases. These omissions appear to have both

expressive and purely musical purposes. The Superius skips the third line of the refrain, the

repetition of “Tenez moy en voz bras,” in both the opening and the closing sections. This

treatment ensures the directness of delivery (after all, repetition is not natural in everyday

speech), and also serves a musical purpose. Since Superius and Tenor alternate their phrases,

repetition of this line by the upper part would pedantically prolong the first and last sections and

weaken the effect of the dialogue between the two voices. Furthermore, in the transition from the

B to the closing A’ section, both the Quinta and Bassus interpolate a short musical phrase absent

in the opening (see Ex. 4.7, Quinta, mm. 44.4-46 and Bassus, mm. 45-47.1). This gesture creates

an accumulation of “Tenez moy en voz bras” phrases within a short span of time. The emphasis on this phrase characterizes the entire chanson and functions almost as an idée fixe, a recurring theme that haunts the interlocutors of the song. On purely musical grounds there is no apparent

261 reason why Quinta and Bassus should deviate from the original opening, other than to ensure that

more syllables would be available to sing the recurring phrase.

Omission of text also occurs in the Sexta pars, which skips portion of the second line

(“mon amy”). One has to note, however, the discrepancies in text underlay in the earliest texted source of this chanson, Susato’s 1545 edition.53 For example, the Contratenor in mm. 10-14

sings l. 2, while in the corresponding measures of the reprise, mm. 55-59, he sings “Tenez moy

en voz bras.” The same discrepancy occurs in the Quinta pars in mm. 19-24 and 64-69,

respectively. It is difficult to assert whether these anomalies reflect carelessness on the part of the typesetter, or a planned deviation on the part of the composer. However, the irregularities in the distribution of the text within and among the individual voices distinguish this chanson from the

rest of Josquin’s multi-voice secular works. The unusual treatment of the text could be pointing

to a text-generated interpretation: the depiction of a disconcerted person at the verge of real (or

erotic) sickness.

53 Le septiesme livre contenant vingt & quatre chansons (Antwerp: Tylman Susato, 1545) [RISM 154515].

262 Example 4.7. Josquin, Tenez moy en voz bras

263 264 265 266 267

268

Osthoff believed that Tenez moy en voz bras marks a high point in Josquin’s career.54 We

could explain the above irregularities as reflecting Josquin’s style from a different time period, a

particularly late one. First, the straightforward delivery of the text in the most important voices,

the Tenor and the Superius, complies with Josquin’s treatment of the main voices—the canonic

melodies—in the other melancholic chansons (see Chapter III). In Tenez moy, the

Superius/Tenor duet, which carries the semantic load of the poetry, replaces the canonic pairs in

the chansons of Group 1. The individual melodic characteristics of the two structural but, at the

same time, differentiated voices of this chanson point to a new technique in Josquin’s writing for secular compositions. While the cantus prius factus proceeds in a declamatory style, the derived voice (Superius) imitates the borrowed melody in its melodic contour but differs from it with its melismatic declamation and the omission of one poetic line (the repetition of the refrain’s third line). Therefore, whereas in the canonic chansons, with or without repetitions, the canon

54 Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2:217.

269 proceeds in a strict fashion—there are no melodic deviations in the derived part, except for hexachordal adjustments in the case of canons at the fifth or fourth— in Tenez moy, the structural

voices have markedly different melodic profiles. Josquin thus generates a six-voice texture from

a cantus prius factus without resorting to the use of strict canon. Tenez moy en voz bras is unique

in this respect. All the other six-voice chansons are canonic in structure and all other instances of

non-canonic chansons on a cantus prius factus are five-voice works.55 The treatment of the

structural voice in Tenez moy recalls that of Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer, one of the two “free” multi-voice chansons attributed to Josquin.

Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer

In the five-voice Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer, the principal melodic line is sung by the

Tenor, who proceeds with syllabic, stepwise melodic motion and carries the least repetition. The syllabic declamation and the fact that it is the last voice to enter imprint on the Tenor part the characteristics of a cantus prius factus, but no such melody has survived. Although the first two lines of the poetry appear in the fifth stanza of Pleust a Dieu qu’il fust dit, a poem in Paris 12744, the monophonic tune associated with it bears no relationship to Josquin’s song.56 Je ne me puis

tenir d’aimer incorporates neither a canon nor a known cantus prius factus and is thus

considered a “free” composition.57

55 The only exception is the six-voice Ma bouche rit. However, recent scholarship has demonstrated that the sixth part was a later addition, possibly a si placet part incorporated to underline the main motif of the cantus prius factus. Bernstein denies the authorship of the five-voice version by Josquin. Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 407, 411. 56 Paris and Gevaert, Chansons du XVe siècle, no. 102. Two other five-voice settings of Je ne me puis survive and they, too, bear no resemblance to the melody in Paris 12744. One version is by Benedictus Appenzeller and was included in Susato’s Le cinquiesme livre contenant trente et deux chansons a cinq et a six parties (Antwerp: Susato 1544) [RISM 154413], fol. 13v. The other is by Derick Gerarde in British Library, MSS Roy. App. 31-35, fol. 31v. For these two settings see Blackburn, “Josquin’s Chansons,” 40-41. 57 Blackburn has noted that until about 1515 polyphonic compositions for five voices were considered either as four-voice works with the addition of a cantus firmus or as four voices generating five through the use of canon. Blackburn, “Josquin’s Chansons,” 38.

270 The poem belongs to the courtly love discourse and reflects the traditional plea of the

lover to his sovereign lady. Instead of the typical octosyllabic or decasyllabic rondeau refrain,

however, Je ne me puis consists of two four-line stanzas of different meters and rhyming

schemes. The first stanza alternates octosyllabic with heptasyllabic verses while the second

alternates heptasyllables with hexasyllables. The rhyme scheme is abac cdcd, with the fourth line

providing a rhyming and metric link to the second stanza.

rhyme line length 1. Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer I cannot continue loving a 8 2. Celle qui point ne m’aime; The one who does not love me at all; b 7 3. Je me doibz bien desconforter I am right to be disconsolate a 8 4. Car j’é perdu ma peine. For I have waisted my efforts. c 7

5. Madame souveraine, Sovereign lady, c 7 6. Recepvez vostre amy Receive your friend d 6 7. Par vostre bonté pleine, Through your great goodness, c 7 8. Ou mort est à demy. Or death is half-way here for him. d 6

Bonnie Blackburn suggests that, because of the heterogeneous nature of the two stanzas,

Je ne me puis likely consists of two different poems that somehow got mixed together.58 Even if we accept Blackburn’s hypothesis, it is obvious that the choice was not haphazard; on the contrary, the two poems were carefully selected so that the last line of the first stanza would have the same number of syllables and rhyme with the first line of the second stanza. This allows for a smooth and meaningful transition from personal speech (first stanza) to a vocative construction

(second stanza) that depicts the last effort of the desperate lover to move a disinterested lady.

This poetic juncture is emphasized through various musical means. During the first section, the Tenor enters with the two main sentences (ll. 1-2 and 3-4) after all the other voices have come to a cadence (Ex. 4.8, m. 12 and 28, respectively). In contrast, during the second stanza, the Tenor participates equally with the other voices in the polyphony. This treatment creates a marked contrast in the texture of the two sections. Whereas the first section is

58 Blackburn, “Josquin’s Chansons,” 40.

271 characterized by a thin, mostly three-voice texture, the second section stands out with its dense

counterpoint, which becomes busier as the piece advances towards its end (especially mm. 59

onwards). Moreover, antiphonal passages further differentiate the second section: three voices

are set against three others for l. 5 and, later, four against four for l. 7. Lines 5 and 7 both concern

the lady, either by direct address (“madame souveraine”) or by referring to her grace (“par vostre

bonté pleine”), and are thus musically related by the similar antiphonal treatment. Such textural

differentiation for moments of change in speech is not unusual in Josquin’s works. We have

encountered them in the chansons Regretz sans fin and Faulte d’argent at the moment of change to first-person declaration.

The first and second sections are further differentiated in a number of other ways. The cadential notes for the Tenor alternate between E and D for the first stanza and between E and A for the second (possibly partly reflecting the rhyme scheme). Furthermore, the Tenor bears no repetitions during the first stanza, with the exception of the end of the fourth line. In contrast, the

Tenor in the second section repeats entire lines, which is especially prominent in l. 6, “recepvez vostre amy” (Ex. 4.8, mm. 50-59). This line is the culmination of the entire poem, the last cry of the lover to reach the heart of the indifferent lady. All voice parts feature descending melodic lines, “a technique of which Josquin was very fond,” as Blackburn has noted.59 However, she

failed to notice that these long descending phrases, besides being a common stylistic feature in

Josquin’s music, coincide with this high point of the poetry, where the lover invokes a sense of

humility. Within this poetic context, the descending lines acquire rhetorical significance as

instances of catabasis, descending melodic gestures frequently applied to depict not only flowing

59 Blackburn, “Josquin’s Chansons,” 39

272 motions but also prayer, humility, and servitude.60 Both the constant internal repetitions and the

descending melodic lines symbolically represent the meaning of the poetry. Through the

repetitions the composer impresses the urgency of the plea, while through the descending lines

he depicts in musical terms the air of humility appropriate for the situation.

In addition to projecting the semantic properties of the poetry in musical terms, the Tenor

also reflects the syntactic features of the text. In the first stanza, the Tenor states ll. 1-2 and 3-4

without any interruption of the melodic flow. In the first case, such treatment reflects the

enjambment between ll. 1 and 2; in the second case (ll. 3 and 4), the continuous melodic flow

depicts the construction of logical discourse, initiated by the word “car.” In fact, it is at this point

where a brief pause could be introduced in speech and this is exactly what happens in the music

with the rest of a breve (Ex. 4.8, m. 32.3). The treatment of the Tenor as a cantus firmus that

carries both the syntactic and the semantic content of the poetry in a straightforward, syllabic

declamation is typical of Josquin, as we have seen in the chansons of Group 1.

Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer also exhibits a characteristic economy of material, another

hallmark of Josquin’s style. The melodic structure of the Tenor shows a reiteration of motivic ideas. The melodic phrases that correspond to the individual lines of the text are ABA’B’

CDC’E, where B’ is a transposition a fifth higher of B (see also Ex. 3.11). Furthermore, phrase C

is indebted to the opening of phrase A (see motif x in mm. 13-15.1 and 41-42), and the phrases of the four non-structural voice-parts often derive their melodic and rhythmic details from the

Tenor phrases (compare, for example, the Bassus in mm. 26-28 with phrase C of the Tenor, and the Superius, mm. 15-16 with the opening of phrase B of the Tenor, mm. 17-18).

60 Catabasis is one of the three new figures introduced by Athanasius Kircher in his Musurgia Universalis (Rome, 1650). For a facsimile edition see Athanasius Kircher, Musurgia Universalis. Mit einen Vorwort, Personen-, Orts- und Sachregister von Ulf Scharlau (Hildesheim: G. Olms, 1970), B 145.

273 Example 4.8. Josquin, Je ne me puis tenir d'aimer

274 275 276 277 278

279

The structure of the Tenor suggests that Josquin assigns closely related phrases to verses with the same rhyme, as in the end-oriented chansons studied in Chapter III. Blackburn observes, nevertheless, a “lack of sectional repetition,” unusual for a Josquin chanson, which she attributes to the individuality of the text (its unusual poetic structure and rhyme).61 However, sectional

repetition is not absent from this work; it is simply hidden in the subtle variations that occur in

the repetitions of the individual melodic parts. The Superius and Bassus of ll. 1-2 and 3-4 feature

extensive repetitions of the melodic material, skillfully disguised to avoid wholeheartedly replications such as the ones in the end-oriented chansons of Group 1. The melodic variations of the Superius recall the treatment of the upper part in Tenez moy, where this voice presents a melismatic version of the cantus prius factus.

The close relationship between words and music finds another expression in the

successive dissonances encountered in mm. 23-24 and 27-28. These dissonances result from the

61 Blackburn, “Josquin’s Chansons,” 39.

280 suspensions over the word “desconforter” (“disconsolate”). This is obviously a moment of word-

painting that audibly depicts the “discomfort” expressed in the poetry. Such word-painting is

generally rare in Josquin’s multi-voice chansons, a counter-indication of the work’s authenticity

or an indication that Je ne me puis is a late work. The extensive plagal cadence at the end of this chanson, with its madrigalesque quality, further contributes to the categorization of this chanson as either a late work by Josquin or the effort of a member of a younger generation. Both Osthoff and Blackburn consider Je ne me puis a mature work in Josquin’s output, despite of the chanson’s weak record of attributions.62 Blackburn finds that “in the suppleness and economy of

the melodies, the precise relationship of word and tone, the integration of the five voices, and

above all in the harmonic movement, Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer surpasses all of Josquin’s five-

and six-part chansons.”63 Although Blackburn does not offer specific examples from Je ne me

puis to demonstrate her points, the above analysis has shown that there is indeed a tight

relationship between the music and the text, both on the level of surface details and semantic

interpretation of the poetry. The subtle orchestration of the individual melodic, structural, and

contrapuntal polyphonic features to coordinate with the various poetic elements indeed points to

Josquin’s authorship and a late date of composition for Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer.

The rhetorical analysis of the second subcategory from Group 2 demonstrates that

Josquin generates a six-voice texture either through the presence of strict canon (with the

addition of a second free one for the entirety or part of the song, as in Allégez moy, Petite

camusette, and Se congié prens) or by incorporating a cantus prius factus and deriving a second

62 Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2:213; Blackburn, “Josquin’s Chansons,” 31. The chanson is attributed in the Trente sixiesme livre contenant trente chansons tres musicales, a quatre, cinq et six parties . . . de feu Iosquin des prez (Paris: Pierre Attaingnant, 1549) [RISM J681], as well as in the Livre de meslanges, contenant six vingtz chansons (Paris: Le Roy & Ballard, 1560) [not in RISM] and the 1572 Mellange de chansons [RISM 15722], both of which were probably copied from Attaingnant’s print. 63 Blackburn, “Josquin’s Chansons,” 41.

281 melodic line from it (as in Tenez moy). In the “free,” five-voice Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer, the newly composed Tenor behaves as a pre-existent melody and becomes the source of much of the material for the other voice parts. In all cases, the structural voice(s) bears a minimum of text repetition, as in the chansons of Group 1. While rhetorical gestures are absent from the popularisant chansons examined in the first part of this chapter, they are prominent in the second group, especially in Se congié prens and Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer, the two chansons most clearly related to the aristocratisant poetic tradition. It is thus evident that the poetic register determines the presence of literary rhetorical figures and the behavior of the structural voice(s) in terms of internal textual repetitions.

Certain features are common to both Group 2 subcategories, the popularisant and the aristocratisant chansons. Josquin reserves textural differentiation (pervasive imitation or antiphonal passages) for moments that are poetically distinct and, in the case of Tenez moy, to audibly dramatize an erotic dialogue. While dissonances are highly controlled, their appearances stand as instances of word painting, as illustrated in both Faulte d’argent and Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer. Prominent phonetic features are amplified by their simultaneous projection through the extended polyphonic web, in ways that both enhance the sonic relationship between words and project the interplay of sound and meaning frequently inherent in the poetry.

The compositional traits encountered in the above two sub-groups can serve as a conduit for drawing comparisons with the other chansons of Group 2, some of which are considered doubtful (see Appendix 1). Nevertheless, their examination expands our understanding of early sixteenth-century compositional practices in the secular domain. The non-canonic Ma bouche rit

does not avail itself to rhetorical analysis, since the poetic text consists of the manifold repetition

282 of a single poetic line.64 The “free” Mi larés vous, built around the solmization syllables mi la re, a reference to its title, is uncharacteristic in many respects and is considered doubtful. The extensive text repetitions and the absence of a voice that bears the characteristics of a structural part, even if newly composed, speak against Josquin’s authorship.65

The six-voice Baiséz moy, modeled on a pre-existing monophonic tune, unfolds as a triple canon at the fourth.66 The six-voice version adds a third canon to the à 4 double canon attributed to Josquin, but its authenticity has been questioned.67 The popularisant text of this song features a dialogue between two lovers and thus belongs to the pastourelle tradition.

Although the musical phrases of the borrowed melody do not indicate, by some distinct musical feature, the exchange of lines between the two interlocutors, the composer manages to musically depict their dialogue by textural differentiation, a practice also applied in Tenez moy. As in many other chansons from both Groups 1 and 2, the change to first-person speech (“Se ie faisoie”) is marked by antiphonal passages shared by the two lowest pairs of voices. In addition, the negative response of the female lover to the man’s advances is initiated by the Bassus followed by successive (non-imitative) entrances to the highest voice. The engagement of the bass part to open the woman’s speech could again produce a comic effect, similar to the one in Allégez moy.

In contrast, the six-voice J’ay bien cause de lamenter displays none of the features of either the Group 1 or the Group 2 chansons. The two upper voices, based on motifs from

64 For the original conception of this chanson as a five-part arrangement see fn. 55. Bernstein rejects the authorship of both versions. Bernstein, “Ma bouche rit et mon cueur pleure: A Chanson a 5 Attributed to Josquin des Prez,” Journal of Musicology 12, no. 3 (1994): 253-286 and idem, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 411- 412. Jaap van Benthem accepts the chanson as Josquin’s. Jaap van Benthem, “The Scoring of Josquin’s Secular Music,” Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 35, no. 1-2 (1985): 75, 81-85. 65 Mi larés vous is briefly discussed in Chapter VII. It survives solely in the unreliable Kriesstein 1540 edition [RISM 15407]. Van Benthem questions Josquin’s authorship of this chanson. Van Benthem, “Zur Struktur,” 171. 66 The monophonic tune appears in the Bayeux manuscript, one of the two main depositories of monophonic songs from the fifteenth century. For a discussion of this source see Chapter II. Modern edition in Théodore Gérold, ed., Le Manuscrit de Bayeux: Texte et musique d’un recueil de chansons du XVe siècle (Strasbourg: Commission des publications de la Faculté des lettres, 1921; repr. Genève: Minkoff, 1979), no. 20. 67 Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 412, especially fn. 42.

283 Pietrequin’s Mais que ce fust secretement (an explicitly obscene poem), unfold in a free canon,

which not only changes the interval of imitation but also reverses the order of dux and comes entries, a trait very uncharacteristic of Josquin’s canonic writing in his other multi-voice chansons. As a result, despite the song’s reliance on a borrowed melody, no individual melodic line appears to be the principal one and all voices bear extensive repetitions, despite the solemn nature of the text. Both the source record and the individual stylistic traits of J’ay bien cause speak against Josquin’s authorship.68

Another chanson with problematic attributions is the five-voice En non saichant, based

on the Superius of a homonymous four-part version. Although its authenticity has been

questioned by van Benthem and Bernstein, Blackburn believes that En non saichant is a genuine

composition by Josquin.69 Indeed, in contrast to J’ay bien cause, the treatment of the borrowed

part in En non saichant complies with Josquin’s practices when borrowing from other

polyphonic settings in its straightforward, non-repetitive deployment. In addition, the upper part

incorporates an instance of anadiplosis that connects the first to the second self-contained poetic

lines, in the manner Josquin connects the first two similar lines in Douleur me bat, discussed in

Chapter III. The turn to a homophonic, antiphonal texture at the point of self-representation (“Je

languis”) also bespeaks Josquin’s writing.

The double-texted L’amye a tous/Je ne vis oncques is unusual in its combination of two

poems in the courtly register, Dufay’s Je ne vis oncques la pareille and L’amye a tous. Although

the lexicon of the latter clearly evokes the courtly love discourse, the fact that the poetic subject

68 J’ay bien cause de lamenter survives solely in Kriesstein’s 1540 print [RISM 15407]. Osthoff and, more recently, van Benthem also doubted the chanson’s authenticity. Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2:226-227; Van Benthem, “The Scoring,” 84-85. See also the discussion of this chanson in Chapter VII. 69 Benthem, “Zur Struktur,” 171-172; Bernstein, “Ma bouche rit,” 254; Blackburn, “Josquin’s Chansons,” 44-50.

284 therein addresses the lady with “tu” instead of “vous” undermines its courtly register.70 The melodically independent lines of the individual freely composed parts do not comply with

Josquin’s writing, in general. However, there are other features that strongly recall his style. The chanson is written in tempus imperfectum, a mensuration outmoded in the early sixteenth century. Its unusual presence in L’amye a tous/Je ne vis oncques is possibly inspired by the presence of Dufay’s melody and recalls Josquin’s antiquated techniques in other chansons with archaic references (Plaine de deuil, Petite camusette). In addition, we also encounter here

Josquin’s practice of vertically juxtaposing phrases with similarly sounding words; thus the end of Dufay’s second line, “ma gracieuse dame,” coincides with the words “si grand dame” of the

L’amye a tous text, sung by the Superius, Contratenor, and Tenor.

Josquin’s most celebrated motet-chanson on the death of Johannes Ockeghem, Nymphes des bois/Requiem, displays many of the composer’s compositional rhetorical strategies. This five-voice composition is built around the Introit and Post communion from the Mass for the

Dead, placed in the Tenor. Unusual in many respects (absence of clefs, black notation, mainly homophonic texture), Nymphes des bois complements our picture of Josquin’s rhetorical approach in his multi-voice chansons.71 In addition to the structural voice, Josquin entrusts the

most important melodic material to the Superius, a common technique with other multi-voice

chansons explored so far. The syntactic pace of the individual poetic lines is closely followed by

70 “L’amye a tous et qui n’esconduit ame/La plus commune pour une si grand dame/Qui à ung seul as ton amour donnée/Et cueur et corps du tout habandonée/Pense tu point en recepvoir le blasme.” 71 The literature on this chanson is quite extensive. See among others Edward E. Lowinsky, ed., The Medici Codex of 1518: A Choirbook of Motets Dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, 3 vols., Monuments of Renaissance Music, vols. 3-5 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 1:66-68, 2:213-217; Willem Elders, Symbolic Scores: Studies in the Music of the Renaissance (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 135-139; Honey Meconi, “Ockeghem and the Motet-Chanson,” 381-383, 391-392, 396; and Jaap van Benthem, “La magie des cris trenchantz: comment le vray trésorier de musique échappe à la trappe du très terrible satrappe,” in Théorie et analyse musicales 1450-1650: Actes du colloque international Louvain-la-Neuve, 23-25 septembre 1999, ed. Anne-Emmanuelle Ceulemans and Bonnie J. Blackburn (Louvain-la-Neuve: Département d’histoire de l’art d’archéologie, 2001), 119- 147.

285 the melodic phrases. The most important feature is the complete lack of any textual repetition.

As mentioned above, it is mainly the poetic register that determines the degree of internal textual

repetition. The extremely somber theme of Nymphes des bois apparently obviated any repetition.

A striking musical moment occurs when the poet, Jean Molinet, exhorts Josquin, Brumel,

Pirchon, and Compère to mourn the death of their “father,” Ockeghem. Josquin employs a

sequence based on descending thirds over the names of the above composers. The audible effect

of the sequence—there is no aural differentiation among its constituent parts—possibly reflects

in musical terms the equality among the artistic merits of each composer. However, its

descending direction, with the highest note corresponding to Josquin’s name, might be a musical

pun that works against the above statement and projects Josquin’s representation of self-esteem.

Josquin’s penchant for the subtle and intricate reflection of the semantic features of the poetry becomes fully appreciated with the exploration of intertextual relationships in the following chapter.

286

CHAPTER V

ASPECTS OF INTERTEXTUALITY IN JOSQUIN’S MULTI-VOICE CHANSONS

This chapter will explore manifestations of intertextual relationships that have emerged from the musico-rhetorical analysis of Josquin’s five- and six-voice chansons in chapters III and

IV. The extent and multi-faceted nature of these manifestations demand separate treatment in order for them to be fully explored and comprehended. Here, intertextuality is not considered in the narrow sense of pointing out instances of melodic or contrapuntal similarities between chansons. Rather, it is used as a tool to describe, interpret, and apprehend instances in which concepts, traditions, ideas, and poetic and musical practices mingle to produce a web of explicit or implicit connections between chansons that appear otherwise unrelated.

The analysis investigates a wide range of intertextual references. First, it isolates instances in which common compositional strategies and underlying poetic correspondences bring forth a “polyphony of texts and music,”1 as among the chansons Douleur me bat, Plusieurs

regretz, and Nymphes, nappés. Second, it examines the implications that a borrowed melody and

its text can have on the understanding of the derived work, best exemplified in Josquin’s five-

voice Je me complains de mon amy. The analysis further shows that deeper understanding of the

imagery and topoi of medieval texts help us untangle the seemingly compositional anomalies of

works such as Pour souhaitter, and provide nuanced interpretations that are based on internal

1 In her seminal study “A Polyphony of Texts and Music,” Margaret Bent demonstrated that the careful planning of verbal and musical correspondences in the fourteenth-century polytextual motet had intertextual significance, which informed listeners could possibly recover. Margaret Bent, “Polyphony of Texts and Music in the Fourteenth-Century Motet: Tribum que non abhorruit/Quoniam secta latronum/Merito hec patimur and Its ‘Quotations,’” in Hearing the Motet: Essays on the Motet of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Dolores Pesce (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 82-103. My analysis points to similar conclusions, albeit mainly for the single-texted secular repertory of the early sixteenth century.

287 textual and musical evidence. Finally, it demonstrates how better knowledge of the literary

tradition of envoy and responce yields important musical connections between chansons that

have been considered hitherto related only in terms of their poetic texts. In this latter category, I

examine the pairs Vous l’arez, s’il vous plaist/Vous ne l’aurez pas and N’esse pas ung grant

desplaisir/Si vous n’avez aultre desir, revealing some of the possible avenues through which the

discursive practice of envoy and responce found expression into the world of music.

The chapter starts with an overview of the concept of intertextuality and its applications

to studies of repertories from the late medieval period. It then describes my methodology for

locating and unveiling intertextual relationships before proceeding to the discussion and

interpretation of the individual chansons. These analyses not only widen our knowledge and understanding of the compositional practices of Josquin, but, most importantly, open up a new window towards approaching and interpreting the secular repertory of this period.

Since its first appearance in the works of Julia Kristeva and Roland Barthes in the late

1960s and early ’70s, the concept of intertextuality has gained widespread appeal in literary criticism and has expanded to include a wide gamut of relationships among literary texts.2

Theories of intertextuality consider a work as a “text,” in other words as a semiotic system,

whose meaning emerges from its location within a network of potentially infinite other texts. In

2 The term intertextualité was coined by Julia Kristeva in her essays, “The Bounded Text” and “Word, Dialogue, Novel,” in Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, ed. Leon S. Roudiez and trans. Thomas Gora, Alice Jardine, and Leon S. Roudiez (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 36-63 and 64-91. This is the English translation of Julia Kristeva, Sémeiotikè: recherches pour une sémanalyse (Paris, 1969). Roland Barthes’s articulations of the concept of intertextuality can be traced in several of his writings: S/Z, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1974); Image—Music—Text, trans. Stephen Heath (London: Fontana, 1977); Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977). For a comprehensive account of theories of intertextuality from its origins to the present day, consult Graham Allen, Intertextuality (London: Routledge, 2000). An early attempt at constructing a methodological tool involving intertextuality that could be applicable to musical works is Robert Hatten’s “The Place of Intertextuality in Music Studies,” The American Journal of Semiotics 3, no. 4 (1985): 69-82. The recently published monograph by Michael L. Klein, Intertextuality in Western Art Music (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005) brings together theories of intertextuality and how they apply directly or indirectly to studies of music theory and musicology.

288 Kristeva’s words “any text is constructed as a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption

and transformation of another.”3 In musicological studies the concept of intertextuality has

gained favor over the past twenty years and has proven particularly useful for revealing the

intricate network of relationships that characterize the repertories of the late medieval period. As

a flexible, all-encompassing concept, intertextuality allows us to describe all types of

interconnections between musical works, providing a useful analytical tool for their semiotic

interpretation.4

The concept of intertextuality also entails notions of influence, but literary critics of the

latter part of the twentieth century, disinterested in tracing sources and proving influence,

articulated a distinction between the two: influence implies authorial intent, thereby situating a text in a particular historical moment, while intertextuality operates as an author-dissociated

discourse which allows for the multi-directional crossing of texts across time and cultures.5 In

musicological studies of the late medieval and renaissance periods, however, in which biographical evidence and issues of chronology are ever vexing problems, the intertwining of intertextuality with influence can provide important clues for contemporary musical practices, as well as for the dating of compositions.

Musicological studies of repertory from this period have mainly applied intertextual analysis in order to understand the function of chanson quotations and Latin cantus firmi in

3 Kristeva, “Word, Dialogue, and Novel,” in Desire in Language, 66. 4 For a review of recent studies related to the concepts of imitation and intertextuality in early music see John Milsom, “‘Imitatio,’ ‘Intertextuality,’ and Early Music,” in Citation and Authority in Medieval and Renaissance Musical Culture: Learning from the Learned, ed. Suzannah Clark and Elizabeth E. Leach (Rochester: Boydell, 2005), 141-151. 5 For an account of recent views on influence and intertextuality in literary criticism see Jay Clayton and Eric Rothstein, “Figures in the Corpus: Theories of Influence and Intertextuality,” in Influence and Intertextuality in Literary History, ed. Jay Clayton and Eric Rothstein (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), 3-36.

289 polyphonic masses and motets.6 Recently, the concept of intertextuality has also been applied to the chanson repertories of the fourteenth and the early fifteenth centuries. Such studies have revealed families of chansons connected not only through shared texts and musical allusions but also via related rhetorical topoi that prompted musical intertextual relationships even in the absence of explicit textual references in their respective verses.7 For example, Paula Higgins and

David Fallows have pointed out the network of musical connections that characterize an ever- expanding group of chansons related to Dufay’s Le serviteur hault guerdonné.8 The relationships involve not only chansons with direct verbal correspondences to the “serviteur” text but also chansons connected through a string of implicit poetic topoi. Despite some differences in interpretation, both scholars ultimately agree that these intertextual allusions were indeed deliberate and meant to be recognized at least in part by their audiences, whether reading, hearing, or performing the music.9

6 Some recent studies include Michael Long, “Symbol and Ritual in Josquin’ s Missa Di Dadi,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 42, no. 1 (1989): 1-22; Christopher A. Reynolds, “The Counterpoint of Allusion in Fifteenth-Century Masses,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 45, no. 2 (1992): 228-260; Murray Steib, “Ockeghem and Intertextuality: A Composer Interprets Himself,” in Early Musical Borrowing, ed. Honey Meconi (New York: Routledge, 2004). The studies by Long and Reynolds cited here refer to intertextuality only in passing (p. 17 in Long and p. 237 in Reynolds) although the concept lies at the heart of their analyses. 7 Studies focusing on intertextuality in chanson repertories of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries include Yolanda Plumley, “Citation and Allusion in the Late Ars Nova: The Case of Esperance and the En attendant songs,” Early Music History 18 (1999): 287-363; idem, “Intertextuality in the Fourteenth-Century Chanson,” Music and Letters 84, no. 3 (2003): 346-377; idem, “Playing the Citation Game in the Late Fourteenth-Century Chanson,” Early Music 31, no. 1 (2003): 21-39; Elizabeth E. Leach, “Fortune’s Demesne: The Interrelations of Text and Music in Machaut’s Il mest avis (B22), De fortune (B23) and Two Related Anonymous Balades,” Early Music History 19 (2000): 47-79; Paula Higgins, “Servants, Mistresses and the Fortunes of Their Families: Influence and Intertextuality in the Fifteenth-Century Song,” in Hauptreferate, Symposien, Kolloquien, vol. 1 of Musik als Text: Bericht über den Internationalen Kongress der Gesellschaft für Musikforschung Freiburg in Breisgau 1993, ed. Hermann Danuser and Tobias Plebuch (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1998), 346-357; and David Fallows, “Le serviteur of Several Masters,” in Hauptreferate, Symposien, Kolloquien, 336-345. 8 Higgins, “Servants, Mistresses and the Fortunes of Their Families;” Fallows, “Le serviteur.” 9 Although Fallows accepts that composers in many cases made purposeful choices to further an allusion, he also believes that in the choice of a pre-existent model as a basis for the creation of a new work composers did nothing more than simply seek “somewhere to start.” Fallows, “Le serviteur,” 337. On the other hand, Higgins insists that even this starting point was not an “innocent” decision from the part of the composer, but an act of interpretation that would serve and enhance his creative purpose. Higgins, “Servants, Mistresses and the Fortunes of Their Families,” 349.

290 Applying a perspective of intertextuality that embraces author-based notions of

intertextual allusions, that is, of intentionality of references, the present study will bring to light representative examples of poetic and musical relationships that occur within the five- and six-

voice chanson repertory of Josquin des Prez, and which have gone hitherto unnoticed. As the

following discussion will demonstrate, the great extent of textual and musical interconnections

encountered in Josquin’s five- and six-voice chansons indicates that intertextuality features as a

major element of his musical rhetoric. By locating the intertextual relationships and establishing

their nature, we can gain a better glimpse into Josquin’s compositional practices and,

furthermore, speculate with greater certainty on the chronological proximity and provenance of

groups of compositions, especially in the cases in which the proposed relationships are supported

by both shared compositional strategies and poetic themes. Finally, the results of this study

suggest that the practice of intertextual references not only extended to composers of the post-

Machaut generation, as Yolanda Plumley and others have shown, but that it remained alive and

current throughout the fifteenth century to Josquin’s generation and beyond.10

In order to locate intertextual relationships in the absence of contemporary testimony we

need to rely on a variety of textual and musical clues. First, the common practice of deriving a

polyphonic voice from chant, a monophonic tune, or another polyphonic work provided rich

opportunities for intertextual play. Second, shared texts, fragments of texts, or even single words

often yield musical intertextual allusions, as the work of Higgins and Fallows mentioned above

has shown. Furthermore, anomalous or unusual musical features within a genre’s accepted

conventions or a particular composer’s style can often mark a deliberate reference to another

10 Ursula Günther has proposed that musical citation and allusion was common among composers of the immediate post-Machaut generation but fell out of use with composers of the Ars Subtilior. Ursula Günther, “Zitate in französischen Liedsätzen der Ars Nova and Ars Subtilior,” Musica disciplina 26 (1972): 53-68. Plumley’s more recent study, however, has demonstrated that the tradition was very much alive with the Ars subtilior composers. Plumley, “Intertextuality.”

291 discourse, be it a particular musical passage, a topos, or a compositional device in another work,

to name just a few possibilities. Finally, settings that can be identified as responces often hide musical connections that correspond to both the prosodic and the individual musical features of the envoy. These concealed relationships indicate that contemporary musicians operated in a semiotically charged environment that appreciated and encouraged such intertextual play.

In his chansons for five and six voices, Josquin’s almost exclusive reliance on some discernible pre-compositional entity such as a cantus prius factus or a melody of his own invention provides a good starting point in seeking intertextual allusions. Within this repertory a group of five five-voice chansons share multiple common features that could suggest they were composed in close chronological proximity. These chansons are Douleur me bat, Incessament livré suis, Parfons regretz, Plaine de deuil, and Plusieurs regretz. As shown in Chapter III, all five are settings of decasyllabic rondeau cinquains refrains based on canonic melodies of

Josquin’s invention. The texts express melancholic themes derived from amorous regrets or some unspecified misfortune, and their vocabulary situates the poems in the discursive world of the courtly lyric. Finally, the settings are all end-oriented structures, that is, structures that show some kind of repetitive scheme but also place particular emphasis on the final line of the text by assigning it to a new musical phrase. To the typical five-line aabba rhyme of the poetry, the musical structure corresponds with a six-part AABBCC scheme (with or without coda), in which each musical phrase sets an individual line of the text (see, for example, the Douleur me bat text below). This structure reflects partly the poetic rhyme and partly the semantic content of the poem. The music does not return to the opening phrase, as the rhyme demands, but introduces a new melody, phrase C, which is immediately repeated, thus emphasizing the semantic importance of the last verse. A note of caution is needed here, however, regarding the way the

292 structure of these works is described in the literature. In a canonic work, the structure is often

defined primarily by the canonic voices and secondarily by the scheme of the Superius (if freely

composed) and the rest of the polyphonic fabric. In three of the five end-oriented chansons

mentioned here, Douleur me bat, Incessament livré suis, and Plusieurs regretz, these two

deciding factors coincide to an admirable extent: the canonic and freely composed voices follow

the exact same structural scheme, another feature that ties these three works chronologically.

The common compositional strategies encountered in the group of end-oriented chansons

can function as a conduit for revealing more subtle connections with intertextual significance.

Patrick Macey has already demonstrated that the structure of these five chansons, as well as the

lament Nymphes, nappés, is further punctuated by the use of a single cross-relationship placed

before the final C section.11 This feature, combined with several other compositional rhetorical

devices that Josquin employs in order to attract attention to the last verse of the poetry or some

other important poetic juncture, reveals a string of implicit references that relates Douleur me

bat, Plusieurs regretz, and Nymphes, nappés and sheds light on their intertextual connection.

One of the most pronounced instances of such rhetorical treatment occurs in Douleur me

bat, a chanson in the Phrygian mode. Although the text and translation were provided in Chapter

III, I reproduce them here for easy reference.

11 Parick Macey, “An Expressive Detail in Josquin’s Nimphes, nappés,” Early Music 31, no. 3 (2003): 407.

293 rhyme music 1. Douleur me bat et tristesse m’afolle, a A 2. Amour me nuyt et malheur me consolle, a A 3. Vouloir me suit mais aider ne me peult, b B 4. Jouyr ne puis d’ung grant bien qu’on me veult. b B 5. De vivre ainsi, pour dieu, qu’on me décolle! a CC

1. Grief strikes me and sorrow maddens me, 2. Love annoys me and misfortune comforts me, 3. Desire follows me but cannot help me, 4. I cannot enjoy the great good that [she] wishes me, 5. From such a life, for God’s sake, may I be released!12

A cross-relation between B-natural and B-flat occurs at the point of transition to the final and most affective line of the poetry (Ex. 5.1, m. 38) but this is not the only feature that highlights this poetic juncture. As shown in Chapter III, this cross-relationship occurs in a passage in which the Superius reaches the highest point in the entire composition (m. 37, marked with asterisk), introducing through an unusual melisma the last line of the poetry (mm. 37-39).

The occurrence of B-flat itself in the next measure (Tenor, m. 38) further challenges the intervallic properties of the Phrygian mode. The individual melodic characteristics of the surrounding polyphony (the repeated D in the Contratenor, mm. 38-39, and the G in the Bassus, followed by the characteristic diapente G-D of the G-Dorian mode, mm. 37-39) suggest a moment, albeit brief, of modal co-mixture that calls attention to the up-coming exclamatory final verse.

12 The translation is partly based on Jennie L. Congleton, “The Chansons of Josquin des Prez” (Ph.D. diss., Washington University, 1981), 141. I have replaced “harms me” with “annoys me” in l. 2 and “aid me” with “help me” in l. 3. Unless otherwise indicated, the translations are my own.

294 Example 5.1. Josquin, Douleur me bat, mm. 34-40

Similar striking gestures to the same rhetorical end occur in two other chansons of the same group, Plusieurs regretz and Incessament livré suis. Here the deviations occur not as tonal excursions (as in Douleur me bat) but as disruptions of the repetitive scheme of the musical form. The text of Plusieurs regretz reads:

rhyme music ending notes of Tenor phrases 1. Plusieurs regretz qui sur la terre sont a A D 2. Et les douleurs qu’hommes et femmes ont a A D 3. N’est que plaisir envers ceulx que je porte; b B E 4. Me tourmentant de si piteusse sorte b B E 5. Que mes espris ne schavent plus qu’ilz font. a CC DD

1. The many sorrows that exist on earth 2. And the sufferings that men and women endure 3. Are nothing but pleasure compared to those I bear; 4. They torment me in such a woeful manner 5. That my spirits don’t know how to go on.13

13 Translation in Macey, “An Expressive Detail,” 407.

295 In this chanson, the disruption takes place between the two B phrases, that is, between ll.

3 and 4, as a melodic interpolation in the Bassus (Ex. 5.2, Bassus, mm. 34-36, marked with

dashed brackets).14 This interpolation features a melodic cadence on A and is particularly striking since, until this point, all voices have been repeating their preceding phrases exactly, according to the AABBCC scheme. After this deviation, the Bassus continues by repeating phrase B as was initially expected. The interruption of the repetitive scheme occurs between the two B phrases, dividing the six-part structure of the chanson into two equal halves (AAB- interpolation-BCC). Margaret Bent has pointed to the midpoint of a composition as an important locus for the occurrence of musical allusions, and this is exactly what happens with Plusieurs regretz, as we shall see momentarily.15

The deviation from the established pattern occurs over the words “me tourmentant,” which mark the beginning of the second section of the refrain and its most affective point. The participle form of the verb used (“me tourmentant” instead of “me tourmentent”) refers us back to “regretz” and “douleurs” as the main subjects of this poem. In fact, the interlocking of the two

B phrases in the Superius, the only such instance in this chanson, unveils the semantic continuity that runs through the poem and the dependence of l. 4 on the content of the preceding phrase.

The interpolated passage thus highlights the syntactic and semantic implications of the poetry and attracts attention upon itself.

The lexicon and imagery of this chanson, which focuses on the metaphorical representation of grief (“douleur”) as a tormenting force recalls the opening words of Douleur me bat. This textual connection reveals that a musical quotation is also in process (see Exx. 5.2 and 5.3, especially the bracketed phrases). The same cadential passage that forms the deviation

14 The disruption occurs at the same point in Incessament, only there it involves both the Bassus and the Contratenor. See the discussion of this chanson in Chapter III. 15 Bent, “Polyphony,” 98.

296 in Plusieurs regretz occurs in the opening phrase of the Bassus in Douleur me bat, after the introductory semitone E-F-E. Both phrases continue rhythmically and melodically the same way for the next measure (Ex. 5.2, mm. 34-38 and Ex. 5.3, mm. 6-10, respectively). Furthermore, the

Tenor of the B section of Plusieurs regretz is the same as the Tenor at the opening of Douleur me bat. Since in both chansons there is a canon at the fifth between Tenor and Quinta the similarity applies to the latter voice as well. Finally, the opening gesture of the Contratenor is identical in both chansons and the Superius sings the same melodic cadence on A. The synchronization of temporal entrances for all voices is also identical in both passages. The question now becomes whether we are dealing with a similarity imposed by conventional cadential considerations of the Phrygian mode or with an intended allusion.

Several factors suggest a purposeful intertextual relationship between the two pieces.

Howard Mayer Brown has succinctly pointed out:

Before asserting positively that such allusions were a part of the composer’s conscious intent, we should attempt to demonstrate that the relationship between the model and the imitation is significant, that is, that a prominent theme in the model appears in a conspicuous place in the imitation, that the thematic material is individual enough for it to be recognized in a new context, that the two poems are related in some way to one another, or that some other reason exists to support a claim of a significant relationship.16

Leeman Perkins provided similar criteria, though without taking the textual considerations into account. According to Perkins, in order to determine whether a deliberate reference occurs one must use the following criteria: “1) identity of pitch (or, when transposition is involved, of intervallic sequence); 2) identity of rhythm and/or notational detail; 3) the prominence of the material borrowed both in the compositional model and in the work based in some sense upon

16 Howard M. Brown, “Emulation, Competition, and Homage: Imitation and Theories of Imitation in the Renaissance,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 35, no. 1 (1982): 14.

297 it.”17 Furthermore, in his study “The Counterpoint of Allusion in Fifteenth-Century Masses”

Christopher Reynolds proposed “the length and distinctive profile of a quotation” and “the degree of a match between texts” as two of the most important factors for the identification of an allusive quotation.18

Measuring the two passages against these criteria, it is obvious that there is identity of

pitch and rhythm in the Bassus, Tenor, Quinta and Contratenor. Moreover, the passage appears

in the beginning of one chanson, that is, Douleur me bat, and in a prominent place in the other, at

the transition to the last phrase in Plusieurs regretz.19 Even more significant is that, while

Plusieurs regretz is a chanson in the Dorian mode, Josquin oriented its middle section to bear the

characteristics of the Phrygian, possibly to make the allusion to Douleur me bat more apparent.

The notes ending the six canonic Tenor phrases in Plusieurs are D, D, E, E, D, and D, reflecting the rhyme scheme, and also underlining the modal re-orientation of the chanson’s middle section

(see the scheme next to the translation above). The Phrygian character of the B phrase of

Plusieurs regretz is thus made evident by the choice of E as the cadential note of the canonic melody, as well as by its opening with the inflected semitone E-F-E (Ex. 5.2, mm. 24-26 and 33-

35). The harmonic and melodic cadence on A further reinforces this modal twist, which, for the astute listener, would make the passage even more striking and the allusion clearly audible.

In addition to the musical quotation, the two chansons are further connected in terms of their poetic texts. Both have the structure of a rondeau cinquain refrain and use the courtly vocabulary. They both carry an air of despair without, however, making clear whether the

17 Leeman L. Perkins, “The L’homme armé Masses of Busnoys and Ockeghem: A Comparison,” Journal of Musicology 3, no. 4 (1984): 381-382. 18 Reynolds, “The Counterpoint of Allusion,” 247. In the same passage, Reynolds also offers two additional criteria: the popularity of the source and the chronological proximity of the composers, both of which do not apply in this case since we are dealing with works by the same composer. 19 Reynolds offers two other examples in which an important relationship exists between the opening of one chanson and the beginning of the second part of another. Reynolds, “The Counterpoint of Allusion,” 230-231, fn. 5 and Example 2b.

298 misfortunes of love are the reason behind it. In fact, no further text survives for Douleur me bat

and in its five lines there is no direct reference to love as the reason for the desperate tone, although we should not exclude the possibility. Plusieurs regretz does survive as a complete rondeau starting with the text “Tous les regretz,” and the last stanza reveals that the sufferings of the poetic persona are due to an unrequited love.20 However, if we accept that Josquin chose to

set the lines at hand and not the entire rondeau—and the musical structure of the two chansons

affirms this supposition—the thematic similarity between Douleur and Plusieurs becomes

prominent.21 They are both about misfortunes that may or may not relate to love, and have references to madness from sadness: “tristesse m’afolle” in Douleur me bat and “mes espritz ne schavent plus qu’ils font” in Plusieurs regretz. They both use strong affective vocabulary, and one cannot deny the metaphorical similarity between the phrases “Douleur me bat” and “les douleurs . . . me tourmentant.” In fact, it is around these metaphors that the musical similarity

takes place.

These verbal reminiscences, the centrality of the idea of “douleur” as a tormenting, whipping force, and the common compositional strategy all work together to create and draw attention to the textual and musical allusions. The two pieces thus may have been composed in close chronological proximity and possibly performed in succession, with Douleur me bat first, providing its opening measures as a point of reference, and Plusieurs regretz immediately afterwards.22

20 For the complete text see Chapter III. 21 Don Michael Randel has noted that even composers of Dufay’s generation, when setting a rondeau, oriented their music primarily to the syntax and meaning of the refrain and secondarily to that of the strophes. Don M. Randel, “Dufay the Reader,” in Music and Language, Studies in the History of Music, vol. 1 (New York: Broude Brothers, 1983), 45-47. 22 This could also be a meaningful order in a modern performance of the two chansons.

299 Example 5.2. Josquin, Plusieurs regretz, mm. 31-43

300 Example 5.3. Josquin, Douleur me bat, mm. 3-15

301 If Douleur me bat served as a model for Plusieurs regretz, the latter seems to have been

related to another celebrated composition by Josquin, the motet-chanson Nymphes, nappés. This

six-voice lament for an unknown recipient incorporates a canon on the cantus firmus

“Circumdederunt me,” which is combined with a rondeau quatrain.

1. Nymphes, nappés, néridriades, driades, Nymphs of woodland, sea and stream and tree, 2. Venez plorez ma desolation. Come and weep for my grief; 3. Car je languis en telle affliction For I languish in such affliction 4. Que mes espris sont plus mort que malades. That my spirits are more dead than ill.

Circumedederunt me gemitus mortis, Encircling me are the sighs of death; Dolores inferni circumdederunt me. The sorrows of Hell encircle me.23

It is the cantus firmus text, “Circumdederunt me,” that allows us to characterize the

chanson as a lament, for the French text only indirectly implies that we are dealing with the

subject of death. Despite its short span—only four lines of poetry—the text of Nymphes, nappés

develops an emotional tension that culminates in the last poetic line “Que mes espris sont plus

mort que malades.” The verbal echo of the last line of Plusieurs regretz, “Que mes espris ne

schavent plus qu’ilz font,” invites the musical comparison of the two chansons. Examples 5.4a and 5.4b show the last line in Plusieurs regretz and Nymphes, nappés, respectively.

Example 5.4a. Josquin, Plusieurs regretz, Tenor, mm. 43-49

23 This translation is given in Macey, “An Expressive Detail,” 401 and 406. I have substituted “grief” for “sadness” in l. 2. I have highlighted the last line of the French text for the purposes of the following discussion.

302 Example 5.4b. Josquin, Nymphes, nappés, mm. 35-49

303 The Tenor, the canonic voice in Plusieurs regretz, and the Superius, Tenor, and Bassus, the

freely composed voices in Nymphes, nappés, share a stepwise falling motif for the first hemistich

over the words “que mes espris” (marked as motif x), and a descending minor sixth for the

second hemistich (marked as motif y). Furthermore, motif y is punctuated rhythmically by the presence of a dotted breve as the highest note of the descending sixth in both chansons. Although in its first appearance in the Superius of Nymphes, nappés motif y descends an octave and is, therefore, labeled as y’, the two subsequent repetitions both feature the descending minor sixth.

Textual identity for the first hemistichs, motivic identity for both hemistichs, rhythmic detail, and the positioning of the two passages in the same conspicuous place for both

chansons—their last section—all point to a case of a deliberate reference. If Plusieurs regretz

can be considered as a plaint outside the amorous sphere (since there is no direct reference to the

cause of such despair), then the relationship between the two chansons is not as distant as it may seem at first glance. A chanson on an unspecified misfortune could well be interpreted as related

to the loss of an important person, expressed in the form of a lament such as Nymphes, nappés.

The intertextual allusions, the common compositional strategies, and the poetic affinities suggest

that Douleur me bat, Plusieurs regretz, and Nymphes, nappés belong to a network of

compositions, and that Douleur me bat is the earliest chanson in the group.

304 Intertextual analysis can also bring forth a rich palette of meaningful interpretations for one of the most enigmatic of Josquin’s chansons, the five-voice Je me complains de mon amy.

This chanson has raised questions regarding the function and meaning of its puzzling final couplet, “La tricoton, la tricoton,/La belle tricotée.”24

rhyme music 1. Je me complains de mon amy I complain because of my lover, a A 2. Qui me souloit tant venir veoir Who used to come and see me b B 3. La fresche matinée. In the fresh morning time. c C’

4. Or est il prime’et s’est midi But now it’s prime and almost noon a A 5. Et si n’oy nouvelle de luy, And I have no news of him, b B 6. S’aproche la vesprée. The evening comes on. c C’’

7. La tricoton, la tricoton, La tricoton, la tricoton, d 8. La belle tricotée. La belle tricotée.25 c C

The amorous, sorrowful tone of the first two stanzas is shattered by an interpolation from the popular domain for the final two lines. Understanding of this insertion is further complicated by the word “tricoton” or the verb “tricoter” since it escapes precise definition. In his study of this chanson, Alan Curtis provided the euphemism “faire l’amour” for the verb “tricoter,”26 while the recently published Dictionaire érotique of the French Middle Ages and the

Renaissance defines “tricotage” as the “commerce amoureux.”27 Moreover, in the late sixteenth century the nouns “trichoterie” or “tricotterie” meant “cheating.”28 We cannot ascertain this usage for the period in question, but this interpretation could be particularly fitting, as we shall see momentarily.

24 For an extensive analysis of this chanson see my “Readings of Poetry—Readings of Music: Intertextuality in Josquin’s Je me complains de mon amy,” Early Music 36, no. 1(2008): 67-80. 25 I have maintained a uniform spelling of the second syllable of the words “tricotée,” “tricoton,” etc. with a “c” instead of a “qu,” which frequently appears in the sources. 26 Alan Curtis, “Josquin and ‘La belle Tricotée,’” in Essays in Musicology in Honor of Dragan Plamenac on His 70th Birthday, ed. Gustave Reese and Robert J. Snow (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1969), 3. 27 Rose M. Bidler, Dictionnaire érotique: ançien français, moyen français, Renaissance (Montreal: Éditions Ceres, 2002), 607. 28 Algirdas J. Greimas and Teresa M. Keane, Dictionnaire du moyen français: la Renaissance (Paris: Larousse, 1992), 634.

305 In his seminal study of music in the French secular theater, Brown identified the Superius

of the final line of Je me complains with the last phrase of the tune “La tricotée est par matin levée,” shown in Ex. 5.5.29 This melody forms the Tenor of an anonymous triple-texted chanson

from the early fifteenth century, which is combined with the rondeau text “Belle tenés moy la

promesse” in the Superius and the incipit “La tricotée” in the Contratenor.30 The melody and text

of “La tricotée est par matin levée” are repeated twice in order to accommodate the longer

rondeau melody.

Example 5.5. Tenor of Belle tenés moy la promesse/La tricotée est par matin levée/La tricotée (after Brown 1963)

The full text of “La tricotée est par matin levée” refers to the popular theme of the girl, in this case “la belle tricotée,” who gets up early in the morning and goes to the woods or to the garden all by herself. For the contemporary listener this was a topos with rich associations to other poems, ideas, and possibly tunes. The garden or the forest was the locus of erotic

29 Howard M. Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater, 1440-1550 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 251. 30 For a modern edition of this chanson see Howard M. Brown, ed., Theatrical Chansons of the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), no. 5.

306 endeavors, where the maid meets her lover or the knight encounters the lonely bergère. The

Tenor text reads:

La tricotée est par matin levée. The “knitter” woke up in the early morning, Sapris sa harpe, au bois s’en est allée She got her harp and went to the woods. La tricoton, la tricoton, la belle tricotée. La tricoton, la tricoton, la belle tricotée.

The Superius text, “Belle tenés moy la promesse,” is the plea of the lover to his lady to

keep her promise. In exchange, the lover promises always to be faithful:

Belle, tenés moy la promesse Beautiful one, keep the promise Que vous me feistes pieca; That you made to me a long time ago; Car jamais mon cuer ne fera Because my heart will never take on Nouvelle’amour n’autre maitresse. A new love or another lover.31

There is an inherent irony in this chanson, often encountered in the combinative chanson

repertory. The plea of the lover is combined with the text “La tricotée est par matin levée,”

which subverts the heightened, faithful tone of the rondeau text of the Superius. The interaction

of the two poems could be interpreted as revealing the lover’s inner thoughts, undermining,

therefore, the sincerity of his plea, or revealing the reason of the lover’s anxiety: that his “belle”

has already broken her promise and availed her favors to another lover. This irony is not lost on

Josquin, who combines the “tricotée” melody with a text that hints at the infidelity of the lover,

this time from a female’s perspective.

Although the direct reference to the borrowed tune is explicitly stated only at the end of

Je me complains, the musical features of the entire composition rely heavily upon it. First, the

large-scale structure of Je me complains is highly inspired by that of “La tricotée est par matin

levée.” Its Superius and Quinta unfold in a strict canon at the fourth and the phrase structure of

the canonic voices is ABC’ABC’’C, in which C represents the actual quotation of the “tricotée”

fragment (see phrase structure in Ex. 5.6, as well as next to the translation of Je me complains

31 Although the rondeau text maintains a heightened tone, the opening address, “belle,” reveals that the lady is not a noble one. For the complete text of the rondeau see Brown, Theatrical chansons, no.5.

307 above).32 The following table demonstrates the parallel motivic content of each phrase in “La tricotée est par matin levée” and Je me complains de mon amy.

Table 5.1. Motivic content of the individual phrases in “La tricotée est par matin levée” and Je me complains de mon amy (in the canonic voices)

Text “La tricotée est par matin Phrase Text Je me complains de mon amy levée” (Ex. 5.5) (Superius and Quinta) (Ex. 5.6) l.1 Stepwise descending fourth A l.1 Stepwise descending fourth (motif (motif x) x) imitated by all voices l.2 Outlines descending minor B l.2 Outlines descending minor sixth sixth (motif z descending) (motif z descending) ll.3-4 Ascending/descending minor C l.3 Ascending/descending minor thirds thirds (motif y) followed by (motif y) followed by ascending ascending minor sixth (motif z minor sixth (motif z ascending) ascending) (see also Exx. 5.7a-c below)

There is a clear one-to-one correspondence of the motivic content between the individual phrases of the “tricotée” tune and the canonic voices in Je me complains. In both the model and the derived work, this scheme is repeated twice; Je me complains then concludes with the overt reference to the borrowed material as its final statement. The free-composed voices unfold independently of this structure.

32 The Quinta drops out of the canon and continues with a sustained note through the end of the chanson before the entrance of the final quotation (Ex. 5.6, mm. 48-57).

308 Example 5.6. Josquin, Je me complains de mon amy (after Susato 154515)

309

310 311 312 313

The most obvious connection to the borrowed material occurs, however, in the last line of each stanza. Josquin derives the music for lines 3, “la fresche matinée,” and 6, “s’aproche la vesprée,” directly from the borrowed melody. It is not a coincidence that these two poetic lines have the same length and rhyme as the borrowed verse (Exx. 5.7a, 7b, and 7c show the music for lines 3, 6, and the final couplet, respectively; compare them with ex. 5.5, up-beat to m. 9-m. 12).

314 Example 5.7a. Josquin, Je me complains, mm. 19-22

Example 5.7b. Josquin, Je me complains, mm. 41-51

Example 5.7c. Josquin, Je me complains, mm. 51-57

As the music progresses through each stanza the reference to the borrowed melody becomes more prominent—see for example the repetitions over “s’aproche la vesprée” in Ex. 5.7b—only to reveal its true identity in the last lines of the chanson. This compositional strategy matches the poetic process. The borrowed material gradually infiltrates the chanson the same way the poetry gradually reveals the reason for the lady’s complaint pronounced in the first line. Thus the melody associated with the “tricotée” text is here treated as a signifier operative even when the actual text is absent. While the poem leaves us with a sense of ambiguity as to the true reason behind the complaint, the borrowed tune shatters the ambiguity with an ironic comment that

315 seals the chanson. This intricate relationship between the music, the poetry, and the borrowed

material suggests that Je me complains was fashioned entirely by Josquin, poetry and music,

since there seems to be simultaneous prosodic and musical planning. By constructing the lady’s

complaint around the main features of the “tricotée” tune, Josquin anticipates the resolution of

the emotional ambiguity and maintains the irony from beginning to end.

Je me complains de mon amy is an intriguing example of intertextuality of a poetic,

musical, and conceptual nature. The reading I propose reveals Josquin’s reliance not only on the

final brief quotation but on the full verbal and musical “text” of “la belle tricotée” and the social

and cultural overtones with which the related tune resonates. The associative meanings brought up through the word “tricotée” were certainly intentional and recognizable. Through the interaction of the two discourses, the complaint of the lover and the “tricotée” topos, Josquin generated an ironic meaning embodied in the compositional strategy that he put into effect.

316 While Je me complains de mon amy explicitly spells out its intertextuality for its

audience, there are instances when the reference to another work or discourse is more implicit

and requires a greater level of “intertextual competence” in order for it to be recognized. The

unusual scalar passages in the beginning of the six-voice Pour souhaitter prompted Helmuth

Osthoff to express skepticism about the authenticity of this chanson.33 Indeed, if we regard them

as technical features per se, they are largely incompatible with Josquin’s writing in any other

multi-voice chanson. They are extensive, spanning the range of an octave, and are engaged in

imitation among three of the voice parts, Superius, Contratenor, and Quinta. Bearing in mind,

however, that Pour souhaitter is a poem that expresses a generalized, public view about what is

most desirable in life can put these scalar passages into perspective. The optimistic quatrain

reads as follows:

1. Pour souhaitter ie ne demande mieulx To wish for I demand nothing more 2. Qu’avoir santé et vivre longuement; Than having good health and to live a long life; 3. Tousiours ioyeulx et des biens largement, Always happy and with great wealth, 4. Et en la fin le royaulme des cieulx. And in the end the kingdom of heaven.

The fact that the scalar passages occur over the opening words of the poem, “Pour souhaitter,”

only to be abandoned altogether for the rest of the chanson, guides us towards an interpretation

that is text-related and focuses on this particular verbal moment. Pour souhaitter expresses

wishful thinking and could be connected to musical settings in which similar optimistic

expressions are presented. In her study “Servants, Mistresses and the Fortunes of Their

Families,” Higgins has demonstrated that Dufay’s Le serviteur hault guerdoné is related to the

anonymous Le serviteur infortuné, which expresses an antithetical emotion, through “a striking intertext that concerns the role of “fortune” in determining the fate of the lover in the two

33 Helmuth Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2 vols. (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1962-1965), 2:225-226.

317 poems.”34 Higgins suggests that other settings with seemingly unrelated texts exhibit musical correspondences with the above two chansons, correspondences that derive their meaning through contemporary notions of the importance of fortuna (fate) in life. As fortuna is considered responsible for both happy and unhappy situations, it is reasonable to speculate that settings expressing desire for “fortunate” outcomes, such as Pour souhaitter, might be equally well related to the same topos.

Edward Lowinsky has summarized the importance that Goddess Fortuna holds in the thought of the late medieval period.35 More specifically, he traced the ways the notion of fortuna

finds expression in musical works c. 1500, with particular emphasis on Josquin’s Fortuna dun

gran tempo. Lowinsky provides transcriptions of many such works, as well as a reconstructed

version of what appears to be a cantus prius factus for the text Fortuna dun gran tempo.36 This monophonic tune features an opening descending pentachord, present in all settings that

Lowinsky discusses. An important feature of these settings is the way they represent through various musical means the instability that characterizes the doings of the Goddess Fortuna.

Among such devices we find the changing of tonality effected by the mixing of the three hexachords, as well as upward and downward melodic movement that symbolizes the turning of fortune’s wheel, capable of changing situations from high to low and vice versa. What Lowinsky does not discuss, however, is that aside from the descending pentachord all of the musical settings he examines involve the presence of a rapidly ascending octave that usually follows the characteristic descending fifth. Very often the ascending octave is followed by a gesture in a

34 Higgins, “Servants, Mistresses and the Fortunes of Their Families,” 350. 35 Edward E. Lowinsky, “The Goddess Fortuna in Music with a Special Study of Josquin’s Fortuna dun gran tempo,” Musical Quarterly 29, no. 1 (1943): 45-77. 36 Helen Hewitt reconstructed the monophonic tune in her edition of the Odhecaton. Helen Hewitt, ed., Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1942; repr. New York: Da Capo Press, 1978), 78. Lowinsky reproduced it in “The Goddess,” 54.

318 counterbalancing motion, a descending octave or a descending fifth, which is not necessarily scalar (Exx. 5.8a-c, marked with dashed brackets). The use of the ascending octave seems to have been common stock in settings related to the fortuna topos, since it appears also in the chansons discussed by Higgins in the above-mentioned study.37

Example 5.8a. Josquin, Fortuna dun gran tempo, mm. 1-10

37 Higgins, “Servants, Mistresses and the Fortunes of Their Families,” 352-353. The settings for which Higgins points out the octave similarity are the anonymous Le serviteur infortuné and Vincenet’s Fortune par ta cruaulté, both much earlier works than Pour souhaitter.

319 Example 5.8b. De Vigne, Franc coeur qu'as tu/Fortuna dun gran tempo, mm. 10-14

Example 5.8c. Anon., Le serviteur infortuné, mm. 32-34

The scalar passages in the beginning of Pour souhaitter are closely related to the octave passages in all of the above settings. The Contratenor, Quinta, and Superius (Ex. 5.9, mm. 3-4, 5-

6, and 7-8, respectively) sing an ascending octave that is constructed by means of two interlocking ascending fifths (A-E, D-A), possibly a pictorial representation of the wheel’s turning motion.38 This gesture provides a link to the Fortuna tradition despite the fact that the

38 The same gesture occurs in Josquin’s three-voice Fortuna dun gran tempo, Tenor, mm. 30-33. The interlocking fifths there are C-G, F-C. Josquin des Prez, The Collected Works of Josquin des Prez, vol. 27, Secular

320 characteristic descending pentachord of the Fortuna melody is altogether absent from this

chanson. The fact that the ascending octave is not an isolated melodic gesture but it is shared by

three voices in imitation suggests that Josquin meant to attract attention to this particular moment

in order to underline the allusion. In the context of this interpretation, the descending melody of the Superius over the word “demande,” in m. 5, acquires new meaning: it represent the poetic persona’s humility and weakness in front of the powerful Goddess. It recalls the catabasis gesture in Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer, discussed in Chapter IV.

The opening canonic motif, imitated by all voices except for the Contratenor, provides further indication of the chanson’s association with the fortuna topos. It features a semi-circular ascending/descending gesture that could represent the fortune’s wheel as well (see the bracketed motifs in Ex. 5.9). Warren Kirkendale has shown that this half-circular figure, known as semicirculus, is often encountered in musical works related to circle symbolism.39 The fact that

Josquin used only the ascending motion of the circle might be another indication of the expression of wishful thinking (marked also by the ascending octaves), exorcizing, in a sense,

the descending blows of Fortuna.

With the above analysis I have interpreted what appears to be an anomalous or idiomatic

technical device as a subtle intertextual reference to other fortuna representations in music.

Although the word “fortuna” is not explicitly mentioned in the poetic text, the nature of the poem

may have prompted the composer to associate its content with the fortuna symbolism, through the ascending scalar octaves and the semi-closed nature of the opening motif, thus investing

Pour souhaitter with an additional layer of meaning.

Works for Three Voices, ed. Willem Elders, Jaap van Benthem, and Howard M. Brown (Utrecht: Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1987), no.12. 39 Warren Kirkendale, “Circulatio-tradition, Maria Lactans, and Josquin as Musical Orator,” Acta Musicologica 56 (1984): 89. Kirkendale also points out the ascending/descending octave in Josquin’s Fortuna dun gran tempo, and explains its erratic rhythm as a pictorial representation of Fortuna’s instability. Ibid., 83-84.

321 Example 5.9. Josquin, Pour souhaitter, mm. 1-9

322 Different facets of intertextuality emerge from exploring settings of poems originally

written as envoy and responce. The practice of envoy and responce had enjoyed a long tradition

in poetic circles but the extent and nature of its application in music has not yet been fully

explored.40 In prosody, a response most often uses the incipit of the model, duplicates the rhyme

scheme, and usually reverses the mood of the envoy. In Josquin’s multi-voice chanson output

two such pairs of settings exist: Vous l’arez, s’il vous plaist/Vous ne l’aurez pas and N’esse pas

ung grant desplaisir/Si vous n’avez aultre desir.

In Vous l’arez, s’il vous plaist/Vous ne l’aurez pas, the poetic reference is made obvious

in the incipits of their respective texts but no one, to my knowledge, has so far pointed out

whether a musical relationship connects them beyond the realm of poetic correspondence. For

both pieces the earliest source is Susato’s 1545 edition devoted to Josquin, where the two

chansons curiously are not placed in proximity but widely apart from each other: Vous ne l’aurez

is the second piece, while Vous l’arez the thirteenth.41

The two poems differ structurally, one being a rondeau cinquain the other a rondeau

quatrain refrain, but they are nevertheless thematically related. Vous l’arez is the typical plaint of

the lover requesting his lady’s favor, while Vous ne l’aurez is the lady’s denial of the plea:

music 1. Vous l’arez, s’il vous plaist, ma dame You will have them, if it pleases you, my lady A 2. Mon cueur, mon corps, mon bien, mon ame. My heart, my body, my wealth, my soul. B 3. Vous l’arez à vostre habandon You will have them at your will A’ 4. S’il vous plaist me faire le don If you deign to give me the gift C 5. De ce qui est plus doulx que basme. Of what is sweeter than balm. DD’

40 Paula Higgins states that “ . . . the musical replique-response pairs . . . became especially popular in the mid-sixteenth century.” Paula M. Higgins, “Antoine Busnois and Musical Culture in Late-Fifteenth-Century France and Burgundy” (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1987), 146. 41 Le septiesme livre contenant vingt & quatre chansons a cincq et a six parties (Antwerp: Tylman Susato, 1545) [RISM 154515]. However, in the alphabetical Table of Contents the two chansons are adjacent.

323 1. Vous ne l’aurez pas si ie puis You will not have it if I can [help it] A 2. Ce que m’avez requis d’avoir. What you have requested of me. B 3. Et eussies vous austant d’avoir Even if you had as much wealth C 4. Qu’il en porroit dedens ung puis. That could fit inside a well.42 D

Since the thematic intertextual connection is obvious, the two chansons form a particularly

inviting pair of works in which to seek deliberate musical references.

Both chansons are six-voice works with a canon between the Tenor and Sexta parts. Vous l’arez employs a canon at the fourth while Vous ne l’aurez a canon at the fifth. The reversal of the canonic interval in Vous ne l’aurez possibly reflects the reversal of tone articulated in the denial of the plea. In both works the canonic voices are widely separated in temporal distance so there is no overlapping between them. This feature helps to maintain a steady pace of delivery and at the same time regulates the musical texture. Osthoff has been reluctant to accept the two chansons as Josquin’s, mainly because neither the canonic melodies nor their through-composed structures reflect in any way the repetitions in the rhyme scheme. He speculated that they were possibly the efforts of some student or admirer of Josquin’s music.43 Accepting Osthoff’s justification, however, would be accepting a view that requires a composer, any composer, to read all of his texts in the same way. Although the rhyme scheme and the syntactical form of the poem are very often the deciding factors for fashioning the canonic melody or the general formal layout of a piece, they are by no means the only factors available. Accepting these as the main criteria for shaping musical works would be denying their composers different and innovative ways of reading their texts.

Within the through-composed form of Vous l’arez, the canonic melodies unfold with the phrase structure ABA’CDD’, the last phrase being a transposition a tone lower of musical phrase

D (see also the structure next to the translation above). Undoubtedly, the almost through-

42 Both translations are partly based on Congleton, “The Chansons of Josquin des Prez,” 244. 43 Osthoff, Josquin, 2:223-225.

324 composed nature of the canonic melody does not reflect the aabba rhyme of the poetry. In fact, it works against it, since a return to phrase A for l. 3 of the poetry clashes with the change to the b- rhyme that occurs at the same line. If we look closely enough, however, we can find an explanation for this “deviation” in the wording of the poem, instead of its rhyming features. Both lines 1 and 3 begin with the same words, “Vous l’arez,” and the choice of the same melody for the same direct address to the lady seems well justified (Example 5.10a). Josquin observes the anaphora in the poetry and responds with a similar musical gesture.

Example 5.10a. Josquin, Vous l'arez, Tenor, ll. 1 and 3

The canonic melody of Vous ne l’aurez is a through-composed ABCD structure, in which the canonic entrances rarely overlap, thus maintaining a thin three-voice texture for almost the entire chanson. The energetic rhythmic motifs result in a fast-paced chanson that lacks the nobility of Vous l’arez, revealing instead the cynical face of the cruel lady. Apart from the rhythmic differentiation, the music of Vous ne l’aurez is otherwise in direct correspondence with the most important features of Vous l’arez. The opening descending-ascending fifth motif of

Vous l’arez also characterizes the opening of Vous ne l’aurez, introducing an audible and semantic link for the words “arez/aurez” (Exx. 5.10b and 5.11, motif x). The opening phrase of the canonic voices, Tenor and Sexta, outlines a descending fourth in both chansons. In fact, the

325 Sexta of Vous l’arez provides the Tenor of Vous ne l’aurez, with only slight changes to reflect the different rhythmic pace of the first line’s syllables (Exx. 5.10b and 5.11, motif y).44 In addition, for the comes of each canon, the opening note is the confinal of each chanson’s respective mode (G-Dorian for Vous l’arez and D-Dorian for Vous ne l’aurez). In combination with the descending-ascending fifth motif, the opening of the canonic melody immediately highlights the characteristic diapente of each mode (Exx. 5.10b, Tenor, mm. 1-5 and 5.11, Tenor, mm. 6-9). Furthermore, the opening phrase of the Quinta pars in both chansons spans a descending octave, beginning and ending with the confinal (mm. 1-5 in Exx. 5.10b and 5.11).

The extensive similarities between the opening phrases of the two chansons reflect the obvious verbal correspondence of their first lines, and reveal the indebtedness of the response to the characteristic features of the envoy.

44 Both poems are octasyllables but the line “Vous l’arez, s’il vous plaist, madame” has a different rhythmic distribution of syllables than “Vous ne l’aurez pas si ie puis” (3+3+2 vs. 5+3, respectively).

326 Example 5.10b. Josquin, Vous l'arez, mm. 1-9

327 Example 5.11. Josquin, Vous ne l'aurez pas

328

329 330 331

The main narrative that runs through Vous l’arez and Vous ne l’aurez is the request and denial of the “don” (gift), the ultimate favor granted by the lady. When it comes to the description of the nature of the lady’s favors, both texts refer to them with the vague word “ce,” a common, non-explicit way to refer to the sexual act or some kind of sexual intimacy in the literature of the time.45 In Vous l’arez, the reference to the favor forms the last line of the refrain,

“De ce qui est plus doulz que basme,” and receives musical attention through extensive

repetition.46 For this verse the non-canonic voices engage in a reiteration of the words “de ce qui

est” set to three repeated semibreves followed by a breve in an ascending motion (Ex. 5.12, motif

z). This rhythmic figure, although very conventional in the music of the period, makes its first

45 Bidler, Dictionnaire érotique, 110-111. 46 Although this line appears to be a conventional courtly expression for the much-desired favor, the only other place where I have encountered such reference is in the long narrative poem written by René of Anjou, The Book of the Love-Smitten Heart (Le livre du cuers d’amours espris), ed. and trans. Stephanie Viereck Gibbs and Kathryn Karczewska (New York: Routledge, 2001), p. 226, section 258, verse 9. There, it appears with the wording “De beau parler l’oygnant, qui est plus doulx que basme.” Since Josquin is known to have served at the court of Good King René before the latter’s death in 1480, this poetic coincidence provides an intriguing case for speculating about the provenance and chronology of this chanson.

332 appearance in this piece at exactly this point, and it is apparently a diminution of the first four

notes of the canonic melody over the same phrase (see Ex. 5.12, Tenor, mm. 33-35).

In the relevant place in Vous ne l’aurez, that is, at the reference to the requested favor—

“ce que m’avez requis d’avoir”—the Superius, Contratenor and Quinta parts introduce the same

motif, which permeates the texture until the end of the chanson, serving almost as an obsessive

idée fixe, presented in endless combinations (Ex. 5.11, mm. 13ff.). The first appearance of this motif in Vous ne l’aurez is further punctuated by a cadence on G, which allows the Bassus to contribute to this passage with the same melodic gesture as in Vous l’arez (compare the Bassus,

Ex. 5.12, mm. 34-35 to 5.11, mm. 13-14). This gesture highlights the ascending fifth of both chansons’ opening phrases and, at the same time, reinforces the motivic connection between the

two passages. At this point of poetic juncture, the Superius, Contratenor, and Bassus share not

only their rhythmic but also their melodic content, making the case of deliberate reference even

stronger (see the dashed brackets in Exx. 5.11 and 5.12).

333 Example 5.12. Josquin, Vous l'arez, mm. 33-43

334 Regardless of the doubts raised about their authorship, the two pieces presented here reveal that the poetic practice of model and responce also found expression into the world of

music. Despite the fact that in Susato’s anthology the two chansons do not appear in consecutive

or some other meaningful order, obscuring, therefore, their interconnection, we can trace the

musical relationship through the textual reference and knowledge of the poetic practice. On one

hand, the chansons’ placements in the 1545 print may indicate that the relationship between the

two was lost by that time, and that they were probably copied from different exemplars. On the

other hand, it is documented that the practice of model and responce was well-known to and

favored by Susato. Cutler Silliman and Kristine Forney have demonstrated that Susato was a

pioneer in promoting this kind of repertory in his double capacity as a publisher and a

composer.47 According to Forney, from 1543 to 1552 Susato’s printing company published

seventy-eight such chansons, twenty-nine of which Susato composed himself. In fact, in Le

septiesme livre, Susato designated Jean Le Brung’s six-voice Si vous n’avez aultre desir as a

“responce” and placed it immediately following Josquin’s five-voice N’esse pas ung grant

desplaisir.48 For this second pair of chansons, therefore, we are dealing with the rare case in

which contemporary testimony points to a possible interrelationship between two musical works.

Although the incipits of the two poems do not immediately reveal their relationship, a

study of the features of the individual lines shows that indeed the poem set by Le Brung

corresponds line by line to N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir.

47 Cutler A. Silliman, “‘Response’ and ‘Replicque’ in Chansons Published by Tylman Susato, 1543-1550,” Revue de Musicologie 16 (1962): 30-42; Kristine K. Forney, “New Insights into the Career and Musical Contributions of Tielman Susato,” in Tielman Susato and the Music of His Time: Print Culture, Compositional Technique and Instrumental Music in the Renaissance, ed. Keith Polk (Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon, 2005), 1-44. 48 Biographical information for Jean Le Brung, a younger contemporary of Josquin, is scant. He was possibly a bass singer in the chapel of Louis XII for some time before 1510. Interestingly, three multi-voice chansons are attributed to Le Brung in the sources, making him one of the most important exponents of this repertory, following Pierre de La Rue and Jean Mouton. The three chansons are: D’ung aultre aymer/Cela sans plus, N’avés point veu mal assenée (also attributed to Josquin), and Si vous n’avez aultre desir. His music will be explored in Chapter VII.

335 1. N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir Isn’t it a great displeasure 2. Quant je n’ose pour mon plaisir, When I dare not—for my delight, 3. Pour mon bien et pour ma santé, For my well-being, and for my health— 4. Faire du mien ma volenté Do as I wish with my own 5. Et si n’ay point d’aultre desir? And that I have no other desire?49

1. Si vous n’avez aultre desir, If you do not have any other desire, 2. Sans en avoir nul desplaisir, Without having any displeasure, 2. Puisqu’en avez la volunté Because you do have the will 4. Et que c’est pour vostre santé, And since it is for your health, 5. Faire en povez vostre plaisir. You should do what pleases you.

Careful examination of the two poems reveals not only the rhyming similarity (both

aabba stanzas with the same rhyme) but that the rhyming words of the response are identical to

the rhyming words of N’esse pas, only in a different order (see the underlined words). By

changing the order of the model’s words, the author of the response alters their semantic

potential and reverses the tone of its content. Thus the insecure, pessimistic tone of N’esse pas, uttered in the form of a fragile, rhetorical question is answered with an affirmative poem that uses the imperative voice in an optimistic, reassuring, and inciting way: “If you have no other desire . . . You should do what pleases you.” Moreover, Le Brung responded to Josquin’s N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir not only on the level of prosody, but also on that of compositional

strategy and musical detail.

The strong prosodic features of N’esse pas definitely shaped the structural layout of the

polyphony. Lawrence Bernstein has noted how Josquin observes the enjambment that links the

second to the fourth poetic line in N’esse pas by sequentially replicating the musical phrase for l.

3 in phrase four, transposing phrase three a third lower (Ex. 5.13, mm. 20-25 and 25-30).50

Although a cadence on A at the end of l. 3 (m. 25) seems to run contrary to the syntactical

continuity of the poetry, the sequential treatment “corrects” this seeming anomaly in a very

49 Translation in Lawrence F. Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” in The Josquin Companion, ed. Richard Sherr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 418. 50 Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 420-421.

336 subtle way. This interpretation satisfactorily justifies the compositional structure of the chanson, although it does not explain the fact that the canonic voices continue the sequence for the final line of the poem, “Et si n’ay point d’autre desir,” while all the other voices have broken away from the pattern once the enjambment is complete (Ex. 5.13, Tenor and Quinta, mm. 30-35). It is obvious, nevertheless, that the meaning of the stanza is complete only once the final line is uttered. The continuation of the sequence by the canonic voices reflects the on-going train of thought in the poetry.

Example 5.13. Josquin, N'esse pas ung grant desplaisir

337

338

339

340

341 In support of Bernstein’s interpretation I would add that the continuous syntactical flow

of the poem provides the perfect opportunity for Josquin to exercise his penchant for economy of

material. The entire chanson is basically constructed of two musical phrases, A and B, presented

at the opening of the work and involving the entire polyphonic fabric. Phrase A presents the opening line of the poetry and phrase B its repetition. The clear articulation of the first poetic line as two distinct musical phrases, A and B, provides all the necessary motivic material for the unfolding of the chanson as sequential transpositions of phrase B, which in turn reflect the

“unremitting syntactic current of this poem.”51 The last line returns to a variation of phrase A to

close the chanson (phrase A’). Table 5.2a, second column, maps out the phrase structure of the

canon in Susato’s edition of N’esse pas.

51 Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” 420.

342 Table 5.2a. Comparison of the Susato 154515 phrase structure of the canonic melodies in Josquin’s N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir with Le Brung’s Si vous n’avez aultre desir

Josquin Le Brung

1. N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir A 1. Si vous n’avez aultre desir, A

1. N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir B

2. Quant je n’ose pour mon plaisir, A → 2. Sans en avoir nul desplaisir, A’ = A a tone lower 3. Pour mon bien et pour ma santé, B (medial cadence) → 3. Puisqu’en avez la volunté B

4. Faire du mien ma volenté B’ = B a third lower → 4. Et que c’est pour vostre santé, B’ = B a fourth higher

5. Et si n’ay point d’aultre desir? B’’= B’ a third lower → 5. Faire en povez vostre plaisir. B’’ = retrograde of B’

5. Et si n’ay point d’aultre desir? A’ = simplified version of A 5. Faire en povez vostre plaisir. B’’’ = retrograde of B

Table 5.2b. Comparison of the Mellange15722 phrase structure of the canonic melodies in Josquin’s N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir with Le Brung’s Si vous n’avez aultre desir

Josquin Le Brung

1. N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir A 1. Si vous n’avez aultre desir, A

2. Quant je n’ose pour mon plaisir, B 2. Sans en avoir nul desplaisir, A’ = A a tone lower

3. Pour mon bien et pour ma santé, A 3. Puisqu’en avez la volunté B

4. Faire du mien ma volenté B (medial cadence) 4. Et que c’est pour vostre santé, B’ = B a fourth higher

4. Faire du mien ma volenté B’ = B a third lower

5. Et si n’ay point d’aultre desir? B’’= B’ a third lower 5. Faire en povez vostre plaisir. B’’ = retrograde of B’

5. Et si n’ay point d’aultre desir? A’ = simplified version of A 5. Faire en povez vostre plaisir. B’’’ = retrograde of B

343 Repetition of an entire poetic line in the canonic voices, like the one at the opening of

N’esse pas, is an unusual feature in Josquin’s multi-voice chansons not based on pre-existent material. In this repertory, Josquin’s canons generally proceed straightforward without internal

text repetition (except for the final section) unless some strong prosodic feature demands such

treatment, a pre-requisite that the first line of N’esse pas certainly does not fulfill.52 It is possible

that Susato misread his source, as Jaap van Benthem kindly mentioned to me.53 In fact, the much

later edition of N’esse pas in the 1572 Mellange de chansons provides evidence to support such a

hypothesis.54 In this edition, the music proceeds without musical repetition of the first poetic line

and assigns the repetition instead to l. 4 of the poetry (Table 5.2b, first column, maps out the text

structure according to the 1572 edition; Ex. 5.14 provides the text underlay as it appears in both

Susato and the Mellange). The Mellange text underlay solves many of the problems that result

from Susato’s edition. First, it is more consistent with Josquin’s treatment of repetition in his

canonic melodies. Semantically, l. 4 is a more likely candidate to receive emphasis through

repetition than l. 1. Second, the Mellange reading is more faithful to the syntactical implications

of the poetry. The medial cadence falls at the end of l. 4, that is, at the end of the first syntactic

unit of the stanza, thus eliminating the discrepancy between cadential closure and poetic

structure pointed out by Bernstein.

52 See Chapter III. 53 An expanded version of this analysis was presented at the Medieval and Renaissance Music Conference, Vienna, 10 August 2007, and at the annual meeting of the American Musicological Society 2007, Quebec City, 1 November 2007 with the title “Le Brung’s Six-Voice Si vous n’avez aultre desir: A Musical ‘Response’ to a Poetic Practice.” Jaap van Benthem’s comment was offered at the Vienna meeting 54 Mellange de chansons tant des vieux autheurs que des modernes, a cinq, six, sept, et huict parties (Paris: Le Roy & Ballard, 1572) [RISM 15722].

344 Example 5.14. Phrase structure of canon in N'esse pas ung grant desplaisir, according to Susato (S) and the Mellange (M)

345 Example 5.15. Phrase structure of canon in Si vous n'avez aultre desir

346 Le Brung’s six-voice setting, aside from the thematic and prosodic similarities mentioned above, appears at first glance to have no musical relationship to the five-voice chanson that

prompted its reply. However, both chansons incorporate a canon at the unison and the opening of

the canon in Le Brung’s song could be indebted rhythmically to the opening of Josquin’s canonic

melody (see for example the opening gesture in Exx. 5.14 and 5.15). In fact, Le Brung maintains

the same rhythmic pattern for every musical phrase but the final one. Closer examination of Le

Brung’s structural melody reveals other important similarities.

First, just as Le Brung’s text picks up the final line of N’esse pas to form its opening address, the last melodic phrase of the model appears to have inspired the musical response

(compare Ex. 5.14, mm. 35-38 to Ex. 5.15, mm 4-8). It is immediately apparent that, although the melodic contour is somewhat different, both phrases open on D and conclude with motif x, featuring a descending third followed by a descending whole step over the notes D-B-A, which coincide with the words “autre desir” in both chansons.

Second, Le Brung also responds to Josquin’s economy of means by likewise relying on transposition for his own setting. The musical phrase that corresponds to l. 2, marked A’, is a sequential replication a whole step lower of the first phrase, A. Later on, the music for l. 4, marked B’, unfolds as a transposition a fourth higher of the previous phrase, marked B. The melody for l. 5 and its repetition (mm. 32-42 in Example 5.15) is a retrograde of the two previous phrases B’ and B, respectively (see also the last column in Tables 5.2a and 5.2b)

The grouping of phrase one with two and three with four through transposition of their respective melodies could, of course, simply be reflecting the rhyming of the text (the aabb structure). But it is possible to interpret Le Brung’s strategy in a different way, one that sheds further light in the grouping of the two chansons in Susatos’ edition.

347 By forging a canonic melody that relies heavily on sequential repetition, Le Brung responds to Josquin’s reliance on sequence for his own setting. Le Brung, too, constructs the entire chanson out of two melodic phrases, A and B, from which he generates the subsequent melodic material by transposition and retrograde motion. The retrograde treatment occurs exactly when the text reads “Faire en povez vostre plaisir” (You should do what pleases you), which is the final statement and crux of Le Brung’s text. It represents in musical terms the reversal of thought and tone that characterizes the response, thus subverting, totally and conclusively, the hesitating and pessimistic tone of Josquin’s setting.

It is in cases such as the ones under consideration here that the concept of intertextuality reveals its true potential. It gives us fresh ways to look at the music and new glimpses into the many possible ways that contemporary composers might have read and interpreted their texts. It allows us to move within a network of concepts, traditions, and ideas, and create meaningful links between artifacts that might otherwise seem loosely related. That these links sometimes seem far-fetched or carefully disguised should not surprise us. The art of concealment was a central mode of the element of play in contemporary society and poets and composers took pride in displaying their mastery of this technique. Closing our eyes to these multi-faceted relationships would impoverish our understanding not only of Josquin’s music but that of a whole era, and would deprive us from the very same intellectual satisfaction that contemporary musicians and audiences seemed to cherish so much: the art of decoding.

348

CHAPTER VI

PIERRE DE LA RUE’S MULTI-VOICE CHANSONS

Pierre de La Rue is the most important composer of multi-voice chansons after Josquin.

Unlike the more widespread dissemination of Josquin’s music, La Rue’s output in this genre is mainly preserved in the manuscripts of the Habsburg-Burgundian court, especially BrusBR 228 and VienNB Mus. 18746.1 Also unlike Josquin’s music, which is preserved primarily in posthumous sources, the majority of the multi-voice chansons related to La Rue derive from contemporary sources that were compiled within the composer’s orbit of activity. Tables 6.1 and

6.2 present the multi-voice chansons that are possibly penned by La Rue. Table 6.1 shows the four chansons that are attributed to La Rue in contemporary sources and Table 6.2 the chansons that are only conjecturally attributed to La Rue.2

1 Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 228; Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Musiksammlung, MS Mus. 18746 (olim A.N.35.H.14). 2 See Honey Meconi, “La Rue, Pierre de,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, vol. 14 (London: Macmillan, 2001), 287-288.

349 Table 6.1. Multi-voice chansons attributed to Pierre de La Rue in contemporary sourcesa

Title Earliest Cantus prius Canon Poetic Poetic subject Musical source factus structure structure Cent mille VatP 1982 None Q/B @ 4 Rondeau Male/Female Through- regretz (5) (c. 1513-23) identified cinquain composed, refrain, ABCCDE for decasyllable the 5 lines of text D’ung aultre VienNB Mus. Ockeghem’s No Rondeau Female Through- aymer (5) 18746 (1523), T transposed quatrain, composed, unicum down a fourth decasyllable ABCD

Fors VienNB Mus. Ockeghem’s Q/B @ 5 Rondeau Female Rondeau seullement (5) 18746 (1523), S cinquain, unicum decasyllable

Incessament VatP 1980-1 None Q/B @ 4 Rondeau Female AA’BCDD’ for mon povre (c. 1518-23) identified cinquain, the 5 lines of cueur (5) decasyllable text

Table 6.2. Multi-voice chansons conjecturally attributed to Pierre de La Rue

Title Earliest Cantus prius Canon Poetic structure Poetic subject Musical source factus structure Adieu VienNB Mus. None identified Q/B @ 4 No text survives N/A since no ABCA’ comment (5) 18746 (1523), text survives unicum Cueurs BrusBR 228 Dies illa in Q No Rondeau Public voice Rondeau desolez/Dies (1508-1516), cinquain, illa (5) unicum enneasyllable Deuil et ennuy BrusBR 228 None identified T/Q @ 5 Rondeau Male/Female Through- (5) (1508-1516) cinquain, composed, decasyllable ABCDEE’ Il fault morir RegBC120 T of Compère’s No No text survives N/A since no Through- (6) (c. 1518-19), Tant ay text survives composed unicum d’ennuy/O vos omnes Je n’ay regretz VienNB Mus. None identified T/B @ 5 No text survives N/A since no ABCDB (5) 18746 (1523), text survives unicum Je ne dis mot BrusBR 228 None identified 3 double Rondeau Male/Female ABCA’ (6) (1508-16), canons quatrain refrain, unicum @ 4 decasyllable Quant il BrusBR 228 None identified T/Q @ 5 Rondeau Public voice Through- advient (5) (1508-16), quatrain refrain, composed, unicum octasyllable ABCD Saillés avant VatV 11953 None identified Q/B @ 4 No text survives N/A since no Through- (5) (c. 1515-16) text survives composed ABCDE a For full manuscript citations see Appendix 2.

350 As the two tables demonstrate, La Rue mainly favored five-part writing. Only two chansons for six voices survive: Je ne dis mot and Il fault morir, both only conjecturally attributed to La Rue.3

The same is true for La Rue’s masses and motets; only one mass and two motets for six voices survive.4

The only multi-voice chansons attributed to La Rue in court manuscripts are D’ung aultre aymer and Fors seullement (both in VienNB Mus. 18746). In addition, Cent mille regretz and

Fors seullement are assigned a place of distinction in the same manuscript, representing its opening and closing pair. With the exception of Incessament mon povre cueur, which enjoyed a wide dissemination throughout the sixteenth century, the majority of the chansons are unica

(eight of the twelve).5 Deuil et ennuy and Saillés avant are preserved in two sources each

(VienNB Mus. 18746 and BrusBR 228 and VienNB Mus. 18746 and VatV 11953, respectively), while Cent mille regretz survives in three (VatP 1982, VienNB Mus.18746, and Attaingnant’s

Trente sixiesme livre).6

3 Meconi doubts the authenticity of Il fault morir on stylistic grounds. Meconi, “La Rue,” 288. Its rhetorical analysis is not possible due to the lack of text. The same applies to the other textless chansons of Table 6.2. 4 The six-part motets are Ave sanctissima Maria (based on three two-voice canons like Je ne dis mot) and Pater de coelis deus. The six-voice mass is Missa “Ave sanctissima Maria” and is based on the homonymous motet (which is only conjecturally attributed to La Rue). 5 Incessament mon povre cueur survives in four manuscript and four printed sources. See Lawrence F. Bernstein, “Chansons Attributed to Both Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue: A Problem in Establishing Authenticity,” in Proceedings of the International Josquin Symposium Utrecht 1986, ed. Willem Elders (Utrecht: Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1991), 125. The chanson was frequently arranged and transcribed throughout the sixteenth century. J. Evan Kreider traced its various appearances in his “Pierre de la Rue’s Incessament and Its Musical Descendents,” in From Ciconia to Sweelinck: Donum natalicium Willem Elders, ed. Albert Clement and Eric Jas (Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1994), 167-178. 6 Trente sixiesme livre contenant trente chansons tres musicales (Paris: Pierre Attaingnant, 1549) [RISM J681]. For a chronological arrangement of La Rue’s chansons see Honey Meconi, Pierre de la Rue and Musical Life at the Habsburg-Burgundian Court (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 136-137. For source distribution of his secular music see Honey Meconi, “Style and Authenticity in the Secular Music of Pierre de la Rue” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1986), 153-200.

351 The four chansons of Table 6.1 comprise a foundation of securely attributed

compositions against which the rest of the multi-voice chansons of Table 6.2 can be compared.7

The following discussion will assess the musico-rhetorical resources of this repertory against the background of musical rhetoric in Josquin’s chansons, described in chapters III, IV, and V. As

Table 6.1 shows, the four securely attributed chansons, Cent mille regretz, D’ung aultre aymer,

Incessament mon povre cueur, and Fors seullement, display a variety of compositional structural techniques. Two involve a strict canon at the fourth (Cent mille regretz and Incessament), one is built on a cantus prius factus (D’ung aultre aymer), and the fourth (Fors seullement) is based both on a canon and a cantus prius factus. In all three canonic chansons the canons involve the two lowest voices. Furthermore, Fors seullement distinguishes itself as unique among the genre as its simultaneous use of a canon and a cantus prius factus does not generate a six-voice texture despite the fact that the pre-existent melody is not incorporated in the canonic pair. The only other instance of fusing both structural devices in one chanson—within the context of the multi- voice chanson repertory as a whole—is Josquin’s Nymphes, nappés/Circumdederunt me.

However, in this chanson Josquin incorporates the cantus prius factus in the canonic pair and thus generates a six-voice texture out of five voices.

In an attempt to assess the stylistic profile of La Rue’s multi-voice chansons with the purpose of providing criteria to establish the authenticity of the chansons in Table 6.2, Lawrence

Bernstein has identified the following distinctive compositional processes in the attributed works

(that is, the four chansons of Table 6.1). First, whenever there is a canon involved, La Rue

7 Cent mille regretz and Incessament mon povre cueur were incorrectly attributed to Josquin in Attaingnant’s Trente sixiesme livre. They were subsequently included in Smijers’s edition of Josquin’s works. Both the Livre de meslanges, contenant six vingtz chansons (Paris: Le Roy & Ballard, 1560) [not in RISM] and the Mellange de chansons tant des vieux autheurs que des modernes (Paris: Le Roy & Ballard, 1572) [RISM 15722] maintained the attribution to La Rue. For a discussion of the literature regarding the re-attribution of the two chansons to La Rue see Bernstein, “Chansons Attributed to Both Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue,” 125-126, 131-134.

352 assigns it to the two lowest voices, with the original melody presented in the next to lowest part.

This process impedes the Bass part from realizing the harmonic implications of the original tune,

since it is restrained through its fixed melodic relationship to the other member of the canonic

pair. La Rue compensates for this lack of flexibility by incorporating a great number of leading-

tone cadences in his upper melodic parts at the points of formal juncture of his canonic melody.

Second, La Rue’s melodic lines exhibit a high degree of variety manifest in the frequent changes

of melodic direction, rhythmic differentiation, and levels of strength with which the poetic

caesuras are projected musically. Finally, La Rue’s approach to coordinating musical form with

prosodic features, both structural and surface, involves a wide gamut of subtle interconnections

between the disparate elements of music (motivic articulation of melodies, rhythmic

differentiation, cadential articulation) and those of the poetry.8

Furthermore, Honey Meconi points out the following major stylistic traits in her

assessment of La Rue’s secular music.9 La Rue was one of the few composers of the early part of

the sixteenth century that had not abandoned the formes fixes; he set eleven poems in rondeau

form, two of which belong to the multi-voice repertory.10 There is a constant sense of modal

ambiguity, since neither the opening of a work nor the internal cadences suggest the eventual

mode of a piece. La Rue further employs a variety of cadential pitches, often involving the

Contratenor part. He favors the continuity of texture by pseudo-cadential motions, which undercut the sense of closure. There is considerable lack of proportional phrasing for the

8 Bernstein, “Chansons Attributed to Both Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue,” 125-152. 9 Meconi, Pierre de la Rue, 134-168 and idem, “French Print Chansons and Pierre de la Rue: A Case Study in Authenticity,” in Music in Renaissance Cities and Courts: Studies in Honor of Lewis Lockwood, ed. Jessie Ann Owens and Anthony M. Cummings, Detroit Monographs in Musicology, vol. 18 (Warren, MI: Harmonie Park, 1997), 198-207. 10 The eleven chansons in rondeau form are: A vous non aultre, Aprez regretz, Ce m’est tout ung, Ce n’est pas jeu, C’est ma fortune, De l’oeil de la fille du roy, Pour ce que je suis, Pourquoy tant, Tous les regretz. The multi-voice songs are Cueurs desolez/Dies illa and Fors seullement. Of these, four chansons are only conjecturally attributed to La Rue (Aprez regretz, Ce m’est tout ung, C’est ma fortune, and Cueurs desolez/Dies illa).

353 different lines of the poetry, and the last line of the text rarely gets the extensive treatment that

we encounter in Josquin’s chansons. In addition, his melodic lines demonstrate considerable

variety in phrase length and motivic reshaping, which results in a constant change of texture.11

The interval of the fourth plays a central role in shaping the motivic material of La Rue’s chansons.12 Unlike Josquin’s highly controlled sense of dissonance, La Rue does not avoid frequent dissonances and there are occasional parallel fifths. Compared to Josquin’s secular

music, La Rue’s features a lesser degree of syllabic text setting, exact repetition, and balanced

phrasing.13

The following discussion will demonstrate how musico-rhetorical analysis can help

expand our view of compositional processes in La Rue’ music, assess his individual rhetorical

gestures, and compare and contrast them to those of Josquin des Prez. The analysis will focus

first on the interactions between poetry and music in the four chansons of Table 6.1 as a group

and subsequently describe the rhetorical expressions in the chansons of Table 6.2. An overview

of the poetry in Tables 6.1 and 6.2 reveals that, unlike Josquin’s tendency to set poetry of both

the courtly and popular registers, La Rue’s multi-voice chansons belong exclusively to the

aristocratisant tradition. In addition, the majority of the chansons are based on a canonic

foundation. Only three out of the twelve chansons from both tables do not incorporate a canon.

These three chansons are constructed around a cantus prius factus, further affirmation that five-

voice texture was mainly considered as 4+1 or 4 generating 5 through the use of canon.14

11 Meconi, “French Print Chansons,” 198-200. 12 This feature has also been pointed out in Bernstein “Chansons Attributed to Both Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue,” 125-152 passim, and J. Evan Kreider, “Works Attributed in the Sixteenth Century to Both Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue,” in Proceedings, 106. 13 Meconi, “French Print Chansons,” 198-200. 14 Bonnie Blackburn, “Josquin’s Chansons: Ignored and Lost Sources,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 29, no. 1 (1976): 38. This is also true of Josquin’s repertory: of the twenty-eight chansons examined only eight do not incorporate a canon; two of these are free compositions and the six remaining ones are built around a cantus prius factus.

354 D’ung aultre aymer and Fors seullement, the two chansons of Table 6.1 that employ a

cantus prius factus, both rely on Ockeghem’s settings for their borrowed material. Although in

its only source (VienNB Mus. 18746) D’ung aultre aymer survives without the poetry, the text

underlay can be easily reconstructed, especially for the Superius and the Tenor part that carries

the borrowed melody. The poem, the refrain of a full rondeau quatrain, reads as follows:

1. D’ung aultre aymer mon coeur s’abesseroit; To love another my heart would be debased; 2. Il ne fault pas penser que je l’estrange. Don’t think that I would estrange myself from him. 3. Ne que pour rien de ce propos me change Nothing would bend me from this resolve 4. Car mon honneur en appetisseroit. Because my honor would be diminished.15

La Rue places Ockeghem’s Tenor in the next to lowest voice, retaining the low register of

the original tune.16 He maintains Ockeghem’s melody, with only minor melodic deviations (Ex.

6.1, mm. 12.4 and 20.1-2), but introduces rests at two points: between ll. 2 and 3 of the poetry,

that is, at the point of medial cadence in a quatrain setting; and in the middle of l. 4, possibly to

allow enough time for one more repetition of the last hemistich in the freely composed voices. In

addition to employing a famous melody in an inner voice of his five-part setting, La Rue assigns

the most important melodic material to the Superius. The melodic phrases of the Superius not

only clearly delineate the lines of the text but also observe the hemistich division within each poetic line by introducing rests after the fourth syllable. However, La Rue violates this articulation in the second line of the poem; here the caesura can only take place—and only briefly so as not to disrupt the continuity of the syntax—at the sixth syllable: “il ne fault pas penser/que je l’estrange.” Although such articulation cannot be discerned amidst the continuous melodic flow of Ockeghem’s melody, La Rue’s Superius succinctly underscores this semantic and structural poetic feature. Therefore, while ll. 1, 3, and 4 are divided by a rest after the fourth

15 The translation is partly based on Claude V. Palisca, ed., Norton Anthology of Western Music, 2nd ed., vol. 1, Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque (New York: Norton, 1980, 1988), 223. 16 La Rue’s borrowed voice is marked with the canon “Indyatessaron descen[dit]” with a signum over the first note, indicating a transposition at the fourth of the original tune.

355 syllable, l. 2 maintains the melodic flow, with the insertion of a brief pause (with the duration of

a semibreve) after the sixth syllable (Ex. 6.1, mm. 16-19).17 Such treatment reveals La Rue’s

sensitivity to the semantic and structural implications of the poetry, a feature he is not often

given credit for. It further unveils a particular compositional process that is a hallmark of his

multi-voice chanson treatment: La Rue assigns important melodic material to a voice other than

the one that carries the pre-existent melody. This voice, in turn, works together or in competition

with the cantus prius factus. This process features even more prominently in Fors seullement (to

be discussed below) and brings forth La Rue’s penchant for posing compositional challenges.

Meconi has argued that the cantus prius factus in D’ung aultre aymer “plays little role in

the framework of the piece forming very few cadences” and that it “does influence the piece in

that all the voices start imitatively with the head motif of the tune.”18 The main cadence in which

the cantus prius factus participates is actually at the point of the medial cadence, that is, between

sections A and B of the refrain. La Rue forms a cadence on A between the Contratenor and the

Second Tenor, but immediately reorients the music tonally by introducing another cadence on G,

the final sonority of the work. The cadence on G now involves the Contratenor and the Superius

(m. 26), creating an instance in which the borrowed melody and the upper part stand in competition. La Rue further marks the medial juncture by introducing a rest in the cantus prius factus where there was none in Ockeghem’s melody. This gesture puts emphasis on the entrance of the third line of the borrowed melody (section B of the refrain), which is then immediately imitated by the Superius. At the same time, the rest facilitates the singing of the minor sixth that separates the two sections (Ex. 6.1, Second Tenor, mm. 24-27). By tonally reorienting the music

17 A different text underlay is also possible, one that fits only the first four syllables by the semibreve rest. Nevertheless, the more continuous melodic flow of this phrase reflects the syntactical continuity of l. 2. 18 Meconi, “Style and Authenticity,” 139.

356 and by deviating from the original melody, through the insertion of a rest at the point of medial cadence, La Rue underscores the formal structure of his chanson.

Besides the opening head motif, the cantus prius factus offers more fodder for La Rue than Meconi states. The long descending octave of Ockeghem’s Tenor over the words

“s’abesseroit” (Ex. 6.1, Second Tenor, mm. 10-13) provides the impetus for La Rue to further project the meaning of the text with two repeated instances of catabasis in the Superius part.

Two stepwise descending sevenths accompany the words “s’abesseroit” (“would be debased”) and its repetition (Ex. 6.1, mm. 7-14). These two phrases are separated by a melodic leap of a seventh (Superius, mm. 9-10). It is possible that the prominent place of this interval at this point in the poetry could reflect the dual meaning of the word “abesseroit” as both “debased” and

“disgraced.” Finally, La Rue takes advantage of the potential of l. 4 for musical depiction, switching mainly to semibreves and minims for the representation of the word “appetisseroit”

(“diminish”) in truly musical terms (Ex. 6.1, mm. 48-54).

357 Example 6.1. La Rue, D'ung aultre aymer, Superius and Tenor (after VienNB Mus. 18746)

358

The compositional processes in D’ung aultre aymer appear intensified in the five-voice

Fors seullement. In this chanson, La Rue places the Superius of Ockeghem’s model in the upper part of his own setting without any alterations of the pitch level and rhythmic values. As in

D’ung aultre aymer, La Rue poses a compositional challenge not only by including two other voices in a strict canonic relationship at the fifth, but also by placing the canon in the two lowest voices (Bassus and Second Tenor). This structure restricts the melodic freedom of the Bassus

359 and thus interferes with the modal implications of the cantus prius factus, which is placed in the

Superius. As in D’ung aultre aymer, La Rue contrasts the main melodic lines in Fors seullement by way of register, high versus low (in D’ung aultre aymer, Superius versus the cantus prius factus in the Second Tenor and in Fors seullement, the cantus prius factus in the Superius versus the canonic melody in the two lowest parts). Compared to Josquin’s handling of canons and cantus prius facti in his multi-voice chansons, La Rue’s approach appears more daring and experimental. There is no instance in which Josquin engages both structural techniques in competition. Whenever Josquin uses a cantus prius factus in a canonic chanson, the cantus prius factus is a member of the canonic pair.

In Fors seullement, the model inspires most of the material. The opening descending tetrachord permeates the original melody, providing a very early instance in which this figure becomes a true “harbinger of grief.”19 The descending fourth constitutes an important melodic

and structural motif throughout La Rue’s setting. The characteristic “on-going motivic process,

in which the interval of the fourth plays the central role” is practically indebted to the inherent

properties of his borrowed melody.20 It is possible that La Rue’s preference for the interval of the

fourth, manifested in a great number of compositions related to his name, was the guiding factor

in choosing these particular models.21

In Fors seullement we witness some of the various and subtle ways through which La

Rue reflects the prosodic features of the poetry in musical means. The rondeau cinquain survives

complete in a large number of musical and literary sources and its refrain reads as follows:

19 Alan Curtis labeled the opening descending tetrachord in Josquin’s Je me complains de mon amy as such, thus crediting Josquin as the initiator of this rhetorical gesture. Alan Curtis, “Josquin and ‘La belle Tricotée,’” in Essays in Musicology in Honor of Dragan Plamenac on His 70th Birthday, ed. Gustave Reese and Robert J. Snow (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1969), 1. 20 Bernstein, “Chansons Attributed to Both Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue,” 132. 21 Both D’ung aultre aymer and Fors seullement melodies make extended use of ascending and descending melodic fourths.

360 1. Fors seullement l’attente que je meure, Except waiting for death, 2. En mon las cueur nul espoir ne demeure, There dwells in my faint heart no hope, 3. Car mon malheur si tresfort me tourmente For my misfortune torments me so greatly 4. Qu’il n’est douleur que par vous je ne sente That there is no pain I do not feel on your account 5. Pource que suis de vous perdre bien seure. Because I am quite certain to loose you.22

Beyond the typical aabba rhyme, the underlined words reveal an internal rhyme at the fourth

syllable for ll. 2-4 (“las cueur/malheur/douleur”), as well as the rimes batelées between the first

and second, and second and third lines (“meure/cueur” and “demeure/malheur”).23 The musical

treatment reveals the following: first, La Rue’s first and second canonic phrases revolve around

the tetrachord A-E (in the Second Tenor), which is the opening gesture of the borrowed melody.

Both canonic phrases also cadence similarly to reflect the aa rich rhyme of the first two lines,

“meure/demeure” (compare mm. 9-13 to 25-29 in Ex. 6.2). Second, through a descending/

ascending gesture, possibly inspired by the borrowed melody, La Rue relates the second and

third canonic phrases that are connected in the text through the rime batelée. Phrase two of the

borrowed melody ends with a descending fourth, F-C, while phrase three starts with an

ascending fourth, C-F, and a similar device also occurs in the canonic melodies (see the dashed

brackets in Ex. 6.2, mm. 25-32). Third, the Tenor in the beginning of phrase two (Tenor 1, mm.

14-15) anticipates the opening motif for the canonic entrances of phrase three (Tenor 2 and

Bassus, mm. 29-31). La Rue’s treatment thus stresses the internal rhyme of ll. 2 and 3, “En mon las cueur/Car mon malheur,” in a very subtle and concealed way. Finally, the phonetic proximity of the opening syllables in ll. 1 and 5 (“Fors seu-”/“Pour ce”) possibly inspired the similar melodic gesture in Ockeghem’s melody (Ex. 6.2, Superius, mm. 10-13 and 58-61). The polyphonic reading by La Rue affirms this supposition. La Rue’s Contratenor in l. 5 begins with

22 Translation from Martin Picker, ed., Fors seulement: Thirty Compositions for Three to Five Voices or Instruments from the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries, Recent Researches in the Music of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, vol. 14 (Madison, WI: A-R Editions, 1981), xxviii. 23 The rime batelée occurs when the last syllable of one line rhymes with the fourth syllable of the next in a decasyllabic verse.

361 a rhythmic gesture that involves the repetition of the same note followed by a descending fourth.

This is also the opening motif of Tenor 1 over the words “Fors seullement” (Ex. 6.2, Tenor 1, mm. 1-3 and Contratenor, mm. 61-62). The fact that these are the only two instances in which

this motif makes its appearance reinforces the hypothesis that both Ockeghem and La Rue

responded to this sonic manifestation in the poetry in a similar way. Whereas Josquin would

possibly repeat a phrase to reflect the common prosodic features between the lines of the text, La

Rue achieves this by involving smaller motivic gestures in more complicated and hidden interrelationships.

Example 6.2. La Rue, Fors seullement (after Picker 1981)

362 363 364 365 366

367 The treatment of the five-voice chansons Cent mille regretz and Incessament mon povre

cueur further contributes to our understanding of La Rue’s varied rhetorical approach. Both chansons are constructed around a canon in the two lowest voices and do not incorporate a cantus prius factus.24 Cent mille regretz is a through-composed form with an individual musical

phrase for every line of the text. With the complete repetition of l. 3, the musical structure of the

canonic voices can be described as ABCCDE. The decasyllabic cinquain refrain reads:

music 1. Cent mille regretz me poursuivent sans cesse, One hundred thousand regrets pursue me A without ceasing, 2. Dueil me conduict et plaisir me delaisse; Pain governs me and pleasure forsakes me; B 3. Et fortune si tres mal me promene And fortune so unkindly charts my course CC 4. Que ma langueur vault pis que mort soudaine That my grief is worse than sudden death D 5. Puisqu’il est force qu’ainsi je vous delaisse. Since I am thus forced to leave you.25 E

The refrain is characterized by the long enjambment that runs between ll. 3 and 5 and

creates a closed semantic unit. While La Rue clearly divides the first and second hemistichs of ll.

1 and 2 with a rest (see, for example, Tenor, mm. 7 and 18, respectively in Ex. 6.3), he creates an uninterrupted flow of melodic phrases in all voice parts for the remaining lines of the text, thus reflecting the continuity of the prosody. Although the five different phrases (A, B, C, D, E) have their own individual character, phrases C, D, and E are more closely related through motivic interconnections. Phrases C and D open with the same sequential motif transposed up a fourth in the freely composed parts and up a fifth in the canonic voices (compare, for example, the Tenor of phrase C, mm. 25-28 to the Superius, mm. 40-43, Tenor, mm. 40-42, and Quinta and Bassus, mm. 42-48 of phrase D, in Ex. 6.3). In addition to their semantic interdependence, phrases C and

D correspond to the b-rhyming lines and the above-mentioned motivic relationship also reflects this common element. Phrases D and E overlap to an unusual degree (shortly after the canonic

24 Incessament has another part inserted between the two canonic voices. 25 The translation is based on Meconi, “Style and Authenticity,” 209. In l. 2 I have replaced “grief” with “pain;” in l. 4 “debility” with “grief;” and in l. 5 “leave” for “forsake.”

368 voices of phrase D enter, the remaining voice parts start with the last line of the text) and there is

also some motivic connection between the two (Ex. 6.3, Bassus, mm. 46-47 and 53-54).

Bernstein has also noted how La Rue achieves contrast by emphasizing the final (D) for ll. 1, 2,

and 5 and C, F, G, and A for ll. 3 and 4.26 In fact, such a contrast not only ensures modal variety

but also differentiates between the a- and b-rhyming verses, unveiling some of La Rue’s

resources to reflect the surface details of the poetry. Whereas Josquin most often relies on

repetition to underline the rhyming lines, La Rue draws attention to such rhymes through

similar—but not identical—cadential gestures.27

The individual prosodic features of the refrain provided La Rue with many opportunities

for their rhetorical expression. The opening of the Superius features an instance of circulatio

over the phrase “cent mille” (Ex. 6.3, Superius, mm. 1-2). This number, a multiple of ten or a

hundred, is a symbolic representation of perfection, depicted in Cent mille regretz through a

musical circle. With the reference to fortune (“and fortune so unkindly charts my course”) in l. 3,

La Rue intensifies the musical symbolism. All voices engage in imitation, opening with an

identical rhythmic gesture and continuing with an ascending/descending rapid motif, which is

then abandoned for the rest of the chanson.28 Such motif is related to the fortuna symbolism

discussed in Chapter V and represents the ascending and descending motion of fortune’s wheel.

La Rue further emphasizes this line by the complete repetition of all voice parts.

26 Bernstein, “Chansons Attributed to Both Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue,” 132. 27 Another device Josquin employs to reflect the aabba or the abba rhyme, is to end the canonic phrases with the same note for similarly rhyming lines of the text. See for example Douleur me bat and Plusieurs regretz, discussed in Chapter III. La Rue’s approach, although similar, is more varied. 28 In Josquin’s Pour souhaitter, the opening ascending octaves are likewise abandoned for the remainder of the chanson.

369 Example 6.3. La Rue, Cent mille regretz (after Smijers)

370 371 372 373

374 La Rue is no less indifferent to the sonorous quality of his text. The rich alliteration of the

first two verses (“Cent mille regretz me poursuivent sans cesse” and “Dueil me conduict et plaisir me delaisse”) is projected and emphasized through the polyphonic fabric by placing

similarly sounding syllables in simultaneous or consecutive presentation (see the connecting

dashed lines in mm. 9-25). Such effect would have been less apparent in the typical four-voice

texture, as fewer voices would have been available for the projection of the phonetic features of

the text. La Rue, like Josquin, takes advantage of the rhetorical possibilities of the expanded

textures to intensify a prosodic element.29 The potential of multi-voice music to project both

linearly and vertically the semantic, structural, and phonetic features of the poetry must have

certainly surprised and pleased contemporary audiences and the composers seized the

opportunities to this end.

Musico-rhetorical analysis guides us to read La Rue’s interpretation of the poetry of

Incessament mon povre cueur with greater depth and clarity.

music 1. Incessament mon povre cueur lamente; Incessantly my poor heart laments; A 2. Sans nul repos souvenir me tourmente. Without pause memory torments me. A’ 3. Ayant ennui sans aulcun amandement Bearing pain without any improvement B 4. Banny je suis de tout esbatement I am banished from every pleasure C 5. Et si languis pres de mort vehemente. And thus I grieve before a violent death. DD’

Bernstein has noted that the rhyme scheme, aabba, is underlined by the central position of the descending fifth in ll. 1, 2, and 5, that is, the a-rhymes. He remarks that “its first two lines are joined by the rhyme scheme (“lamente”/“tourmente”), a linkage that is echoed musically by the distinct motivic parallelism in the respective openings of the two lines.”30 Furthermore, by

making the first three lines a closed unit that begins and ends on the final G, La Rue represents

29 See Chapters III and IV for instances in which Josquin emphasizes the sonic elements of the poetry as in the chansons Cueur langoreulx, Plaine de deuil, Pour souhaitter, and Allégez moy. 30 Bernstein, “Chansons Attributed to Both Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue,” 128.

375 the syntactic integrity of his poetry “for the first broad syntactic unit of the text goes beyond the

paired rhyme of the first two verses to incorporate the third line, too.”31 Yet Bernstein fails to

discern that the first two phrases are transpositions of one another, with only a cadential

deviation at the end of the second phrase, resulting in the overall structural scheme AA’BCDD’

(see structure above, next to the translation).32 This structure does not alter Bernstein’s

observation that the rhyme of the first two lines is reflected in musical terms. However, it re-

orients the reading of the poem for, I believe, the function of the transposition is to connect

together the first two verses in one unit and thus demarcate them from the remaining verses. In

addition to their rhyming similarity these two lines are variations of one another, expressing in

different words the same emotion. The idea of continuing grief is central to both: “incessantly” in

the first, “without pause” in the second.

I thus argue that La Rue interpreted the poetic structure as being formed by three syntactical units in the scheme 2+2+1 (involving verses 1-2, 3-4, and 5, respectively) instead of

3+2 as Bernstein proposes. A slightly different version of the rondeau, found in the poetic

albums of Marguerite of Austria, La Rue’s patron, further supports this syntactic division. The

refrain in this version reads as follows:

Incessament mon pouvre cueur lamente; Sans nul repos souvenir me tourmente. Ayant au cueur ennuyt et griefz tourment, Bannye suis de tout desbatement Et si languis pres de mort vehemente.33

31 Bernstein’s translation reads: “My unhappy heart laments constantly;/With no hope, memory torments me,/Having had one without any improvement.” Bernstein, “Chansons Attributed to Both Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue,” 128. 32 Bernstein proposes the structural scheme ABCDE1E2. Bernstein, “Chansons Attributed to Both Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue,” 127. 33 Marcel Françon, Albums poétiques de Marguerite d’Autriche (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1934), 126.

376 The three-fold textual scheme is clearly articulated in the canonic voices by the long pauses that separate the three units (Ex. 6.4, mm. 20-24 and 35-40). Furthermore, La Rue creates links that tie together the phrases of each syntactical unit. In addition to connecting the first two lines by transposition, La Rue relates phrases B and C (that is, the phrases that correspond to ll. 3 and 4) through identical opening and closing rhythmic motifs (see the dashed brackets over phrases B and C in Ex. 6.4). Finally, he underscores the intensity of the last line with a varied repetition of the entire phrase. La Rue thus generates a balanced structure of six musical phrases to set five poetic lines, much in the way Josquin structures his end-oriented chansons.

In addition to the parallelism with Josquin’s musical structures, Incessament mon povre cueur shares other common features with Josquin’s multi-voice chansons. For example, while transposition of a whole melodic phrase frequently occurs in Josquin’s decasyllabic rondeau cinquain settings (see Chapter III), it is rare in the multi-voice chansons related to La Rue.

Furthermore, the canon in Incessament mon povre cueur (as well as in Cent mille regretz) is set syllabically and does not exhibit the variety in rhythm and direction that characterizes La Rue’s melodies. All of the above features (the musical structure, the transposition of a phrase, and the syllabic, unvaried nature of the canonic melodies) possibly contributed to the confusion in the early attribution of Incessament mon povre cueur to Josquin (see fn. 7).

377 Example 6.4. La Rue, Incessament mon povre cueur, Quinta (after Smijers)

In support to the recent reattribution of both Cent mille regretz and Incessament mon povre cueur to La Rue, I would add two more arguments based on musico-rhetorical

378 compositional procedures.34 First, the canons in Josquin’s aristocratisant chansons on his own

melodies (Group 1, explored in Chapter III) contain no internal text repetitions. In contrast, La

Rue’s canons in all three canonic chansons of Table 6.1 (Fors seullement, Cent mille regretz, and

Incessament) invariably incorporate repetitions of both internal motives and complete phrases.

Second, while Josquin assigns extensive repetitions to the last line of the poetry, thus creating a

long last section, La Rue’s setting of the final verse is generally brief despite its importance for

expressing the poetic persona’s distress or revealing the reason for his or her misfortune.

From the compositions of Table 6.2, scholars have never doubted the authenticity of the

motet-chanson Cueurs desolez/Dies illa. The French poem, a complete enneasyllabic rondeau

cinquain, has survived with variations in many literary sources. The unicum musical setting in

BrusBR 228 presents a reading in which the final stanza forms the acrostic “VILLE.” Martin

Picker has suggested that the chanson was composed for the death of Jean de Luxemburg,

Seigneur de Ville and counselor to Philippe the Fair and Marguerite of Austria, in 1508. This

date is then a terminus post quem for Cueurs desolez/Dies illa. Another version of the rondeau

with a different last stanza lamenting the death of a female patron is preserved in MS Lille 402.35

La Rue’s five-voice setting is built around the cantus firmus Dies illa, the third verse of the responsory Libera me of the Burial Service.36 The refrain of the rondeau reads as follows:

1. Cueurs desolez par toutes nations, Devastated hearts of all nations, 2. Deul assamblez et lamentations. Gather your mourning and lamentations. 3. Plus ne querez l’armonieuse lyre Do not seek the harmonious lyre 4. De’Orpheus pour vostre joye’eslyre, of Orpheus to rejoice any more, 5. Ains vous plongez en desolations. But sink yourselves into grief.

34 Meconi has demonstrated that the source tradition for Incessament favors the attribution to La Rue. Meconi, “Style and Authenticity,” 141-142. Bernstein reinforced this suggestion on the basis of stylistic analysis. Bernstein, “Chansons Attributed to Both Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue,” 126-131. 35 Marcel Françon, Poèmes de transition (XVe-XVIe siècles): rondeaux du Ms. 402 de Lille (Paris: Droz, 1938), no. 76. The last stanza reads: “Laissée nous a en grant afflicions/Celle qui a par ces perfections/Aquis ung los ou n’y a que redire./Elle s’en va. Dieu la veuille conduire!/Dictes amen pour retribusions.” 36 Martin Picker, ed., The Chansons Albums of Marguerite of Austria (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965), 136.

379 The music has the structure of a rondeau setting with a medial cadence at the end of the third line, over the word “lyre” (Ex. 6.5, m. 52). Although this is indeed the locus for a typical medial cadence, La Rue ignores the enjambment between ll. 3 and 4, thereby introducing a cadence amidst an unfolding sentence, “Plus ne querez l’armonieuse lyre de’Orpheus pour vostre joye’eslyre.” Moreover, the final sonority for the first section (m. 53) is built on a first-inversion triad, which makes the pause at this point even more awkward.

Although La Rue frequently introduces passing dissonances in all of the chansons attributed to him, Cueurs desolez/Dies illa carries such treatment to the extreme. The chanson is saturated by successive passing dissonances and dissonant clusters in which up to four minor seconds are heard simultaneously (Ex. 6.5 m. 74.4 and m. 86.2 where G, A, Bb, C and G, A, Bb,

C, D, respectively, are heard simultaneously). While the interval of the fourth plays a central role in this chanson, melodic leaps of seventh also feature prominently, particularly in l. 3 (Ex. 6.5,

Contratenor, mm.36-37, 53-54, Tenor, 53-54).

380 Example 6.5. La Rue (?), Cueurs desolez/Dies illa (after Picker 1965)

381 382 383 384 385 386

387

La Rue’s lament shares multiple common features with another five-voice setting of the same text, Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit, attributed to Josquin in Attaingnant’s Trente sixiesme livre. Although the text in this setting seems to be slightly corrupt, the music nicely matches this version, suggesting that this was the text at hand.37

1. Cueurs desolez par toute nation 2. Assemblez dueil et lamentation. 3. Ne cherchez plus l’armoniance 4. Lyre d’Orpheus pour voz resiouyssance, 5. Mais plongez vous en desolation.

Josquin’s chanson is built around verse 1:2 from the Lamentations of Jeremiah:

Plorans ploravit in nocte Weeping she hath wept in the night Et lacrymae eius in maxilis eius; And her tears are on her cheeks; Non est qui consoletur eam There is none to comfort her Ex omnibus caris eius. Among all them that were dear to her.38

37 See, for example, the melisma over the word “lyre” in the Superius 2 of Ex. 6.6, a musical depiction of the sound of lyre. Also the rests in Superius 1, Superius 2, and Bassus between the end of l. 2, “l’armoniance,” and the beginning of l. 3, “lyre d’Orpheus,” reflect the demarcation of the verses. 38 Translation in Willem Elders, Symbolic Scores: Studies in the Music of the Renaissance (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 138.

388 Example 6.6. La Rue (?), Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit (after Smijers)

389 390 391 392

393 The Quinta bears the Latin plainchant, as in La Rue’s setting. The disposition of the voices in this chanson is quite unusual for Josquin: two high voices against three low ones. Also unusual is the high level of dissonance. While Josquin regularly keeps dissonant treatment to a minimum, in Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit dissonances are abundant. This is apparent from the very opening of the work; m. 6 provides the first instance of successive dissonances over the word “nation” while the repetition of the same word a few measures later, provides the second such striking instance. A conflict between E and E-flat (Ex. 6.6, Superius 2, mm. 4-6) warns us that something unusual is at stake. A comparison with La Rue’s chanson reveals that the first dissonance takes place over the same word (Ex. 6.5, mm. 7-8), while a conflict between B and B- flat occurs in the Contratenor in mm. 11-12. The opening of l. 2 in Josquin’s setting, “Assemblez deuil et lamentation,” is constructed in such a way that a harmonic or a melodic augmented fourth cannot be avoided (see Ex. 6.6, mm. 11-13, dashed lines). At the same point in La Rue’s setting we encounter a series of successive, albeit passing, dissonances (Ex. 6.5, mm. 16-18, marked with asterisks), while the word “lamentations” features extensive repetitions in both chansons. These repetitions unfold as a series of sequential or semi-sequential motifs in the

Superius, Tenor, and Bassus of both settings (compare mm. 19-29 in Cueurs desolez/Dies illa to mm. 14-20 in Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit).

The next instance of intense dissonant treatment in both chansons occurs in ll. 3 and 4— at the reference to Orpheus’s lyre—an unexpected point for such treatment. The biting dissonances at the words “lyre d’Orpheus” and “resiouysance” (Ex. 6.6, mm. 29-32) present a case of an oxymoron to make the call for grief even more urgent. Moreover, as the poet demands, the harmonious sounds of Orpheus’s lyre should be abandoned, and this is exactly what happens with the music at this point. And while La Rue represents the last word of l. 3,

394 “lyre,” with a sixth sonority, Josquin sets the same word with a second inversion triad (Ex. 6.5, m. 53 and Ex. 6.6, m. 29.1, respectively). The final line of the poetry features long descending melodies in both chansons, emphasizing mainly the intervals of fifth and octave, a suitable depiction of the word “plongez” (“dive,” “sink”).

The similar, almost identical, compositional strategies of the two settings of Cueurs desolez raise several questions. Could one setting be regarded as a tribute to the other or are we dealing with two versions emanating from the same pen? And if the latter is true, who is the composer? La Rue, Josquin, or somebody else? Finally, if Cueurs desolez/Dies illa was composed for Jean de Luxemburg, for whom was Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit composed?

It is very unlikely that Josquin composed a piece of such high level of dissonance, for he generally keeps dissonances on a local level and does not apply them as an overarching principle for the representation of grief. In his two other multi-voice motet-chansons, Nymphes des bois/Requiem and Nymphes, nappés/Circumdederunt me, dissonant treatment is very restricted.

Moreover, the frequent changes of direction in the melodic lines as well as the melodic leaps speak against Josquin’s authorship of Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit. Finally, the attribution to

Josquin occurs in Attaingnant’s 1549 print, which contains other problematic ascriptions. It is the same print that assigns both Cent mille regretz and Incessament mon povre cueur to Josquin.39 In fact, these two chansons along with Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit appear in the same group of compositions in the final section of the edition. The last six chansons in Attaingnant’ print are:

25. Cent mille regretz 26. Incessament mon povre cueur 27. Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer 28. Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit 29. Plus n’estes ma maitresse 30. Plus nulz regretz

39 The same print also includes Le Brung’s Si vous n’avez autre desir without assigning it to the composer.

395 However, as Daniel Heartz points out, in three of the five part-books (Contratenor, Tenor, and

Bassus), the last four pieces are printed in the sequence 28, 30, 29, 27, which leaves us with the following reconstructed list:

25. Cent mille regretz 26. Incessament mon povre cueur 27. Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit 28. Plus nulz regretz 29. Plus n’estes ma maitresse 30. Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer40

According to this sequence, Cent mille regretz, Incessament mon povre cueur, and Cueurs

desolez/Plorans ploravit appear as a group, which suggests that they were possibly copied from the same exemplar that contained chansons by La Rue. I thus suggest that Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit should be removed from Josquin’s canon and be reattributed to La Rue.

The incompatibility of the chanson’s idiosyncrasies with Josquin’s style, its placement together

with Cent mille regretz and Incessament mon povre cueur (both securely attributed to La Rue), and the print’s unreliable record of ascriptions speak against the attribution to Josquin. At the same time, Cueurs desolez/Dies illa survives anonymous in its sole source, BrusBR 228, but the compositional strategies, the melodic treatment, and the proximity of the source to the composer’s site of activity favor the attribution to La Rue.

The two Cueurs desolez settings must have been penned by the same composer, who reworked the second setting in memory of another patron. Such re-dedication was not only acceptable but also appreciated in sixteenth-century courts.41 The question remains open as to

who is the recipient of the Plorans ploravit setting. Helmuth Osthoff has suggested that Josquin

composed the chanson in response to Jean Lemaire de Belges’s La Plainte du Désiré, a poem

40 Daniel Heartz, Pierre Attaingnant: Royal Printer of Music; A Historical Study and Bibliographical Catalogue (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 366. 41 Eric Jas, “The Repertory of the Manuscripts,” in The Treasury of Petrus Alamire: Music and Art in Flemish Court Manuscripts 1500-1535, ed. Herbert Kellman (Amsterdam: Ludion, 1999), 32.

396 written on the death of Louis de Luxembourg-Ligny, in 1503.42 Osthoff associates Lemaire’s poem with the setting Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit because the phrase “Cueurs desolez” appears in the prose introduction of Lemaire’s work and because the poet indicates Jeremiah’s

Lamentations as a suitable basis for a newly-composed lament. In the light of the above reattribution, it is plausible that it was La Rue who composed Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit for

Louis de Luxembourg, and a few years later reworked the chanson to commemorate another deceased member of the same family, Jean de Luxembourg. Yet the absence of Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit from both BrusBR 228 and VienNB Mus. 18746 problematizes this supposition. The cantus firmus text provides another possible clue for the dedicatee of Cueurs desolez/Plorans ploravit. The verse refers to a female who is weeping alone, as there is none to comfort her from those who were dear to her. The text could be alluding to Juana of Spain, the widow of Philip the Fair who died in 1506. After Philip’s death, La Rue remained in Spain for another two years and served as Juana’s chapel master. A few years earlier Juana had lost her brother, Juan of Spain (in 1497) and her mother, Isabella of Castile (in 1504). The text of the

Latin plainchant resonates, therefore, with the recent events in Juana’s life. This suggestion complies better with the absence of the chanson in court manuscripts and also points to an earlier date of composition for the Plorans ploravit version.

Musico-rhetorical analysis enables us to address issues of authorship with greater certainty. The attribution of the anonymous Deuil et ennuy, Quant il advient, and Je ne dis mot has elicited different opinions. Their exclusive appearance in court manuscripts (see Table 6.2) as well as the presence of strict canon render La Rue and Josquin the two main candidates for the

42 Helmuth Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2 vols. (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1962-1965), 1:65-67. Louis de Luxembourg, Comte de Ligny was Lemaire’s patron. In the 1503 manuscript, Lemaire invited the French composer Hilaire to compose a lament for the deceased, while in the 1509 print the poet changed the name to Josquin. He also changed the dedicatee from Anne of Brittany to Margaret of Austria.

397 question of authorship. Meconi and John Milsom consider all three to be by La Rue, although

Meconi seems less certain for Quant il advient.43 Martin Picker also believes that both Deuil et

ennuy and Je ne dis mot derive from La Rue’s pen, while he excludes both La Rue and Josquin

as possible authors of Quant il advient.44 Bernstein discusses only Deuil et ennuy, which he

assigns to La Rue.45

Deuil et ennuy and Quant il advient merit discussion as a pair since they share multiple

common features. Both are based on strict canons at the fifth between the Quinta and the Tenor

and in both chansons the canonic voices do not incorporate internal text repetitions. Both are

through-composed structures: ABCDEE’ for Deuil et ennuy and ABCD for Quant il advient.

While the treatment of the canons complies better with Josquin’s style, the through-composed

structures speak against Josquin’s authorship.46

Deuil et ennuy is an aristocratisant rondeau cinquain refrain.

1. Deuil et ennuy me persecutent tant Pain and grief persecute me in such a way 2. Que mon esprit à comporter s’estent That my spirit seems to be composed from 3. Tous les regretz que l’on scaroit penser; All the regrets that one could think of; 4. Et n’est vivant qui en sceut dispenser And there is no living person that knows how to dispense with them 5. Car en mon cas personne riens n’entend. Since in my case there is no hope.

Despite the typical decasyllabic pace, neither the canonic nor the freely composed voices observe the caesura at the fourth syllable. Such treatment matches better La Rue’s loose attitude towards hemistich division than Josquin’s consistent approach in clearly dividing the decasyllabic verses with rests at the fourth syllable. Furthermore, a clausula vera in the middle of phrase two (Ex.

43 Meconi, “La Rue,” 288 and idem, Pierre de la Rue, 164. For Milsom’s view see John Milsom, review of Pierre de La Rue, Opera omnia, vols. 2-3, ed. Nigel St. John Davison, J. Evan Kreider, and T. Herman Keahey, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, vol. 97 (Neuhausen-Stuttgart: American Institute of Musicology/Hänssler Verlag, 1992), in Early Music 21 (1993): 482. 44 Picker, The Chansons Albums, 76-77. 45 Bernstein, “Chansons Attributed to Both Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue,” 140. 46 As shown in Tables 3.2 and 4.1, Josquin’s structures in his canonic chansons frequently incorporate phrase repetitions.

398 6.7, mm. 16-17) runs contrary to Josquin’s cadential treatment, but matches La Rue’s tendency to introduce melodic cadences amidst phrases, especially in the chansons in which the two lowest voices present the canon.

A striking moment occurs in the music at the beginning of the third line; the closely

imitative writing gives way to a homorhythmic passage over the words “tous les regretz.” The

moment is further emphasized by the fact that the canonic voices silence after this phrase only to

resume with the entrance of the fourth line of the text (Ex. 6.7, mm. 31ff).47 This gesture could

be regarded as the musical equivalent of the rhetorical figure aposiopesis, in which the speaker

interrupts a sentence and leaves it unfinished out of sudden passion.48 In this chanson, the

canonic voices have the function of delivering the text in a straightforward manner, without repetition and, therefore, the rhetorical interruption of the flow of discourse is better suited for these voices. The stasis created by the change of texture to homorhythm must certainly have attracted the attention of its audience.

The phrase “tous les regretz” was associated with a large number of poetic texts and musical settings and I suspect that La Rue chose to emphasize this particular moment for its intertextual significance.49 I have not been able to identify another musical setting that La Rue

clearly alludes to musically. However, the text of Deuil et ennuy bears affinities with Cent mille

47 In none of Josquin’s canonic multi-voice chansons do the canons omit textual phrases. 48 Ad C. Herennium (Rhetorica ad Herennium) 4.30.41; trans. Harry Caplan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1954), 331. 49 Both BrusBR 228 and BrusBR 11239, the chanson albums related to Marguerite of Austria, start off with a series of “regretz” chansons. Apparently, the subject was of special importance to this patroness. For a discussion of “regretz” settings in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries see Martin Picker, “More ‘Regret’ Chansons for Marguerite d’Autriche,” Le Moyen Français 5 (1979): 81-101, and Mary Beth W. Marvin, “‘Regrets’ in French Chanson Texts of the Late Fifteenth Century,” Fifteenth-Century Studies 1 (1978): 193-217. VienNB Mus. 18746 also starts out with a series of “regretz” chansons, a feature that seems to have gone unnoticed in the literature. The chansons are Cent mille regretz, Plusieurs regretz, Deuil et ennuy (which is related to Cent mille regretz as shown in the above analysis), and Je n’ay regretz.

399 regretz, which in turn, resonates intertextually with another rondeau cinquain with the incipit

Deuil et ennuy found in Lille 402.50 I juxtapose the three texts:

(a) BrusBR 228 (b)

Deuil et ennuy me persecutent tant Cent mille regretz me poursuivent sans cesse, Que mon esprit à comporter s’estent Dueil me conduict et plaisir me delaisse; Tous les regretz que l’on scaroit penser; Et fortune si tres mal me promene Et n’est vivant qui en sceut dispenser Que ma langueur vault pis que mort soudaine Car en mon cas personne riens n’entend. Puisqu’il est force qu’ainsi je vous delaisse.

Deuil et ennuy, soucy, regret et paine Ont eslongé ma plaisance mondaine, Dont a par moy je me plains et tormente, Et en espoir n’ay plus ung brin d’attente: Vela comment Fortune me promaine.

Je n’ay pensée qui joye me ramaine; Ma fantaisie est de desplaisir plaine, Car a toute heure devant moy se presente Deuil et ennuy.

Cest[e] langueur vault pis que mort soudaine, Puis qu’en moy n’a sang, cher, os, nerf ne vaine Qui rudiment et tresfort ne s’en sente. Pour abreger, sans qu’en riens je vous mente, J’ay sans cesser, qui ma vie a fin maine, Deuil et ennuy.

The first line of Deuil et ennuy in (a), “Deuil et ennuy me persecutent tant,” carries a semantic connection to the first line of Cent mille regretz, “Cent mille regretz me poursuivent sans cesse,” in (b). In the same pair of chansons, the phrase “tous les regretz” resonates with

“Cent mille regretz.” Finally, an intertextual relationship connects Deuil et ennuy in Lille 402 (c) and Cent mille regretz. The boldface phrases indicate the cross-references between the two texts

(b and c).

50 Lille 402, no. 42. See also fn. 35.

400 Example 6.7. Deuil et ennuy, mm. 12-35 (after Picker 1965)

401 402

These intertextual relationships among the two versions of Deuil et ennuy and Cent mille regretz create a web of associations that reverberate in the musical settings. For example, the rapid Contratenor gesture at the point of stasis in Deuil et ennuy (Ex. 6.7, mm. 22-23) recalls the same motif in the third line of Cent mille regretz, “Et fortune si tres mal me promene” (Ex. 6.3, mm. 28-39), a phrase which is, in turn, intertextually related to l. 5 in the Lille 402 Deuil et ennuy rondeau (“Vela comment Fortune me promaine”). This is the motif associated with the fortuna topos, which thus becomes a common thread that connects the musical settings of Deuil et ennuy and Cent mille regretz in a subtle way.

The same topos features prominently in Quant il advient, a quatrain of a proverbial character, much like the four-line Pour souhaitter set by Josquin (see Chapter V).

1. Quant il advient choses constraintes When hardships come your way 2. Prendre les fault comme’elles sont; You have to take them the way they are; 3. Faire comme les aultres font Face them as everyone else does 4. Pour mieulx venir à ses attaintes. To better come in terms with them.

403 The through-composed structure (ABCD), the central role of the interval of the fourth, and the

falling fifths at the ends of phrases are typical of the multi-voice chansons securely attributed to

La Rue. The lack of internal cadences, which ensures a continuous flow of music, also complies

with La Rue’s style.51 At the same time, the subject of the text—a person’s attitude towards the

misfortunes of life—is closely related to the fortuna topos, even though the word “fortuna” is not explicitly stated in the poetry. As in Josquin’s Pour souhaitter, fortuna symbolism is also present in this chanson. The opening of the Bassus features a stepwise ascending octave, a gesture commonly associated with fortuna settings, as was demonstrated in Chapter V. Two more melodic octaves appear in the same voice, in mm. 32-34 and 40-42 (Ex. 6.8). Furthermore, two descending fifths follow the opening octave (mm. 5-11), in the manner of Josquin’s Fortuna dun gran tempo or De Vigne’s Franc coeur qu’as tu/Fortuna dun gran tempo discussed in Chapter

V. In the canonic melodies, the opening ascending motion is counterbalanced by a descending melodic seventh over the word “constraintes,” possibly depicting the hardships of life.52 A similar gesture based on the interval of an ascending seventh features in the Superius over the same word (Ex. 6.8, mm. 15-17) and later on, in mm. 29-30. The chanson receives straightforward treatment with minimal word repetition, resulting in one of the shortest multi- voice settings in general (92 breves). While phrase repetition would have lengthened the song, its composer chose not to. He possibly adhered to the rhetorical figure of thought known as maxim, a saying drawn from life, the charm of which emanates from the brevity of its statement.53 The

music imitates the economical presentation of the poetic subject matter and eschews repetition in

order to bring forth in the most succinct way its message.

51 Only two-voice cadences occur in this chanson. There are no clausulae verae to demarcate the musical phrases. 52 This gesture recalls La Rue’s treatment over the word “abesseroit” in D’ung aultre aymer as well as the extensive use of sevenths in Cueurs desolez/Dies illa. 53 Ad C. Herennium 4.17.24; trans. Harry Caplan, 289.

404 Example 6.8. Quant il advient (after Picker 1965)

405 406 407

408 The last chanson conjecturally attributed to La Rue is the triple canon Je ne dis mot. In its sole source, BrusBR 228, Je ne dis mot is scored for three voices in strict canon at the fourth.

Like Quant il advient, Je ne dis mot is a quatrain that presents the poetic persona’s attitude towards the hardships of life and is also set in an economical fashion (it is only 84 breves long).

1. Je ne dis mot, il convient que j’endure. I do not say a word, I must endure. 2. Et endurant espoir veura mon cueur. And by enduring hope will come to my heart. 3. Haye je suis, helas, et mon honneur I am trapped, alas, and my honor 4. A toute place à ma povre’aventure. Is at stake in my poor adventure.

Phrase repetition is restricted to the opening and conclusion. Despite its brevity, Je ne dis mot is a highly rhetorical work. The structure of each canonic pair is ABCA’, reflecting partly the abba rhyme of the poetry. Although the middle phrases B and C, that is, the phrases that correspond to the b-rhyming lines, seem at first glance unrelated, careful examination reveals that there are subtle interconnections between them and that these are individual for every canonic pair. For the upper canonic pair, phrases B and C are variations of one another; phrase C starts with the same ascending fourth as phrase B, transposed up a second, while its second hemistich is a variation of the second hemistich of phrase B (Ex. 6.9, upper canon, mm. 10-25). The middle canon relates phrases B and C through an instance of anadiplosis: phrase C opens the same way that phrase B concludes (Ex. 6.9, middle canon, mm. 16-22). Finally, the low canon concludes both phrases B and C with a similar cadential gesture (Ex. 6.9, low canon, Quinta, mm. 15-16 and 24-25).

The composer further takes advantage of the polyptoton (the repetition of a word in a different form) between ll. 1 and 2 (“endure”/“endurant”) and reflects this prosodic feature in musical terms. The upper canon sings a descending fourth, B-flat-F (F-C in Superius 2), over the word “endure,” and an ascending fourth, F-B-flat (C-F in Superius 2), over the word “endurant.”

This gesture recalls Josquin’s treatment in Si congié prens, discussed in Chapter IV. There, ll. 1

409 and 2 were connected with a similar instance of polyptoton: “Si congié prens de mes belles

amours/Vray amoureulx, ne m’en veuillez blasmer.” Josquin assigned a descending fifth in the

Superius over the word “amours,” followed by an ascending fifth over the word “amoureulx.”

The identical compositional strategy to reflect the same prosodic manifestation possibly

points to the authorship of Je ne dis mot by Josquin. Je ne dis mot displays other features that favor the attribution to Josquin. First, the closed structure, ABCA’, better belongs with Josquin’s repetitive structural schemes than with La Rue’s through-composed forms. Second, the extensive repetitions of the last verse (threefold repetition of its second hemistich) recall Josquin’s end- oriented schemes and contrast with La Rue’s brief presentation of his final lines. Third, the economical treatment of the material (e.g., phrases B and C are variations of one another and the

second hemistich of phrases A, C, and A’ is based on the same rhythmic motif) perfectly

matches Josquin’s penchant for economy, as was demonstrated in Chapters III and IV. Finally,

the syllabic, stepwise nature of the melodic lines in Je ne dis mot stands in contrast to La Rue’s

varied melodies, featuring leaps and frequent changes of direction.

410 Example 6.9. Je ne dis mot (after Picker 1965)

411 412 413

Musico-rhetorical analysis sheds further light on questions of authorship. The obvious intertextual relationship of the two Cueurs desolez texts and the common compositional strategies suggest that the two works were penned by the same composer. The unusual stasis in

Deuil et ennuy over the words “tous les regretz” unveiled the concealed intertextual relationship between Deuil et ennuy and Cent mille regretz, adding thus another argument for the attribution of Deuil et ennuy to La Rue. Finally, the compositional planning and individual melodic details bespeak La Rue’s authorship of Quant il advient, whereas the rhetorical analysis of Je ne dis mot revealed closer affinities with Josquin’s style than with La Rue’s.

The musico-rhetorical analysis of the chansons of Tables 6.1 and 6.2 demonstrates that

La Rue was far from indifferent to the structural, phonetic, and semantic implications of the poetry he set. However, he responded in different and varied ways to the prosodic features

414 compared to Josquin. La Rue’s musico-rhetorical approach could be described as a broad one, in

which varied musical elements are combined in complicated and often concealed ways to reflect,

interpret, and enhance the poetic characteristics. In addition to the stylistic profile drawn by

Meconi and Bernstein, my rhetorical analysis further demonstrates La Rue’s preference for

through-composed structures (even within his rondeaux settings) and for posing compositional challenges by assigning significant melodic material to a voice other than the structural one(s).

The competition that results from the simultaneous need of the structural voices to fulfill their

harmonic and melodic implications creates constant tension and reveals La Rue’s more

experimental attitude towards multi-voice composition. Finally, in contrast to Josquin’s straightforward manner of canonic writing in the aristocratisant chansons, La Rue’s canons incorporate extensive repetitions of both small textual segments and of complete phrases.

The employment of classical rhetorical principles in order to attract attention or represent a textual point is also widespread with La Rue, as the application of the figures of catabasis, anadiplosis, aposiopesis, and the prominent presence of the fortuna motifs in the above chansons testify. The extensive use of rhetorical figures in chansons both securely and conjecturally attributed to La Rue demonstrates that these techniques are common not only in Josquin’s multi- voice chanson writing but that they constitute an important tool in the expressive apparatus of other Franco-Flemish composers active in the first quarter of the sixteenth century.

415

CHAPTER VII

MULTI-VOICE CHANSONS BY JEAN MOUTON AND OTHER CONTEMPORARY COMPOSERS

The five- and six-voice chansons by Josquin des Prez and Pierre de La Rue comprise approximately half of the extant multi-voice secular repertory. The remaining multi-voice chansons that fall within the scope of the present study (songs that survive with their texts) are penned by various composers—including many anonymous compositions—and demonstrate a wide range of compositional techniques. The present chapter explores the different facets of musical rhetoric in the chansons by Mouton (part I), whose output in the subgenre of the multi- voice song is substantial, and then samples the rhetorical treatment by other contemporary composers (part II).

I. Multi-voice chansons by Jean Mouton

Immediately following Josquin and La Rue, Jean Mouton is one of the most important multi-voice chanson composers of the early sixteenth century. His secular output comprises approximately twenty five chansons, six of which are multi-voice compositions. Of these only one has a six-part texture while the remainder are for five voices. Like Josquin’s music,

Mouton’s multi-voice chansons are mainly preserved in posthumous sources. The 1572 Mellange de chansons as well as the earlier 1560 Livre de meslanges are the most important sources of this

416 repertory.1 Only one of Mouton’s multi-voice chansons, the five-voice Du bon du coeur, survives in contemporary sources.2

Mouton’s approach to multi-voice song composition markedly differs from that of his

most famous contemporaries, Josquin and La Rue. First, Mouton avoids canonic writing and

prefers to build his five- and six-voice songs around a known cantus prius factus or a melody of

his own invention, which he usually places in the Superius. Howard Mayer Brown has suggested

that, in all of his songs for expanded textures, Mouton incorporates a borrowed melody as his

upper part. However, Brown’s remark remains speculative since no such melodies have been

identified, with the possible exception of La rousée du moy de may.3 Second, Mouton develops

his songs around a few melodic “modules,” which he constantly transforms and projects both linearly and vertically. Third, unlike La Rue, who avoids altogether poetry of a popular nature,

Mouton’s chansons represent both the courtly and the popular registers. Also, unlike Josquin and

La Rue, Mouton did not rely on the traditional poetic forms. Even in the chansons in the

aristocratisant tradition, the poetry exhibits unconventional metric and structural features.

Although octosyllabic and decasyllabic verses are common, none of the multi-voice chansons is

a setting of a rondeau refrain. Table 7.1 presents the multi-voice chansons by Mouton according

to the nature of the poetry set. The chansons of Group 1 are settings of courtly love poetry, while

those of Group 2 represent the popularisant tradition.

1 Mellange de chansons tant des vieux autheurs que des modernes (Paris: Le Roy & Ballard, 1572) [RISM 15722], and Livre de meslanges, contenant six vingtz chansons (Paris: Le Roy & Ballard, 1560) [not in RISM]. 2 In Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Musiksammlung, MS Mus. 18746 (olim A.N.35.H.14), henceforth referred to as VienNB Mus. 18746. 3 Howard M. Brown, “Genesis of a Style: The Parisian Chanson, 1500-1530,” in Chanson and Madrigal 1480-1530: Studies in Comparison and Contrast, ed. James Haar, Isham Library Papers II (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964), 27. Only two of the chansons from Table 7.1, La rousée du moy de may and Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux, appear in Brown’s inventory of theatrical chansons. While there seems to be a common model for the different settings of La rousée du moy de may, no such model can be reconstructed for Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux. For both chansons, Brown acknowledges that we may [emphasis mine] be dealing with a cantus prius factus. Howard M. Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater, 1440-1550 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963), 198-199, 281-282.

417 Table 7.1. Multi-voice chansons by Mouton, divided according to the nature of the poetry

Title Cantus prius Poetic structure Musical structure factus Group 1 (Aristocratisant tradition) Du bon du coeur None abbba ab, octosyllable through-composed, ABCDEF (5) identified Vray Dieu None abab cb, decasyllable except for l.5 [A1A2]B[A’1A’2]B CB d’amours (5) identified (c-rhyme) which is hexasyllable (structure reflects rhyme) Vray Dieu, None abab bab, octosyllable AB1AB2 C B2B’1 (partly qu’amoureux (6) identified reflects rhyme) Group 2 (Popularisant tradition) Ce que mon coeur None ab cbdb ab, pentasyllable (only the AB CAB AB (partly reflects pense (5) identified even-numbered verses rhyme) rhyme) La rousée du mois Possibly ab aaab ab, a-rhymes AB CCAB AB (reflects de may (5) heptasyllables, b-rhymes rhyme) octosyllables Le berger et la None ababb cbb, a- and c-rhymes Text-based bergère (5) identified octosyllables, b-rhymes heptasyllables

Since the presence or absence of canon cannot be used as a criterion for differentiating compositional techniques, as was the case with Josquin, the analysis distinguishes between the individual chansons according to the nature of their poetry, as defined in the above table. Thus, I first examine the chansons of Group 1 and then those of Group 2. In the absence of an overall assessment of Mouton’s style, Rebecca Stewart’s and Brown’s preliminary investigation of

Mouton’s motets can provide a good starting point for an analytical discussion of Mouton’s secular music style.

In her study of Mouton’s stylistic profile in motet composition, Stewart concluded that

Mouton’s compositional techniques “not only differ fundamentally from those of Josquin, but they appear so evenly spread throughout his works, that they can be used as criteria in assessing the identity of the composer . . . ”4 According to Stewart, Mouton’s approach to motet writing is

4 Rebecca Stewart, “Jean Mouton: Man and Musician. Motets Attributed to Both Josquin and Mouton,” in Proceedings of the International Josquin Symposium Utrecht 1986, ed. Willem Elders (Utrecht: Vereniging voor

418 mainly characterized by its motivic orientation. This feature springs from Mouton’s view of his

texts as small-scale groupings of words that stimulate the creation of precise melodic and

rhythmic patterns. These patterns, usually of limited length, become motives and are

subsequently “ . . . subjected to one of Mouton’s ingenious contrapuntal techniques: in addition

to normal imitation, these include melodic inversion and paraphrase, as well as rhythmic

augmentation, diminution and variation. As a consequence of this approach . . . Mouton often

repeats, either exactly or in paraphrased form, a word, phrase or, at important points, a clause in

all voices.”5 Mouton places these varied units in close proximity with endless combinations, thus

creating the motivic contrast characteristic of his writing.

Furthermore, in his study of Mouton’s six-voice motets, Brown pointed out that the composer does not usually assign a particular textual phrase to a single melody, but tends instead to associate it with several.6 As a result, Mouton often uses new motives for already heard texts

and old motives for new textual phrases.7 Contrary to Josquin’s tendency for economy of

material, Mouton “prefers to dazzle the listener by his rich profusion of musical ideas.”8 While

Josquin explores the formal implications of a small number of important motives, Mouton seems unconcerned with the structural potential of his melodic and rhythmic fragments.9

All of the features pointed out by Stewart and Brown also emerge in the multi-voice

songs of both Groups 1 and 2. Especially for Group 1, the chansons in the aristocratisant

Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1991), 158. Stewart’s stylistic analysis aims at providing criteria for establishing authenticity for dubia motets. 5 Stewart, “Jean Mouton,” 158-159. 6 Howard M. Brown, “Notes Towards a Definition of Personal Style: Conflicting Attributions and the Six- Part Motets of Josquin and Mouton,” in Proceedings of the International Josquin Symposium, ed. Willem Elders (Utrecht: Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1991), 201. 7 More particularly, in the opening of the motet O Maria piissima, Mouton employs what Brown describes as a “double exposition.” In this device, a pair of high voices sings the first line of the text, followed by a pair of middle voices that sing the same text to a completely different melody. This process is then repeated with the same music for the second line of the text. Brown, “Notes,” 200. 8 Brown, “Notes,” 201. 9 Brown, “Notes,” 190.

419 tradition, rhetorical analysis reveals common compositional strategies and expressive techniques as well as intertextual relationships. The first song, Du bon du coeur, can serve as a conduit for the exploration of the remaining chansons of Group 1.

Du bon du coeur is the typical courtly plea of the knight requesting the lady’s favor.

Despite the courtly clichés of the poetry, the structural and metric layout of the text is markedly different from the customary cinquain or quatrain refrain. In Du bon du coeur, a five-line abbba stanza is followed by a couplet with an ab rhyme.

Du bon du coeur, ma chere dame, From the goodness of my heart, my dear lady, [Je vous serviray loyaument,]10 [I shall serve you loyally,] Je vous supply tres humblement I beseech you most humbly Que me recevés [retenés] doucement That you receive [retain] me sweetly Pour vous servir de cors et d’ame. In order to serve you with body and soul.

Et si vous jure sur mon ame And truly I swear to you on my soul Que vous serviray loyaument. That I shall serve you loyally.11

The Superius, the most important melodic part, features melismatic passages and successive suspensions, evoking the musical style of a bygone era. The song curiously begins with the entrance of the Bassus part, a gesture unprecedented among Mouton’s multi-voice chansons. The highly imploring tone of the text possibly prompted Mouton to open Du bon du coeur with the lowest voice, a musical depiction of humility. Whereas Josquin would probably employ a long descending line, Mouton incorporates a different musical means for such representation.12 However, later on, the Superius, Contratenor, Quinta, and Bassus do employ a

10 It is possible that the Superius text is corrupt. While all voices continue with “Je vous supply tres humblement” after the first line, the upper voice interpolates the line “Je vous serviray loyaument,” presented here in brackets. Later on, the same voice sings “retenés” instead of “recevés.” It is, however, also possible that the upper voice differentiates itself as the main bearer of the text and thus proceeds independently of the other voices, as is the case with the canonic melodies in some of Josquin’s chansons. 11 Translation provided in Charles Jacobs, ed., LeRoy & Ballard’s 1572 Mellange de Chansons (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1982), 608. Unless otherwise indicated, the translations are my own. 12 See, for example, the descending gesture in all voices in Josquin’s Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer (explored in Chapter IV) over the text “Recepvez vostre amy.”

420 standard rhetorical device by singing a descending melody at the phrase “Je vous supply tres

humblement.”

Du bon du coeur also exhibits, to a certain extent, the motivic orientation described by

Stewart. While the chanson is through-composed, the individual melodic phrases seem to be

closely interrelated. Long enough to be hardly regarded as motives, these phrases are

nevertheless fragmented into smaller units that generate subsequent melodic material. Example

7.1 presents the individual melodic phrases of the Superius and points out the relationships

between the smaller units. As the example demonstrates, a combination of the opening of phrase

A with phrase B provides the melodic material for the third phrase; phrase C opens with the characteristic ascending third, F-A, of phrase A (motif a) and after a descending fourth gesture continues with phrase B (motif b) to conclude with a melismatic cadential continuation. The melismatic character of the third phrase is further intensified in phrase D, possibly in response to

the text; the respective verses of these two phrases form the climax of the poetry, expressing its very essence: “That you receive [retain] me sweetly/In order to serve you with body and soul.”

The interdependence of the third and fourth lines is made all the more evident in the melodic relationship between phrases C and D. Besides their common melismatic nature, phrase D presents a slightly varied retrograde of phrase C (compare the phrases in dashed brackets connected by the dashed lines, in mm. 27-36).

For the final couplet the music returns to the opening material. Phrase E is indebted to the second half of phrase A (mm.13-15) although some relationship with phrase B cannot be denied.

Finally, phrase F is a rhythmic variation of phrase A. Similar interactions occur among the melodic phrases of the other voices, which occasionally engage in approximate imitations with the Superius. The similarities between phrases B and C possibly reflect the rhyming identity and

421 semantic continuity of the respective verses (“Je vous supply tres humblement/Que me recevés

doucement”). Whereas Josquin often employs phrase repetition to reflect common prosodic

features among different verses, Mouton manipulates the details of the melodic phrases to create

more complicated interrelationships. In Du bon du coeur, such interrelationships find expression

in the melodic and rhythmic variation of the opening notes for phrases C, E, and F, as well as in

the retrograde motion inspired by phrase C in phrase D. In this respect, Mouton’s music is closer

to La Rue’s. However, in La Rue’s music such manipulations are rather local phenomena and do

not enjoy the extensive treatment encountered in Mouton’s songs. This argument is, of course,

nullified if the top voice is proven to be derived from a cantus prius factus, in which case the above properties would be inherent in the borrowed melody. Nevertheless, we can safely conclude that Mouton either composed the Superius melody or chose it for its tight integration of motivic material, an essential aspect of his writing, as we shall see.

Du bon du coeur best exemplifies Mouton’s tendency to disassociate specific melodic material from particular phrases of the text, as Brown has pointed out. For example, in the opening of the chanson the Contratenor and the Bassus repeat the first line of text to a completely different melody., while the last line of the chanson, “Que vous serviray loyaument,” is not related to the melody of “Je vous serviray loyaument.” In contrast, in their multi-voice chansons, Josquin and La Rue set repeated textual phrases to the same music.

422 Example 7.1. Mouton, Du bon du coeur, Superius (after Jacobs 1982)

423 The technique of fragmentation of melodic material appears intensified in Vray Dieu d’amours and Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux. The similarity between the two chanson incipits possibly indicates that Mouton conceived them as a pair. The close relationship between their opening musical phrases, the common compositional strategies, and the fact that Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux is the only six-voice chanson in Mouton’s multi-voice output further reinforce the notion that the two chansons form an envoy and responce pair, with Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux being a response to Vray Dieu d’amours.13

Vray Dieu d’amours is the highly charged love complaint of a noble lady. The decasyllabic ab alternating verses are interrupted by a six-syllable line before the repetition of the last verse. This shorter line poses a rhetorical question, “Fault-il qu’ainsi je soye?” and Mouton underscores the individuality of this verse through a distinct musical treatment.

rhyme music 1. Vray Dieu d’amours, maudite soit la journée True God of love, cursed be the day a A1A2 2. Qu’oncq’en ma vie amoureuse je fus. That ever in my life I was in love. b B

3. Car maintenant je suis la desolée; Because now I am disconsolate; a A’1A’2 4. Seulette suis et si n’ay point d’amy. I am all alone and indeed have no friend at all. b B 5. Faut’il qu’ainsi je soye? Is it necessary that I thus be? c C 6. Seulette suis et si n’ay point d’amy. I am all alone and indeed have no friend at all.14 b B

As the above scheme demonstrates, the individual melodic phrases of the Superius, the most important voice, reflect the rhyme of the poetry (see also the phrase structure in Ex. 7.2).

The rest of the voices have a similar but not identical structure. Mouton observes the syntactical

13 The expansion of the texture for a response is very common in envoy and responce settings. 14 Translation based on Jacobs, LeRoy & Ballard’s, 591. A three-strophe chanson with a very similar first stanza appears in S’ensuivent plusieurs belles chansons nouvelles [Paris: n.p., c. 1515], modern edition in Brian Jeffery, ed., Chanson Verse of the Early Renaissance, 2 vols. (London: Tecla, 1971-76), 1:132-133. The first stanza reads: “Vray dieu d’amours, maudit soit la journée/Que oncques jamais m’a servi./Car maintenant suis fille desolée,/Seulle suis sans point avoir amy./Amy, amy, amy je n’ay./Dont suis mal fortunée;/Or n’a mon cueur si non pleurs et soucy.” Jeffery mentions a setting of Vray Dieu d’amours by Lupi and Jacotin but omits Mouton’s. Various fifteenth-century chansons open with the words “Vray Dieu d’amours” but continue differently. For the various settings and their texts see David Fallows, A Catalogue of Polyphonic Songs, 1415-1480 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 408-410.

424 units of the text by clearly delineating the sentences with full cadences. Clausulae verae on G, D,

G, and D demarcate the four main clauses (at the end of ll. 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively); Mouton

also marks the incomplete first line by a weaker cadence on A. The first musical phrase is

divided into two smaller units, A1 and A2, which correspond to the two hemistichs of the verse.

At the repetition of this phrase for l. 3, Mouton varies the first segment (A1) by maintaining its

contour and re-arranging the order of the notes (compare the Superius, mm. 20-22 to mm. 1-5 in

Ex. 7.2). He then continues with an abbreviated version of A2. While Mouton generally blends

the individual phrases together by dove-tailing—creating thus the sense of continuity that

characterizes much of his writing—he demarcates the entrance of the dramatic phrase “Seulette

suis” by avoiding such blending (Ex. 7.2, m. 28). The subsequent rhetorical question, which,

furthermore, falls outside the decasyllabic pace of the other verses, receives special attention.

Mouton emphasizes the entrance of l. 5 with a musical stasis (mm. 32-34). Four out of the five

voices move in a combination of breves and longas for the utterance of “Faut-il.” This gesture

stands in sharp contrast to the melismatic and faster-moving character of the surrounding

phrases. The deceleration of pace is further underscored by a rest in all voices before the

presentation of the entire question “Faut-il qu’ainsi je soye.” This verse is set to a distinct

musical phrase that spans the range of an ascending seventh (Ex. 7.2, Superius, mm. 36-40).

Mouton, also takes advantage of the rhetorical potential of the expanded texture; he projects the

utterance “Faut’il” across the polyphonic fabric in close temporal proximity, thus dramatizing this intense moment in musical terms (see the dashed lines in mm. 32-36).

425 Example 7.2. Mouton, Vray Dieu d'amours (after Jacobs 1982)

426 427 428 429 430

431 Example 7.3. Mouton, Vray Dieu, qu'amoureux (after Jacobs 1982)

432

433 434 435 436

437 A similar treatment also occurs at the fifth line of Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux, which shares

other poetic and musical features with Vray Dieu d’amours. The parallel compositional strategies

and the common incipits between the two songs invite further exploration of their intertextual

connection. The expansion of texture to six voices, a common practice in model and response

settings, strengthens the hypothesis that the two songs were conceived as such.

The poem describes the male lover’s complaint because he is deprived of his beloved’s

company. It survives as the first stanza of four loosely related strophes in a chanson anthology

published during the first decades of the sixteenth century. 15

rhyme music

1. Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux ont de peine True God, of the afflictions that lovers have a A 2. Certes j’aymeroys mieux la mort. Certainly I would prefer death. b B1 3. Je n’ay sur moy ny nerf, ny vaine I have in me neither strength nor vanity a A 4. Qui ne se sente du remort. Which does not feel the remorse. b B1B2 5. Je m’y plein fort, las, ay je tort? I complain loudly, alas, am I wrong? b C 6. L’on m’oste ce que mon coeur ayme, They deprive me of what my heart loves a B2 7. Encores dit on que j’ay tort. And they keep saying that I am wrong. b B’1

Mouton sets the first phrase of Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux to closely resemble that of Vray Dieu

d’amours (compare the Superius, mm. 1-5 in Ex. 7.2 to that of Ex. 7.3, mm. 5-8). In addition to

the common incipts and corresponding musical phrases, both songs feature a rhetorical question

at their fifth line of text. Mouton treats this point similarly in both chansons. He introduces the

question after a clausula vera, demarcates it with long rests, and, in the response, he further

employs a simple homorhythmic style that prevails for the rest of the chanson. The change to

homorhythm and the extremely syllabic pace slow down the chanson, creating a stasis similar to

the one in Vray Dieu d’amours. The final line of the poem, “Encore dit on que j’ay tort,” also

receives special attention (Ex. 7.3, mm. 40-end ). Based on the ascending/descending third of

15 Les chansons nouvelles que on chante de present (n.p., n.d. but from the first three decades of the sixteenth century). Modern edition in Jeffery, Chanson Verse, 1:112-113. The relationship of the remaining stanzas to the first one is unclear, which makes a strophic performance of the song unlikely.

438 phrase B2, Mouton creates a distinct last section in homorhythmic style, in which the reiteration

of the words “encore dit on” aims at the literal depiction of persistence (“encore”) in musical terms.

The individual melodic phrases in Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux bear many features characteristic of Mouton’s motivic orientation. Phrases A and B are closely related in their intervallic content but they cadence on different notes. Phrase A unfolds in descending/ascending thirds, starting on C, and cadences on A. Phrase B presents itself in two guises: as B1 beginning

on A, ascending to C, and cadencing on F; and as B2 beginning on F, ascending to C through A,

16 and again cadencing on F. The melodic content of phrase C is similar to that of B1 and B2, highlighting the triad F-A-C. Thus phrase C descends from C to F through interlocking descending thirds, and cadences on A (see brackets in Ex. 7.3). At this point, while the Superius and Tenor unfold in exact imitation, the Quinta and Sexta are subjected to one of Mouton’s favorite devices: retaining the tonal content of phrase C, Mouton re-arranges the notes through a combination of melodic inversion and paraphrase techniques. This treatment is typical of

Mouton and exemplifies his penchant for varied repetition and transformation.

If indeed Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux is based on a cantus prius factus, then Mouton must have chosen it because of its tightly integrated motivic material. The close melodic associations among the individual musical phrases could also suggest that Mouton was the composer of the

Superius melody, which was then used by Johannes Lupi and others to become a cantus prius factus.17

16 In the first appearance of B1 there is a brief linear extension down to C. However, this is eliminated in the second appearance of the same phrase (see mm. 23-26) 17 Lupi’s setting transposes the Superius down a fourth. For Lupi’s and other related settings see Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater, no. 412. The monophonic setting Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux in Paris 12744 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fonds fr. 12744) is unrelated to that of Mouton, Lupi and the others, and the texts have only their first line in common.

439 Motivic fragmentation of the melodic material and its subsequent subjection to variation

and repetition becomes further intensified in the chansons of Group 2. The three chansons in the

popularisant tradition feature asymmetrical rhyming schemes, smaller numbers of syllables, and

briefer melodic lines (compared to the courtly chansons). Textually, narration combines with

dialogue and pastoral settings. All three songs are possibly based on pre-existent popular models.

Mouton fragments these melodies into smaller units, which I will call “modules,” and which are

usually melodically and rhythmically interrelated. He then transforms these modules through

various contrapuntal manipulations to create more units that are spread throughout the polyphonic texture. These manipulations are frequently so complex that it becomes difficult to discern their origins since Mouton often combines elements from different modules to generate further material. Thus the identification of the different modules is only possible through retrospective analysis.

Le berger et la bergère reflects the pastourelle tradition in its combination of narration with dialogue. However, the interlocutors’ speech, the shepherd’s and the shepherdess’s, is only made possible through the narrator’s voice, who describes their dialogue (see ll. 3, 6, and 8).

modules 1. Le berger et la bergère The shepherd and the shepherdess ABC 2. Bras à bras jouer s’en vont. Arm in arm they went to play. DD’ 3. “Je te pris” (dit la bergère) “I prithee” (said the shepherdess) A’(arch-shape) 4. “Mon amy dy moy ton nom.” “My friend, tell me your name.” D’ 5. Et lire lire liron. And tra, la, la, la. E 6. “Je te pris” (dit la bergère) “I prithee” (said the shepherdess) BC 7. “Mon amy dy moy ton nom.” “My friend, tell me your name.” D’’ 8. Le mignon luy fait response: Her darling replied to her: A’(arch-shape) 9. “Par bleu j’ay nom Fourbifron.” “By Jove, my name is Fourbifron.” D’ 10.“Et fourbi le moy donc.” “Well, ‘clean’ me, then.”18 E

The first line of the chanson features three different melodic modules, A, B, and C, all

beginning with the skip of an ascending fifth (see Ex. 7.4, mm. 1-6).19 Therefore, all voices open

18 Translation based on Jacobs, LeRoy & Ballard’s, 588. Jacobs does not translate l. 5. I have also altered the translation of l. 10, which in Jacob’s reads “And polish me it, then.”

440 the chanson with similar melodic material and continue with more or less differentiated melodic extensions. The second line features a fourth melodic module in the Superius, module D, that spans a descending fifth and has a distinct homogenous rhythmic character. The same module immediately repeats, retaining its characteristic rhythm but altering the tonal content to create a meandering melodic line (ascending/descending/ascending, Ex. 7.4, mm.14-16). With the switch to first person speech, all voices engage in approximate imitation of an arch-shape line, which springs melodically from module A. At the same time, the rather melismatic character of the first two narrative verses gives way to a very syllabic, declamatory style, especially with the shepherdess’s request to know the shepherd’s name (module D’, mm. 19-23). The following nonsense-syllable verse (l. 5) is built around a melodic cadential gesture, which emphasizes D in all voices. It is a short but rhythmically animated module (E) with an anagogical accent on the second note, reminiscent of dance rhythm.

For the repetition of ll. 3 and 4 for ll. 6 and 7, Mouton typically assigns different material to the individual voices. However, this material is not new but a combination of modules B, C, and D in varied forms (see the brackets in Ex. 7.4, mm. 26-37). Mouton thus reiterates the music of the opening in a different guise. The following line (l. 8), introducing the shepherd’s reply through the narrator’s voice, is again based on the arch-shape melodies that accompanied the shepherdess’s question in l. 3 (compare, for example, Superius, mm. 16-18 to mm. 39-41 in Ex.

7.4). For “mignon’s” response the music becomes again predominantly syllabic, based on the

19 In the musical examples, modules will be indicated with a capital letter in parentheses to distinguish them from phrases, indicated simply by capital letters.

441 rhythm of module D. For the last obscene line, the music brings back the animated dotted rhythm

of l. 5.20

Although at first glance Le berger et la bergère seems to be through-composed, the

recurrence of the modules in ever varied expressions turns such an argument mute. The musical

form closely follows the changes in the text (from narration to direct speech and vice versa) and

Mouton demarcates the different sections not by introducing new music but by manipulation of

the texture, the declamatory style, and the cadential treatment. As was mentioned above, Mouton

observes the change to first person speech by turning to a syllabic style. However, he

differentiates between the female voice and that of her companion. First, the shepherdess sings in

arch-shape melodic lines (module A’) in all voices, whereas the shepherd’s speech is based

exclusively on module D. Second, while the main cadences of the chanson fall on A or D, at the points of direct speech the music cadences on E (for both ll. 3-4 and 9). However, at the end of the shepherdess’s utterance (l. 4) there is an A in the Bassus which modifies the effect of the cadence (m. 23). The A is missing in “le berger’s” cadence (end of l. 9, m. 44). Mouton has thus devised another way to differentiate not only between narration and direct speech but also between the female and male voice.

20 The name “Fourbifron” is a pun on the verb “fourbir” which means “to polish” but also “to copulate.” Rose M. Bidler, Dictionnaire érotique: ançien français, moyen français, Renaissance (Montreal: Éditions Ceres, 2002), 301.

442 Example 7.4. Mouton, Le berger et la bergère (after Jacobs 1982)

443 444

445 446

447 The technique of fragmenting melodies into smaller modules that are melodically and

rhythmically related is also very prominent in Ce que mon coeur pense. The structure of this eight-line stanza, in which only the even-numbered verses rhyme (if we exclude the exclamatory

“Helas”), recalls the structure of other chansons in the popular tradition, such as Petite

camusette.21

rhyme modules 1. Ce que mon coeur pense What my heart thinks a A 2. Je ne le di pas, Helas. I shall not say, alas. b B

3. Au jardin mon père In the garden my father c C 4. Un oyseau y a Has a bird b 5. Qui dit tous les jours That says every day d A 6. Qui s’envolera, Helas. That he will fly away, alas. b B

7. Ce que mon coeur pense What my heart thinks a A 8. Je ne le di pas, Helas. I shall not say, alas. b B

The music in Ce que mon coeur pense is constructed around units of two lines, which

correspond to the syntactical units of the poetry (ll. 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, and 7-8). 22 Every unit is demarcated by a complete cadence. Two melodic modules, A and B, comprise the melodic fodder out of which Mouton generates a considerably long chanson—the longest in his multi- voice chanson output—through extensive text repetition. The two modules are closely associated through a common rhythmic pattern (Ex. 7.5, mm. 8-12).23 However, module A is melodically

more energetic with its ascending fourth motion, while module B is more static, featuring a

repeated note gesture. Module C is indebted to the rhythm of both modules A and B, but is

longer due to a cadential extension over the words “Un oyseau y a” (see, for example, Ex. 7.5,

21 It is also possible to read the lines as decasyllabic (again excluding “Helas”), in which case we are dealing with a four-line stanza with a single rhyme (the b-rhyme in the above scheme). 22 Unlike Josquin’s and La Rue’s multi-voice chansons, in which the voices sing the entirety of the text, in Mouton’s chansons there are instances in which a voice omits parts or whole lines of the poetry. In Ce que mon coeur pense the Bassus omits the first line of the text and later on also the fifth verse. The only such instance in Josquin’s songs occurs in Tenez moy en vos bras, discussed in Chapter IV. 23 In Ex. 7.5, I begin marking the modules after their first appearance in the Superius.

448 Superius, mm. 27-31 and Tenor, mm. 22-25). Module C provides the music for both lines 3 and

As was the case with Le berger et la bergère, Mouton here, too, observes the changes in the nature of the speaking voice. The chanson text switches from direct first-person representation (ll. 1-2) to narration (ll. 3-6) and finishes with the repetition of ll. 1-2. Mouton underscores the moments of self-representation, “Je ne le dit pas,” with homorhythmic passages that amplify the recitative-like rhythm of module B (Ex. 7.5, mm. 4-6, 11-14, and 49-54).

As the scheme next to the translation demonstrates, the musical structure of the chanson partially reflects the rhyme of the poetry. However, this scheme is but a simplification of what actually happens in the music. Every return of module A or B presents new variations, as well as different distributions of the modules among the voices of the polyphonic fabric (compare, for example, mm. 1-19 to mm. 45-66 for different combinations). The end result is that of constant variation—of an almost minimalistic nature—within an otherwise largely consistent and homogeneous motivic context.

449 Example 7.5. Mouton, Ce que mon coeur pense (after Jacobs 1982)

450 451 452 453 454

The technique of fragmentation, transformation, and varied repetition of the modules reaches its apogee in La rousée du mois de may. The chanson is probably based on a cantus prius factus, which Mouton places in the Superius.24 Another two settings of the same melody, by Jean

Rousée and Pierre Moulu, survive in the 1572 Mellange.25 The inherent properties of the presumed cantus prius factus provide Mouton with excellent opportunities for complex contrapuntal manipulations. The melody, as it appears in Mouton’s Superius, consists of three interrelated melodic modules given in Example 7.6 (Superius, mm. 4-6, 6-9, and 18-21).26 The

24 According to Brown, Mouton’s chanson, as well as other sixteenth-century songs on the same text, have similar thematic material with an “anonymous setting a 3 in Florence 59, no. 85, [which] may paraphrase a cantus prius factus, the upper two voices having the larger share of thematic material.” Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater, 198. There is no relevant entry in Fallows’s Catalogue of Polyphonic Songs. Florence 59 is in fact Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Banco Rari 229 (olim Magliabechi XIX. 59) (FlorBN BR 229). 25 Jacobs, LeRoy & Ballard’s, nos. 119 and 120. While Rousée’s and Moulu’s settings are grouped together, Mouton’s song stands apart as no. 16. The Mellange orders the compositions according to the number of parts, thus Mouton’s five-part setting belongs to a different section than Rousée’s and Moulu’s six-part arrangements. 26 The pre-existent melody in Moulu’s setting is very similar to that of Mouton’s. Only phrase B presents a variant.

455 beginning of module B is an almost transposed retrograde inversion of the final four notes of module A (see the dashed brackets in Ex. 7.6, mm. 5-7). Module C is also related to module A; its first half imitates the characteristic ascending fifth of module A while its second half introduces a new element, two consecutive ascending tones. All three modules also share a constantly present four-note segment made up of a third (minor or major) and a whole step. This segment becomes an important generator of further melodic material.27

The freely composed voices follow the structure of the presumed model, which partially reflects the rhyme of the poetry. The opening couplet, “La rousée du mois de may/M’a gasté ma verte cotte,” functions as a refrain that returns at the end of the chanson (similar to Ce que mon coeur pense).

rhyme module 1. La rousée du mois de may The dew of the month of May a A 2. M’a gasté ma verte cotte. Has spoiled my green skirt. b B

3. Par un matin m’y levay, I got up one morning a C 4. (La rousée du mois de may), (The dew of the month of May), a C 5. En un jardin m’en entray; I entered into a garden; a A 6. Dittes vous que je suis sotte. You can say that I am foolish. b B

7. La rousée du mois de may The dew of the month of May a A 8. M’a gasté ma verte cotte. Has spoiled my green skirt.28 b B

Mouton builds every section of the chanson around the main features of the Superius individual phrases. However, he contrapuntally manipulates the individual phrases to generate

27 Set theory proves particularly helpful for penetrating into the intervallic content of La rousée and demonstrating the tight interrelationship of its individual musical phrases. The prime form for modules B and C, that is, the intervallic expressions of their contents in numerical form, is (0235) and (0357), respectively, while that of module A is (02357). The prime forms clearly indicate that modules B and C are practically subsets of module A. Mouton took advantage of the intervallic properties of the borrowed melody to create a chanson of extreme minimalistic character. 28 The content of the chanson is based on several jeux de mots and is typically erotic. A girl who enters the garden is after a sexual adventure. The Dictionnaire du moyen français defines “Baiser la cotte verte” or “Donnez la cotte verte” as “jeter une fille sur l’herbe et folâtrer avec elle.” Algirdas J. Greimas and Teresa M. Keane, Dictionnaire du moyen français (Paris: Larousse, 1992), 152. In the same entry, the authors also offer the proverb “Femme sotte se cognoist a la cotte,” which echoes with the last line of the main stanza, “Dittes vous que je suis sotte.” Furthermore, the Dictionnaire érotique defines “donner la cotte verte” as “soulever la juppe.” Bidler, Dictionnaire érotique, 165. The verb “gaster” (to ravage) is also very strong and implies sexual interaction.

456 further melodic material. For example, the first repetition of module A in the Contratenor (which opens with an ascending third instead of an ascending fifth) features transposition, while the second repetition features augmentation of the final notes of the module (Ex. 7.6, mm. 5-13).

Later on, at the first repetition of module B, Mouton divides the melody into two halves and builds a cadential extension out of the second half (Ex. 7.6, Superius, mm. 10-15). In their settings of the same tune, Moulu and Rousée simply repeat exactly the second phrase of the

Superius. Furthermore, during the first appearance of module C for l. 3 (“Par un matin m’y levay”), Mouton presents a rhythmically varied Bassus (Ex. 7.6, Bassus, mm. 17-19), while he constructs the opening of the Contratenor by reversing and transposing the final four notes of module A (Contratenor, mm. 17-18). The above gestures allow glimpses into how Mouton read and manipulated the individual features of the borrowed melody and indicate that he chose the borrowed material with an eye for their contrapuntal potential.

Mouton typically demarcates the main syntactical units of his chanson with full cadences on G at the end of ll. 2 and 6 (Ex. 7.6, mm. 15 and 39-40, respectively). However, after the complete cadence in mm. 39-40 the Quinta pars continues by repeating the sixth line of the text instead of introducing the final couplet. I suggest that the text underlay at this point (Quinta, mm.

40 to 45) should read “La rousée du mois de may/M’a gasté ma vertecotte” instead of “Dittes vous que je suis sotte,” which is how it appears in the 1572 Mellange de chansons. Such an alteration complies better with the phrase structure of the other voices for the final couplet

(module A followed by module B) and also with the clausula vera at mm. 39-40, which normally would mark the beginning of a new section. The fact that Mouton maintains the motivic integrity of each section further reinforces this suggestion. Better understanding of Mouton’s compositional strategies thus guides us to informed decisions in matters of text underlay.

457 Example 7.6. Mouton, La rousée du mois de may (after Jacobs 1982)

458 459 460 461

462 The above musico-rhetorical analyses have shown that Mouton’s approach to multi-voice

chanson composition is markedly different from that of Josquin’s or La Rue’s. First, his poetic

texts, with their unusual metrical structures and unconventional rhyme schemes, indicate that

Mouton belonged to a different poetic universe compared to that of his famous contemporaries.

It is possible that his choice of texts was guided by the tastes of the more forward-looking French

royal court, of which Mouton was a loyal servant for most of his life.29 As mentioned in Chapter

II, popularisant poetry was prominent in end of the fifteenth-century manuscripts intended for

French nobles (such as MS 12744 and Bayeux). The asymmetrical structures of this poetry possibly influenced the structural schemes of aristocratisant poems, such as the ones set by

Mouton.

Second, unlike Josquin and La Rue who use canon extensively, Mouton prefers to build his compositions around a main melodic line, newly composed or pre-existing, which he places in the upper part of the polyphonic texture. Whether based on a cantus prius factus or a newly

devised melody, Mouton creates his chansons by relying on three basic principles: variation,

transformation, and repetition. Mouton fragments his main melody into smaller units, which he

then subjects to various contrapuntal manipulations. In addition to inversion, retrograde,

rhythmic augmentation and diminution, as Stewart has already pointed out, Mouton delights in

maintaining the contour of his units, which I call modules, and re-arranging the internal notes.

He thus generates subsequent melodic material by the varied combination of the transformed

modules.

Third, despite commonly held views about Mouton’s insensitivity towards the individual

prosodic features of the poetry, a musico-rhetorical analysis of the multi-voice chansons

29 After entering the service of Queen Anne of Brittany in the first decade of the sixteenth century, Mouton remained attached to the French court until his death.

463 demonstrates that he was no less indifferent to his texts compared to Josquin or La Rue.30 He simply chose to emphasize different aspects of the poetry. The syllabic declamation and the clear outline of the melodic phrases, so typical of Josquin, are almost absent in Mouton. Instead,

Mouton employs long melismatic passages, abounded with suspensions, in his courtly love songs, but smaller and rhythmically animated ones in his chansons in the popular register.

Furthermore, Mouton is particularly sensitive to the projection of first-person speech, as the analysis of Ce que mon coeur pense and Le berger et la bergère have shown. He achieves this through differentiation of the texture and the motivic content, and with changes in the declamatory style. Finally, Mouton takes special care to project rhetorical questions in musical terms. In the possible envoy and responce pair, both Vray Dieu d’amours and Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux feature a melodic stasis, as if allowing time to ponder over the question. The stasis represents in musical terms this self-reflective moment and directs the attention of the listener to the rhetoric of the poem. Mouton’s approach to multi-voice chanson composition thus reveals different facets of musical rhetorical techniques available to the early sixteenth-century secular music composer.

30 Howard M. Brown and Thomas G. MacCracken, “Mouton [de Holluigue], Jean,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, vol. 17 (London: Macmillan, 2001), 241. The authors state that “Mouton was often indifferent to good text declamation: his music is filled with incorrect accentuations and other infelicities in the way he combines words and notes, a trait indicating that he was more interested in purely musical design than in expression.”

464 II. Multi-voice chansons by other contemporary composers

With the exception of Josquin, La Rue, and Mouton, composers of the first quarter of the

sixteenth century did not systematically venture into multi-voice chanson composition, at least as

far as the extant sources permit us to say. No multi-voice chansons survive from the pen of major

composers such as Loyset Compère, Antoine de Févin, or Heinrich Isaac. Of course a

considerable portion of this repertory survives anonymously in VienNB Mus. 18746 (one of the

main repositories of this subgenre), thus limiting our knowledge of multi-voice chanson

distribution. In addition, the lack of texts in this manuscript seriously impedes the musico-

rhetorical analysis of many of the chansons.31 The following analyses will not consider chansons for which a matching text cannot be located.

Early sixteenth-century composers to whom multi-voice chansons are attributed in contemporary or posthumous sources include Benedictus Appenzeller (c. 1480-after 1558), Noel

Bauldeweyn (c. 1480; fl. 1509-1513), Antonius De Vinea (d. 1516, henceforth referred to as de

Vigne), Jean Le Brung (fl. early 16th century), Pierre Moulu (c. 1480/90-c. 1550), Johannes

Prioris (fl. c. 1485-1512), and Jean Richafort (c. 1480-after 1547). There is also a five-part

chanson attributed to Johannes de Stokem (c. 1445-1487). Appenzeller, Moulu, and Richafort are

younger contemporaries of Josquin, active well after 1520. Appenzeller is credited with seven

multi-voice chansons, Moulu with four (including one motet-chanson), and Richafort also with

four. Of these, I only consider songs that appear in sources compiled during the first quarter of

the sixteenth century. Table 7.2 presents the multi-voice chansons by composers other than

Josquin, La Rue, and Mouton in the order they are discussed. The chansons are grouped

31 VienNB Mus. 18746 provides only incipits. For some of the chansons the text can be reconstructed from other musical and literary sources. However, chansons with common incipits often have different continuations (e.g., Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux discussed in Part I of this chapter), thus the reconstructed version is not necessarily the intended one. For many songs in VienNB Mus. 18746 no text survives at all.

465 according to the structural devices they are built on to better inform our understanding of compositional practices in the early attempts at multi-voice song writing.

Table 7.2. Multi-voice chansons of the first quarter of the sixteenth century by composers other than Josquin, La Rue, and Mouton

Incipit Composer Earliest Poetry Canon/Canonic Cantus prius sourcea writing factus Brunette m’amiette (5) Stokem Odhecaton A No text T/Q @ 4th Probably on (1501); survives (strict) popular terminus ante melody quem 1487 Hor oires une chanzon anonymous Odhecaton A No text No Popular (5) (1501) survives melody and ostinato related to Cantus de anglia Je suis anonymous FlorBN BR Combinative No Je suis d’Alemagne/Joliettement 229 (1492-93), chanson. No d’Alemagne m’en vay (5) Canti C (1503) text survives and for Joliettement Joliettement m’en vay Franc coeur, qu’as de Vigne Canti B Two texts (one T/CT altus @ Franc cœur (?) tu/Fortuna dun gran (1502), French and 5th (free and Fortuna tempo (5) unicum one Italian) approach) dun gran tempo D’ung aultre aymer/Cela Le Brung VienNB Mus. abba refrain. No Ockeghem’s sans plus (5) 18746 (1523) The text of Superius and Cela sans plus Colinet’s does not Tenor as survive ostinato Mi larés vous (5) ? Attr. Josquin Kriesstein abba quatrain No Ostinato motif in Kriesstein 1540 [RISM mi la re 1540, unicum 15407] Par vous je suis (Entrée Prioris FlorC 2439 Textless in this T/Q @ 4th (free On Josquin’s je suis) (5) (1506-14) source approach) three-part Entrée je suis En douleur et tristesse Bauldeweyn VienNB Mus. Textless in this T/Q @ 8ve Paris 12744, (5) 18746 (1523) source; text (strict) no. 91 survives in Paris 12744 Je m’y levay par ung Appenzeller/ VienNB Mus. Textless in this S/Q @ 8ve Possibly matin (5) Verdelot 18746 (1523) source; text (strict) survives in 15722 N’avez point veu mal Le Brung BolC Q26 (c. 2 quatrains S/T @ 8ve (free Yes assenée (5) 1540-50) separated by a approach) longer line J’ay bien cause de ? Attr. Josquin Kriesstein abba quatrain S/CT @ unison On lamenter (6) in Kriesstein 1540 [RISM (free approach) Pietrequin’s 1540 15407] Superius Mais que ce fust secretement

466 D’amour je suis Richafort CambriP 1760 Asymmetrical No Yes desheritée (5) (1509-1516) Ne vous chaille, mon Richafort VatP 1980-1 Asymmetrical No Yes in Q cueur (5) (c. 1518-23) Si vous n’avez autre Le Brung Susato 1545 aabba cinquain T/Sx @ 8ve, Response to desir (6) [RISM 154515] (strict) Josquin’s N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir Fiere attropos/Anxiatus Moulu FlorL 666 Rondeau No Anxiatus est est (5) (1518) cinquain/ (antiphon) in T antiphon

a The dating of the manuscript sources is as reported in the Census-Catalogue. For full bibliographic citations of the manuscript and printed sources see Appendix 2.

In addition to de Vigne’s, Prioris’s, and Stokem’s chansons, most certainly written before

the turn of the century (see the dates of the earliest sources in Table 7.2), two more songs from the same period survive: Hor oires une chanzon (in Odhecaton A) and Je suis

d’Alemagne/Joliettement m’en vay (in FlorBN BR 229 and Canti C; see also Appendix 1), both

anonymous. These five songs constitute the earliest attempts at secular music composition for

more than four voices. Although the textless compositions Brunette m’amiette, Hor oires une

chanson, and Je suis d’Alemagne/Joliettement m’en vay do not avail themselves to musico-

rhetorical analysis, a few observations on their structural devices will complement our

understanding of the ways composers were experimenting to expand the texture.

In Brunette m’amiette, the music unfolds around a strict canon at the fourth and all voices

imitate the canonic melody at the opening of the chanson. Besides this opening gesture, however,

imitation is kept to a minimum. As is very common with works built on a canon at the fourth, the

same interval features prominently in the melodic phrases of the individual voices. While

occasionally all voices sound together the texture is predominantly four-part.

Stokem’s death in 1487 provides a terminus ante quem for Brunette m’amiette, which

would thus be the earliest extant multi-voice chanson. Recently however, David Fallows has

rejected the possibility that this chanson was composed before the 1490s, a suggestion that

467 subsequently questions the attribution to Stokem. Fallows’s reservations derive from the

presence of the strict canon within a five-part texture, a technique established by Josquin after

the turn of the century.32 Even if we accept Fallows’s new date of composition for Brunette

m’amiette, the chanson still stands as an exception in late fifteenth-century song repertories and a forerunner for multi-voice settings on strict canon.

Hor oires une chanzon shows another aspect of architectural planning. The chanson is based on a cantus prius factus placed in the Tenor and a seven-fold repetition of an ostinato motif in the second Tenor. This motif replicates the second phrase of the Tenor melody and its constant presence helps maintain a thick four- and five-part texture throughout the chanson.33 As

in Brunette m’amiette, the accompanying voices do not feature points of imitation with the

structural voices with the exception of the opening, where the Superius and Bassus imitate the

opening Tenor phrase.

The five-voice Je suis d’Alemagne/Joliettement follows the tradition of the three-part

combinative chanson but with an expanded texture. Its Superius is based on the monophonic

melody “Je suis trop jeunette,” found in Paris 12744,34 and its Tenor provides the incipit

“Joliettement m’en vay.”35 The two pre-composed voices bear close similarities, especially at the

opening of their respective phrases (Ex. 7.7).

32 David Fallows, ed., One Hundred Songs of Harmonic Music: Ottaviano Petrucci 1501, A Quincentenary Performing Edition, rev. ed. (Amherst: Amherst Early Music, 2003), 11. 33 In her edition of the Odhecaton, Helen Hewitt has pointed out the possible connection between this motif and the Superius of the Cantus de anglia, a chanson preserved in VienNB Mus. 18746, fols. 37-37v. In the latter composition, the Superius presents twelve repetitions of the solmized motif “La sol mi fa mi” in several transpositional levels. Helen Hewitt, ed., Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A (Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1942; repr. New York: Da Capo Press, 1978), 90. Hor oires une chanzon is no. 3 in the Odhecaton. 34 Modern edition in Paris Gaston and Auguste Gevaert, eds., Chansons du XVe siècle (Paris: Librairie de Firmin-Didot, 1875), no. 22. 35 The chanson appears in two early sources: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Banco Rari 229 (olim Magliabechi XIX.59) (FlorBN BR 229), modern edition in Howard M. Brown, ed., A Florentine Chansonnier from the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Banco Rari 229, 2 vols., Monuments of Renaissance Music, vol. 7 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 2: no. 162, and in Canti C,

468 Example 7.7. Anon., Je suis d'Alemagne/Joliettement (after Brown 1983)

Numero cento cinquanta (Venezia: Petrucci, 1503), no. 82. The incipit “Joliettement” is given only in Canti C, but no further text survives (see also Table 7.2).

469 470 It is possible that the composer chose the second melody because of its affinity to “Je suis d’Alemagne” or that he devised it so that it resembles the Superius tune. The accompanying voices, Bassus and Contratenors I and II, with their erratic and faster-moving rhythms that feature parallel tenths, seem to have been instrumental in conception. As in Brunette m’amiette,

the texture of Je suis d’Alemagne/Joliettement is mainly four-part.36

The early Franc coeur, qu’as tu/Fortuna dun gran tempo by de Vigne also combines two

secular tunes within a five-part setting: Franc coeur, qu’as tu in the Superius and Fortuna in the

Tenor.37 Howard Mayer Brown identifies them both as pre-existent38 but no such melody

survives for Franc coeur. 39 If indeed a cantus prius factus, then its treatment, as we shall see,

suggests that de Vigne certainly altered the tune to serve the particular needs of his chanson. As

with Je suis d’Alemagne/Joliettement m’en vay, the two structural melodies share common

features, which is possibly the reason why de Vigne chose to combine them. The most

outstanding common element is the opening descending pentachord, characteristic of the

Fortuna tune, which recurs in various guises in the Franc coeur melody (see the various

appearances of the pentachord in the Superius of Ex. 7.8a).40

36 For a discussion of the fifteenth-century combinative chanson see Maria R. Maniates, ed., The Combinative Chanson: An Anthology, Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance, vol. 77 (Madison, WI: A- R Editions, 1989). 37 Very few details are known about the life of Antonius de Vinea (à Vinea, de Vigne, van den Wijngaerde). He was closely associated with the bishop of Utrecht, David of Burgundy and served as canon of the Mariakerk in Utrecht from 1476 until 1515. He died in 1516. Only one other composition by de Vigne survives, the four-voice motet Ego dormio. 38 Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater, no. 135. 39 Helen Hewitt, ed., Ottaviano Petrucci: Canti B, numero cinquanta, Venice, 1502, Monuments of Renaissance Music, vol. 2 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 65. 40 For the presence of the descending pentachord in Fortuna settings see the discussion of Pour souhaitter in Chapter V.

471 Example 7.8a. De Vigne, Franc coeur qu'as tu/Fortuna dun gran tempo, Superius and Tenor (after Hewitt 1967)

472 Example 7.8b. De Vigne, Franc coeur qu'as tu/Fortuna dun gran tempo, mm. 1-14

In addition to the two structural voices (Superius and Tenor), de Vigne employs a canon between the Tenor and the Contratenor altus. While the Tenor presents the Fortuna melody in

473 augmentation, the Contratenor sings the same tune a fifth above and in diminution (Ex. 7.8b, mm. 10-14). Furthermore, at the entrance of the canon, the Superius and the Bassus start simultaneously with an inversion of the Fortuna theme (see Ex. 7.8b, Superius and Bassus, mm.

10-11). In his study of the chanson, Edward Lowinsky concluded that such treatment is a musical

representation of medieval conceptions of good and bad fortune. According to Lowinsky,

there are variations in the literary and pictorial representations of the wheel. “In the Roman de Fauvel good and bad Fortune are symbolized . . . by two wheels, one fast and the other slow, within each of which there is another small wheel that has a contrary movement.” To reproduce this in music, one voice would have to give the Fortuna melody at a fast pace, another at a slow pace—or “augmented,” as music theory terms it—, a third voice would have to accompany the first melody at its own brisk rate but in contrary movement, while a fourth voice would move slowly but again in contrary movement. Such a technical feat would be almost impossible of achievement. Yet this is precisely the plan of Fortuna dun gran tempo by de Vigne . . . To be sure, the assignment is too difficult to be carried out all through the work. But while, from meas. 10 to the end, the two larger wheels are perfectly symbolized by the simultaneous slow and fast singing of the Fortuna melody, the two smaller wheels are at least recognizable in the form of the pair of fast and slow voices that begin at the same time and invert the theme, thus moving in contrary motion with the first pair.41

To the musical symbolisms identified by Lowinsky I would also call attention to the

descending and ascending octaves at the opening of the Superius. As discussed in Chapter V,

melodic octaves are omnipresent in compositions associated directly or indirectly to the fortuna

topos. In de Vigne’s setting, the Superius opens with a long descending octave followed by a

briefer ascending line that spans the same interval. The descending octave is realized through

two interlocking fifths (Ex. 7.8b, Superius, mm. 1-5 and 6-10), the first of which outlines the characteristic descending fifth, D-G, of the Fortuna melody.42 Such spiral movement (down-up-

down) adds another element of musico-pictorial symbolism, and indicates that de Vigne either

41 Edward E. Lowinsky, “The Goddess Fortuna in Music with a Special Study of Josquin’s Fortuna dun gran tempo,” Musical Quarterly 29, no. 1 (1943): 75. 42 The opening of Josquin’s Pour souhaitter also features two ascending interlocking fifths. See the discussion of this chanson in Chapter V.

474 took advantage of the inherent properties of the Superius tune or that he altered it accordingly to

underline the rhetoric of the Fortuna text and melody. The latter hypothesis is reinforced by the

fact that halfway through the chanson, the Superius abandons the French song and continues

with the Fortuna dun gran tempo poem (Ex. 7.8a, mm. 22ff). The entrance of the Fortuna

melody at this point unveils the melodic affinity between the two structural voices, which are

thus presented by a single voice part.

The manipulation of the common features between two pre-existent melodies also

characterizes the structural strategy behind Le Brung’s five-voice D’ung aultre aymer/Cela sans

plus.43 Le Brung places the Superius of Ockeghem’s famous chanson in the upper part of his

own setting and borrows the head motif of Colinet de Lannoy’s Tenor in Cela sans plus to build

his own Tenor. 44 This motif features a descending fourth, which Le Brung employs in an

ostinato manner involving direct presentations, transpositions, and other contrapuntal

manipulations. Descending fourths also feature prominently at the opening of Ockegehm’s

Superius and subsequently permeate all of the accompanying voices in Le Brung’s setting. This

interval thus becomes the common thread that allows Le Brung to musically juxtapose two

melodies of contrasting poetic nature.45

Although Ockeghem’s melody is presented in its entirety, various features in the

treatment of the freely composed voices indicate that this is an instrumental composition. The

short motives, the quick rhythms, the constant leaps in the Quinta, the hocket-like writing, and

43 The chanson bears an ascription to Le Brung in VienNB Mus. 18746. Two more chansons incorporating two pre-existing melodies appear in the same manuscript: A moy seulle/Comme femme and Consideres mes/Fortuna desperata, both anonymous. 44 Howard Mayer Brown points out that Josquin’s three-voice Cela sans plus also uses Colinet’s opening in inversion and in long notes. Brown, Music in the French Secular Theater, no. 42l. It is not entirely clear whether Le Brung based his composition on Colinet’s head motif or on Josquin’s re-working. On the different texts starting with the words “Cela sans plus” see Fallows, A Catalogue of Polyphonic Songs, 104-105. 45 D’ung aultre aymer is the typical courtly love song, while Cela sans plus belongs to the popularisant tradition.

475 the large range of the Contratenor point to a composition instrumental in conception.

Nevertheless, the employment of a cantus prius factus in combination with the ostinato treatment of a short motif in another voice recalls the compositional strategy of Hor oires une chanzon and

indicates that this was one technique applied by early sixteenth-century composers in their

secular music for expanded textures.

The ostinato device is also very prominent at the opening of the five-voice Mi larés vous,

an unicum, which bears an ascription to Josquin in Kriesstein’s 1540 edition.46 The opening of

the chanson features imitative entries of the motif mi la re, a musical pun on the title of the

chanson. However, apart from the opening imitation, the individual voices proceed with more or

less independent melodic phrases. The absence of canon or a cantus prius factus, the repetition

of textual phrases, and the non-imitative nature of the music speak against the attribution to

Josquin.47 Neverheless, Mi larés vous testifies to the wide range of compositional techniques

devised by composers of multi-voice songs.

A different structural device occurs in Prioris’s five-voice Par vous je suis. This chanson

appears in FlorC 2439 (“Basevi Codex”) and represents the earliest multi-voice secular

composition in the Habsburg-Burgundian manuscript complex.48 It also survives in the later

VienNB Mus. 18746 with the incipit Entré je suis en grant penser, but neither source provides any text underlay. Prioris builds his composition around a canon at the fourth on a melody

46 Selectissimae necnon familiarissimae cantiones (Augsburg: M. Kriesstein, 1540) [RISM 15407]. 47 A four-voice homonymous setting is included in Attaingnant’s Trente chansons musicales a quatres parties (Paris: Attaingnant, 1529) [RISM 15284], no. 30. Only fragments of this print survive. 48 Only three chansonniers survive from the Flemish court scriptorium: Florence, Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica Luigi Cherubini, MS Basevi 2439 (“Basevi Codex”), henceforth referred to as FlorC 2439; Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 228 (BrusBR 228); and Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Musiksammlung, MS Mus. 18746 (olim A.N.35.H.14) (VienNB Mus. 18746). FlorC 2439 is the earliest of the three (c. 1505-1508) and contains only one multi-voice chanson, Prioris’s Par vous je suis.

476 borrowed from Josquin’s three-voice Entrée suis.49 Josquin’s chanson was already in circulation by the mid-1480s and it is possible that he was the composer of the structural melody. Prioris expands the texture to five voices but closely adheres to the compositional plan set out by

Josquin.50

In contrast to the strict treatment of the canon in his multi-voice chansons, in the early

Entrée suis Josquin concludes every phrase of the Superius with non-canonic extensions.51 In addition, he changes the temporal interval as well as the interval of imitation between the canonic voices. Prioris similarly incorporates a non-canonic melodic extension (Ex. 7.9, mm. 34-

36), alters the temporal distance between the canonic entries (mm. 41-43) and, furthermore, shifts the dux and comes order for the final phrase of the chanson (mm. 48-49).52 The tonal ambiguity characteristic of Josquin’s three-voice setting is also present in the five-part arrangement by Prioris, who undermines cadential closure at important structural points (e.g.,

49 The three-voice Entrée suis survives in Florence, Biblioteca Riccardiana, MS 2794 (FlorR 2794), a manuscript prepared for the French royal court in the 1480s, and in the later French manuscript Uppsala, Universitetsbiblioteket, MS Vokalmusik i Handskrift 76a (UppsU 76a), possibly compiled between 1490 and 1520. Modern edition in Josquin des Prez, Werken: Wereldlijke Werken, ed. Albert A. Smijers (Amsterdam: G. Alsbach, 1922-1969), no. 58, and in Josquin des Prez, The Collected Works of Josquin des Prez, vol. 27, Secular Works for Three Voices, ed. Jaap van Benthem and Howard M. Brown (Utrecht: Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1991), no. 8. A four-voice version by Josquin, with the title Par vous je suis, immediately precedes Prioris’s homonymous setting in FlorC 2439. This four-voice setting also appears in BrusBR 228. Josquin’s two versions and Prioris’s five-part chanson are the only extant settings of the tune. For a discussion of Josquin’s two settings and their sources see Louise Litterick, “Chansons for Three and Four Voices,” in The Josquin Companion, ed. Richard Sherr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 359 and 371-376. 50 The three- and four-voice settings by Josquin are markedly different. The text in the three-part version consists of two stanzas of four and three lines, respectively, and features modal ambiguity, while the four-part version adds another line at the end of the second stanza and, furthermore, displays stability around G. For a comparison of the two settings see Jaap van Benthem, “Josquin’s Three-part ‘Chansons rustiques,’” in Josquin des Prez: Proceedings of the International Josquin Festival-Conference Held at The Juilliard School at Lincoln Center in New York City, 21-25 June 1971, ed. Edward E. Lowinsky with the collaboration of Bonnie J. Blackburn (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 431-434. 51 Such extensions are very common in the canonic chansons from the late years of the fifteenth century. For example, the majority of the canonic chansons in the Odhecaton feature such extensions, which are otherwise absent from the multi-voice repertory. They are also very common in Josquin’s four-part canonic chansons. Evidently, with the expanded texture there were more voices available to take over the contrapuntal elaboration and cadential preparation, thus eliminating the need for such extensions by one of the structural voices. 52 Ex. 7.9 follows the edition Johannis Prioris, Opera omnia, vol. 3, Motets and Chansons, ed. T. Herman Keahey and Conrad Douglas, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, vol. 90 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1985), no. 3.

477 between the two main sections of the chanson; m. 36 in Ex. 7.9).53 Furthermore, the Bassus

frequently engages in imitation with the canonic melodies, a process possibly responsible for the

proliferation of melodic cadences in the upper parts (Superius and Contratenor). This treatment

resonates with La Rue’s canonic chansons in which the canon lies in the two lowest voices. To

compensate for the restricted possibilities of the Bassus to realize the harmonic implications of

the structural melodies, due to the part’s imitative relationship to them, Prioris, like La Rue,

assigns a great number of melodic cadences in his upper voices.

While Prioris closely follows the phrase structure and syllabic pace of the model for his

canonic lines, his newly composed voices are instrumental in character. Both the Superius and

Contratenor unfold in long, irregular phrases, generally devoid of any breathing points. In addition, the Superius and Bassus frequently proceed in parallel tenths, a hallmark of instrumental compositions.

Although the instrumental writing prevents the rhetorical analysis of this chanson, Par vous je suis shows another aspect of secular composition for expanded textures. Prioris’s setting stands at the cross-roads between Josquin’s and La Rue’s secular writing. The syllabic, short- spanned, and non-repetitive nature of the canonic melody of Par vous je suis clearly resonates with Josquin’s canonic treatment. Furthermore, the manipulation of cadential planning with the purpose of providing a subtle gloss on the text not only occurs in the three-voice Entrée suis,

which is clearly the model for Prioris’s setting, but also in a great number of other chansons by

Josquin.54 On the other hand, the techniques of undermining cadential closure and of

53 Louise Litterick has demonstrated that the tonal instability in Josquin’s chanson reflects the emotional ambiguity of the poem. Litterick, “Chansons for Three and Four Voices,” 359. 54 See, for example, the modal ambiguity that Josquin creates in Faulte d’argent. For a discussion of this chanson see Bernstein, “Chansons for Five and Six Voices,” in The Josquin Companion, 396-400.

478 incorporating melodic cadences in the upper voices resonate with La Rue’s style in his multi- voice songs.

Example 7.9. Prioris, Par vous je suis (after Keahey and Douglas 1985)

479 480 481 482

Noel Bauldeweyn’s five-voice En douleur et tristesse is also an instrumental arrangement of a cantus prius factus within an otherwise canonic setting. In contrast to Prioris’s song, however, En douleur et tristesse incorporates the borrowed tune, a melody that survives in the monophonic chansonnier Paris 12744, in a strict canonic relationship at the interval of the octave.55 The only deviation from strict treatment occurs at the end of the chanson, where the

first Tenor concludes with a non-canonic extension. While the poetic lines nicely match with the

syllabic declamation of the canonic phrases, they cannot be successfully underlayed to the long

irregular phrases of the freely composed voices. The accompanying voices unfold in

uninterrupted melodic lines incorporating frequent runs, which reinforces their instrumental

character.56

55 Paris and Gevaert, Chansons du XVe siècle, no. 91. 56 A strict canon at the octave, of what is possibly a borrowed popularisant tune, also forms the basis of Appenzeller’s Je m’y levay par ung matin (see Appendix 1). The chanson similarly ends with a non-canonic extension.

483 The free approach towards canonic writing, characteristic of Par vous je suis, is also

prominent in Le Brung’s N’avez point veu mal assenée, a setting of a popular text and melody.

The character of the cantus prius factus reflects the influence of the new Parisian chanson in its

opening dactylic rhythm and subsequent three-note repetition (see the opening of the Superius in

Ex. 7.10).57 The text recalls other poems in the pastourelle tradition that feature dialogue between a shepherd and a shepherdess and obscene content. In its combination of narrative and dialogue realized through the narrator’s voice, N’avez point veu strongly recalls Mouton’s Le

berger et la bergère. Le Brung’s text reads:

1. N’avez point veu mal assenée Have you ever seen such an unfortunate one 2. Celle de qui on parle tant? As she of whom they speak so much? 3. Sa mère l’avoit envoyée Her mother had sent her 4. Garder les brebiettes aux champs. To watch the sheep in the fields.

5. Et son amy qui va devant luy demandant: And her friend who went to meet her asks:

6. “Serez vous mon assotée?” “Will you be my mistress?” 7. “Nenny,” dit elle, “mon amy. “No” (says she) “my friend. 8. Je n’oseroye en bonne foy, I would not dare, in good faith, 9. Mais fringués moy sur la rousée.” But do frig me on the dew.”58

The poem features a symmetrical structure of two octosyllabic quatrains separated by a longer

verse placed in the middle (l. 5). The two quatrains are different both in their rhyme structure

and character. The first one features narrative and an abab rhyme while the second one has a

dialogic structure in which only the outer lines (ll. 6 and 9) rhyme.

Le Brung places the main melody in the Superius and in canon at the octave with the

Tenor. Although for the first two lines the canon appears to be strict, it radically changes

character beginning with the third line of the text. The implied canon at the opening reflects the

57 Ex. 7.10 is based on Jane A. Bernstein, ed., Leschenet, Maillard, Le Brun, Lupi, The Sixteenth-Century Chanson, vol. 18 (New York: Garland, 1990), no. 55. There are two more settings based on the thematic material of this tune. See idem, xxxix. 58 Translation in Jean Richafort, Opera omnia, vol. 3, Magnificats and Chansons, ed. Harry Elzinga, Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, vol. 81 (n.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1999), xxxvii. I have replaced “sorry” with “unfortunate” in l. 1.

484 seriousness of tone of the first two verses, when it is not yet clear whether we are dealing with a

popular text or with a poem in the courtly love tradition.59 Once the poetry shifts into the domain

of popular discourse at the third line, there are several deviations from strict treatment. First, the

temporal interval of imitation keeps changing with every line of the text. Second, the end of the

narrative is signaled by a non-canonic melodic extension in the Superius (Ex. 7.10, mm. 21-22).

Third, with l. 5 the interval of imitation becomes the tenth and the comes becomes the dux to change again only with the final line of the chanson. Line 5, the midpoint of the poetry and the one that introduces the dialogue to the audience, bears further differentiating features. The canon breaks at m. 25 (beginning of l. 5) and the Superius features a stasis of three sustained longas against a kinetic Tenor (Ex. 7.10, mm. 28-30). This stasis clearly reflects the pause needed (in recitation as well as in silent reading) before the beginning of direct speech. The change of interlocutor in l. 7 is similarly reflected through a stasis in the three lowest voices and a pause of three longas (the longest in the chanson) in the Superius (Ex. 7.10, mm. 35-39). One cannot escape noticing that these changes take place at the points of structural and semantic significance in the poetry.

Le Brung further represents the shift in the mode of delivery of the second quatrain with

a drastic change in contrapuntal writing. The first quatrain is highly imitative, with every phrase

of the canonic melody anticipated or imitated by the accompanying voices. This imitative writing

culminates with the scaffolding of entrances for the last line of the quatrain (Ex. 7.10, mm. 18-

20). With the beginning of the second stanza Le Brung abandons the imitative texture. Not only

are the imitations approximate, even between the canonic voices, but also the continuous flow of

the music is interrupted by the melodic stases mentioned above. Furthermore, for the last catchy

59 The characterization “mal assenée” clearly evokes the courtly discourse. See, for example Machaut’s refrain, “Dame qui fust se tres bien assenée,” in De Fortune me doy plaindre et loer; Guillaume de Machaut, La Louange des Dames, ed. Nigel Wilkins (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1972), no. 45.

485 line of the chanson, the canon enters at the fourth and the music becomes predominantly

homorhythmic, with three of the five voices singing the same text simultaneously.

The analysis of N’avez point veu mal assenée demonstrates some of Le Brung’s responses towards the structural and semantic details of the poetry. As in Mouton’s chansons that feature dialogue, Le Brung introduces changes in the texture to rhetorical ends. He marks the switch from narration to first person representation and the change of interlocutors with melodic stases in one or more of the voices. Furthermore, he plays with the individual features of the canon—temporal distance and interval of imitation, non-canonic extensions, and order of dux

and comes entries—to further prepare and signal these prosodic characteristics. Finally, Le

Brung teases his audience by playing with their expectations—just as the poem teases the reader

and, ultimately, the maiden teases her friend—when introducing a highly imitative chanson and a

strict treatment of the canon only to abandon these features as the poetry reveals its true

character. However, despite the imitative nature of the counterpoint and the use of canon, Le

Brung’s writing in N’avez point veu mal assenée suggests that he belongs to a younger

generation of composers.60 In addition to the choice of a cantus prius factus that reflects the

influence of the new Parisian chanson, the declamation features short note values in syllabic

style and the music unfolds entirely in homorhythmic fashion, a trait unprecedented in the multi-

voice chansons by Josquin and La Rue.

60 Le Brung’s six-voice Si vous n’avez autre desir is discussed in Chapter V. It incorporates a strict canon at the unison to reflect the same device in Josquin’s N’esse pas ung grant desplaisir, to which it is a response.

486 Example 7. 10. Le Brung, N'avez point veu mal assenée (after Bernstein 1990)

487 488 489 490 491 492

A similar free approach to canonic writing also occurs in J’ay bien cause de lamenter, a chanson attributed to Josquin in Kriesstein 1540. The Superius is based on the Superius of

Pietrequin’s Mais que ce fust secretement and unfolds in a loose canonic relationship with the

Contratenor, featuring changes of the interval of imitation and reversal of the order of dux and comes entries. Furthermore, the individual voices (including the upper two canonic parts) unfold in a highly repetitive manner. The two lowest voices, in particular, revolve around a four-note segment which begins and ends on D and presents itself in various contrapuntal guises (D-B-G-

D, D-F-F-D, D-F-E-D, D-F-G-D). The composer derived this segment from the second phrase of the Superius, particularly the motif A-F-D-A over the words “solas et joye.” This motif frequently migrates to the free-composed voices reinforcing the repetitive character of this chanson.

493 The almost ostinato-like character of the lowest voices and the free deployment of the

canonic melodies recalls Le Brung’s procedures more so than Josquin’s, whose authorship of

J’ay bien cause has been seriously questioned.61 The insistence on the four-note pattern in the

low parts resonates with the treatment of the Bassus in D’ung aultre aymer/Cela sans plus. It is thus intriguing to contemplate that J’ay bien cause was penned by Le Brung, who is attributed with another six-voice chanson (Si vous n’avez aultre desir).

Jean Richafort’s two multi-voice chansons composed in the opening decades of the sixteenth century demonstrate yet a different aspect of compositional planning. The imitative counterpoint and the reliance on a cantus prius factus placed in the upper part is a prominent feature of D’amour je suis desheritée and Ne vous chaille, mon cueur.62 Both chansons are non-

canonic and exhibit thick five-part textures and syllabic writing in short note values, with

melismatic extensions at the end of phrases (more prominent in Ne vous chaille). Although

imitative points occur at the openings of the musical phrases, they do not always involve the

cantus prius factus. The freely composed voices thus appear to unfold independently of the pre-

existing melody, especially in the inner sections of a chanson.63

Several features of Richafort’s approach to five-voice song composition resonate with the

style of his colleagues Mouton and Le Brung. The device of melodic stasis at points of direct

speech, prominent in the music of both Mouton and Le Brung, also finds expression in Jean

Richafort’s D’amour je suis desheritée. The chanson survives in CambriP 1760, a chansonnier

61 See the discussion of J’ay bien cause in Chapter IV. 62 Ne vous chaille bears a conflicting attribution to Werrcore in Kriesstein’s 1540 edition, Selectissimae necnon familiarissimae cantiones [RISM 15407]. No other chanson has been assigned to this composer. Two more multi-voice chansons by Jean Richafort survive: Cuidez vous que Dieu nous faille and Sy je m’y plain. The earliest source for Cuidez vous, London, British Library, Reference Division, Department of Manuscripts, MS Additional 19583, dates from around 1535; Sy je m’y plain survives only in the 1560 and 1572 Livre de meslanges and Mellange de chansons. 63 In his discussion of Richafort’s three-part songs, Bernstein points out similar stylistic traits. Lawrence F. Bernstein, ed., La couronne et fleur des chansons à troys (New York: The Broude Trust, 1984), 2:34-36.

494 prepared for the court of Louis XII between 1509 and 1516.64 D’amour je suis is the sole five- voice chanson in any source related to the French royal chapel from this time period.65 Richafort

bases this strophic quatrain on a cantus prius factus placed in the Superius and builds a thick,

through-composed chanson around this structural voice.66 Points of imitation occur only at the

opening of the individual phrases and generally do not involve the upper part. The composer

represents the plaintive tone of the poetry in a straightforward manner, devoid of text repetitions.

1. D’amours je suis desheritée Of love I am deprived 2. Et plaindre ne me scay à qui. And [I] know not to whom to complain. 3. Hélas! j’ay perdu mon amy; Alas, I have lost my friend; 4. Seulette suis, il m’a laissée. I am all alone--he has abandoned me.67

A reading of the poem reveals a tension between the typical abba rhyme and the semantic

and syntactical structure, which emphasizes the final line of the chanson. Richafort underscores

the last doleful verse by a complete stasis of the music at m. 17 (Ex. 7.11).68 He further

emphasizes the utterance “Seulette suis” through homorhythmic texture, and repeats the entire

final line.69 Such a complete halt of pace is very rare in the early sixteenth-century multi-voice

chanson repertory but becomes prominent in the later Parisian chanson. Although Richafort’s

song dates from the early years of the century, it anticipates features that were to become

prominent some twenty years later.

64 Cambridge, Magdalene College, Pepys Library, MS 1760. 65 Richafort was probably in the service of Anne of Brittany in 1512, that is, during the period when the manuscript was prepared. Howard M. Brown and John T. Brobeck, “Richafort, Jean,” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell, vol. 21 (London: Macmillan, 2001), 330. 66 An anonymous three-voice setting of the same melody survives in Attaingnant’s Quarante et deux chansons musicales a troys parties (Paris: Attaingnant, 1529) [RISM 15294]. 67 The translation appears in Richafort, Magnificats and Chansons, lii. 68 Ex. 7.11 is based on Richafort, Magnificats and Chansons, no. 19. 69 Notice also the similar treatment of the same words in Mouton’s Vray Dieu d’amours, discussed in the first part of this chapter. Aside from the dramatic tone of this utterance (“seulette suis”) it is intriguing to contemplate that this reference hides a tribute to the poetry of Christine de Pizan, who often used these words in her poems.

495 Example 7.11. Richafort, D'amour je suis desheritée (after Elzinga 1999)

496 497

498 While the poem survives with three additional strophes, which gradually reveal the reason for the

lady’s complaint pronounced in the first line, the musical structure of Richafort’s chanson

eliminates the possibility of a strophic performance. The economical, non-repetitive nature of the

music is thus rhetorical and does not spring from the need to serve a longer performance.70

The straightforward deployment of the melodic lines is absent from Ne vous chaille, in

which textual repetitions are omnipresent. Furthermore, the chanson’s asymmetrical poetic

structure recalls Mouton’s multi-voice songs with their unusual numbers of verses, syllables, and

rhymes. Ne vous chaille is a six-line poem, in which the internal enjambments obscure the

divisions between the verses. The number of syllables and the rhyme is also untraditional.

1. Ne vous chaille, mon cueur, Let it not matter to you, my heart, 2. Si vous avez du mal beaucop If you have much suffering 3. Et si tousjours de vous plaisirs And if you do not always of your pleasures 4. N’avez l’entière joyssance. Have the full enjoyment. 5. Car si Dieu plaist, vous aurez allegeance For if it pleases God, you will be relieved 6. Du mal pour qui si souvent vous resuez. From the pain of which you so often suffer.

Nevertheless, Richafort shows sensitivity to the syntactical structure of the poetry. He clarifies the unorthodox syntactical pace of Ne vous chaille by giving continuous melodic phrases to all voices but the Contratenor at the points of the enjambments.

The above analyses have revealed some of the compositional strategies and rhetorical devices employed by multi-voice chanson composers of the first quarter of the sixteenth century.

As Table 7.2 demonstrates, canon was not a very common device with songs composed before the turn of the century. While the incorporation of strict canon became established in the opening decades of the sixteenth century, mainly through the works of Josquin and La Rue, only four chansons from Table 7.2 demonstrate such treatment. Of these, En douleur et tristesse, Je m’y

70 The complete text survives in S’ensuyvent dixsept belles chansons nouvelles (n.p., n.d. but from the first thirty years of the sixteenth century), modern edition in Jeffery, Chanson Verse, 1:257-258.

499 levay par ung matin, and Si vous n’avez autre desir were most certainly composed well after the turn of the century (see the earliest sources in Table 7.2) The strict canon in the early Brunette

m’amiette thus stands as an exception. Four chansons exhibit a free approach to canonic writing

made evident through non-canonic extensions at the end of phrases, reversal of the order of dux

and comes, and alteration of the interval of imitation and temporal distance between the canonic

entries (see J’ay bien cause de lamenter, N’avez point veu mal assenée, Par vous je suis, as well

as the idiomatic canonic writing in Franc coeur qu’as tu/Fortuna dun gran tempo).

Instead of canons, composers preferred to build their compositions around a pre-existing

melody and frequently added another cantus prius factus or an ostinato pattern as a means of

structural and melodic organization. Whenever two structural melodies are employed, composers

ensured that they were melodically related, as the analysis of Je suis d’Alemagne/Joliettement

and Franc coeur qu’as tu/Fortuna d’un gran tempo has shown. This chanson is also exceptional

in that one of the two pre-existing melodies is furthermore treated canonically. Frequently,

composers created multi-voice instrumental re-workings of popular tunes or of texted chansons

by other composers (Je suis d’Alemagne/Joliettement, D’ung aultre aymer/Cela sans plus, Par

vous je suis, and En douleur et tristesse).

Apart from the imitative writing necessitated by a canon (whenever present), imitation in

the chansons of Table 7.2 is rather restricted. Points of imitation mainly occur at the opening of a

song, only to be entirely abandoned for the rest of the composition. Richafort’s settings stand in

contrast to the other multi-voice chansons, since imitative points are prominent throughout. The

analysis of Prioris’s Par vous je suis has further demonstrated that whenever the lowest part

engages in imitation with the structural voices, composers assigned melodic cadences in the

500 upper parts. Such treatment compensates for the restricted possibilities of the Bassus to contribute to the cadential planning of the composition.

Although rhetorical figures inspired by classical oratory, such as the ones encountered in the settings of Josquin and La Rue, do not seem to appear in this final group of chansons, the analysis has demonstrated that composers of the early part of the sixteenth century devised several means of poetic expression. The ever popular fortuna topos inspired composers to intricate contrapuntal manipulations to enhance the symbolism of the text, as the analysis of

Franc coeur qu’as tu/Fortuna dun gran tempo has demonstrated. Complex syntactical structures are clarified through the deployment of the melodic lines (Ne vous chaille). Finally, composers of the multi-voice chanson repertory prove to be extremely sensitive in representing the poetic voice. They invariably observe the changes in the speaking subject—whether from narration to first-person speech or between interlocutors within dialogue—by manipulation of the texture and, most often, musical stasis.

501

CONCLUSIONS

The comprehensive musico-rhetorical analysis of the multi-voice chanson repertory from the first quarter of the sixteenth century reveals that the expansion of texture to five and six

voices posed several compositional challenges, but also offered new opportunities and greater

flexibility towards a text-sensitive approach to secular music writing. To expand the texture composers employed a variety of structural means. The manifold approaches towards this end do not allow for clear-cut classifications of songs according to such devices. Nevertheless, some general patterns have emerged, within which composers experimented according to the musical or textual demands of each individual chanson.

The overarching principle is the reliance on a pre-compositional entity, a cantus prius factus or a newly composed melody, which is subjected to some contrapuntal manipulation that generates further melodic material in another voice, or which is combined with another structural device. Early attempts at multi-voice chanson composition (songs composed before 1500) demonstrate that the prevalent practice was the incorporation of two cantus prius facti that are melodically similar, or of a cantus prius factus combined with an ostinato motif derived from a second pre-existent melody. The songs in this category follow the tradition of the combinative chanson and it is within this context that Josquin’s L’amye a tous/Je ne vis oncques belongs. In contrast to the three-voice combinative chanson, in which one voice follows a fixed-form model and the other a popularisant tune, in the multi-voice chansons the two cantus prius facti can both have an aristocratisant origin (as in Josquin’s chanson above and in Franc coeur qu’as

tu/Fortuna dun gran tempo).

502 A few chansons are based on Latin plainchant placed in an inner voice and combined with a French text in a fixed form in the upper part. In these motet-chansons, the cantus firmus usually does not interact with the freely composed voices, although in some cases it may inspire some of the motivic material. In only one motet-chanson, Josquin’s Nymphes, nappés/

Circumdedereunt me, is the cantus firmus treated canonically, a process which generates a six- voice texture.

Frequently, the main structural voice is imitated by another voice-part throughout, but the relationship between the two (the interval of imitation, their temporal distance, or the order of their entries) changes in the course of the song. A strict canonic relationship between two voices is rare before the turn of the sixteenth century, the only exception being Brunette m’amiette. It is only with Josquin’s multi-voice chansons that the incorporation of strict canon reaches its apogee. The majority of his songs rely on strict canon on a melody of his own invention or on a pre-existent model. To generate a six-voice texture, Josquin usually adds a second free canon for part or the entirety of a song (Allégez moy, Petite camusette, Se congié prens) or combines three two-voice canons (Baisés moy and Je ne dit mot, if by Josquin). The strict canonic relationship between two individual voices requires a high degree of sophistication for the coordination of the smooth deployment of the canon, the control of dissonances, and the musical projection of the prosodic features. La Rue’s compositional approach appears to be even more demanding since, in the majority of his canonic chansons, the canon lies in the two lowest parts. Such process imposes several challenges on the successful realization of the canon and the cadential planning of the composition. Fors seullement exemplifies La Rue’s penchant for such challenges since in this song he reaches the extreme of combining a strict canon in the two lowest voices with a cantus prius factus in the Superius within a five-part setting.

503 Both Mouton and Richafort, composers with documented ties to the French royal court,

place the structural melody in the Superius and generally eschew canon. Besides this feature, however, their approaches are markedly different. Mouton constructs his songs by fragmenting his melodies (borrowed or newly composed) into smaller units, which he then varies, transforms, and re-combines in different schemes that correspond to the textual sections of the poetry. Such approach has a kaleidoscopic end-result: different sonorous expressions of the same basic material, which are determined by the semantic and structural content of the poetry set.

Richafort delineates his formal structures with points of imitation at the opening of the individual melodic phrases.

Je ne me puis tenir d’aimer and Mi larés vous are “free” compositions due to the absence of canon or a cantus prius factus. However, in Je ne me puis one voice (the Tenor) behaves as a structural one, unfolding in a syllabic declamatory style mainly without textual repetitions. In addition to being placed in the Tenor, this structural melody closely follows the rhyme scheme of the poetry in the delineation, repetitive pattern, and cadential notes of its musical phrases and inspires a great deal of the melodic and rhythmic details of the accompanying voices.

Composers of the multi-voice song are particularly sensitive in reflecting the prosodic features, although the analysis has demonstrated that different composers choose to emphasize different aspects of the prosody. However, they invariably observe the syntactical divisions of the poetry by constructing the melodic lines, especially the structural voices, in a manner that faithfully follows the syntactic and semantic pace of the text. Whereas in the decasyllabic rondeau quatrain or cinquain refrains the poetic caesura falls at the fourth syllable, composers override this principle if the semantic halt of pace occurs at a different metrical point. The rhyme structure is also reflected through the repetition of musical phrases or of cadential gestures for

504 similarly rhyming lines. Frequently, however, there is a discrepancy between the rhyme pattern

and the musical structure, especially evident in the through-composed and end-oriented

chansons. In the end-oriented forms, the AABBCC structure overthrows the established

expectations for a return to the material of the opening according to the aabba rhyme. The break

with the expected pattern is further underscored by the presence of commixtio, the disruption of

the repetitive scheme of the music, or the temporary incorporation of cross-relationships. The

tension produced by the discrepancy between the poetic rhyme and the musical structure serves

to emphasize the significance of the last verse as the culminating point of the entire stanza.

Apart from the rhyme scheme, composers devised several means of melodic articulation

to reflect the semantic or phonetic interrelationships between different verses or smaller textual

phrases. To this end, they relied on the principles and figures of classical oratory, adapted to the

particular musical needs. The analysis has demonstrated that, in the majority of cases, such

figures do not reflect the same gesture in the poetry. Instead, composers manipulate the expressive properties of the rhetorical figures in order to call attention to a particular point in the

text or to create meaningful relationships between larger semantic units. Especially with figures

of repetition, such as anaphora, anadiplosis, and epanadiplosis, composers aim to connect two

phrases of similar syntactic structure and semantic content, or to underline similar sounding

words. Although the musico-rhetorical effect of such figures is certainly not identical to the

linguistic one, their presence serves both the structural and the semantic needs of the

composition. The analysis has also revealed the effective musical application of figures such as

hypotyposis, polyptoton, articulus, interiectio, hyperbaton, aposiopesis, and maxim. Three

additional musical figures that do not have analogies in classical oratory also feature prominently

in the multi-voice song: anabasis, catabasis, and circulatio, described by the later music theorist

505 Athanasius Kircher. These purely musical gestures as well as those that derive from classical rhetoric are common in Josquin’s and La Rue’s aristocratisant chansons but are otherwise absent from the chansons by other composers.

Within the context of principles and practices inspired by classical oratory we can also situate the evocation of the literary fortuna topos, which emerges time and again across the multi-voice song repertory, even in compositions that do not have direct references to the subject. Apparently, composers devised a distinct musical vocabulary for the symbolic representation of the fortuna topos, operative both in early attempts at multi-voice song writing, such as Franc coeur qu’as tu/Fortuna dun gran tempo, as well as in later songs, such as

Josquin’s Pour souhaitter or La Rue’s Deuil et ennuy and Quant il advient.

Classical oratory provided more than a list of expressive devices to the composers of the multi-voice song. Rhetorical thought lies behind the change from the formes fixes, and their highly repetitive patterns, to freer forms, more closely related to everyday speech. Such influence is particularly evident in Josquin’s settings of aristocratisant chansons, in which the canons assume both a structural function, defining the overall formal plan of the entire chanson, and an expressive one, presenting the text in the straightforward manner of an oration. In this repertory, the surrounding polyphony functions as a commentary to the text of the canon, reinforcing or undermining its semantic content, an approach greatly facilitated by the expansion of texture. In such a rhetorical view of the canonic technique, textual repetition also acquires an expressive function and Josquin’s handling of repetition testifies to this assumption. In his aristocratisant chansons, Josquin reserves verbal repetition to place emphasis or highlight the meaning of important words or phrases while in the popularisant songs he applies repetition to comic effect.

506 The prominence of rhetorical thought and figures in Josquin’s music is certainly related to his

exposure to humanistic ideals during his extended residence in Italy from 1484 to 1504.

The poetic register—courtly or popular—plays a significant role in compositional

choices. With Josquin, it determines the treatment of the canon (the interval of imitation and the straightforward or repetitive deployment of the canonic melodies) and the handling of repetition in the freely composed voices. With Mouton, the poetic register defines the character of the melodic lines—long, melismatic ones for the aristocratisant chansons, short and rhythmically animated for the popularisant ones. As mentioned above, it is in the aristocratisant chansons

(mainly those by Josquin and La Rue) that classical rhetorical figures feature more prominently.

Thus, rhetorical figures appear to be intimately connected with the rhetorical notion of “Grand style,” evoked by the elevated tone and language of the aristocratisant lyric.

In addition to enabling the direct juxtaposition of text and commentary, more pronounced in Josquin’s chansons, the expanded textures also allowed composers to project and magnify certain prosodic features on the vertical plane. While in the old Burgundian three-part chanson all voices would sing almost without interruption, in the multi-voice song composers could play more freely with the density of the texture without jeopardizing the richness of the aural effect.

They could thus manipulate texture for both variety and expressive purposes, to mark the changes in the speaking voice—from narration to first person or dialogue and vice versa—to project the phonetic features of the prosody across the polyphonic fabric, thus intensifying their

effect, to differentiate between the male and the female voice, or to underline the humorous or

obscene character of the poetry. The shift to homorhythm and the antiphonal exchange of

phrases between pairs or groups of voices aimed to call attention to instances of direct self-

representation, signaled by the appearance of the first-person pronoun “je” in the poetry. The

507 analysis has also revealed the expressive function of musical stasis to demarcate a rhetorical

question in the poetry (as in Mouton’s Vray Dieu d’amours and Vray Dieu, qu’amoureux) or an intense self-reflexive moment (as in Richafort’s D’amour je suis).

The concept of intertextuality has proven particularly useful for the interpretation of the

early multi-voice chanson. It informs our understanding of contemporary borrowing practices,

including both self-borrowing and musical allusions to other works, with wide implications on

several different levels: facilitating the relative dating of compositions (as in the group of the

end-oriented chansons); clarifying issues of authenticity in chansons with problematic attributions (as in the two Cueurs desolez motet-chansons); untangling the web of relationships in model and response pairs; unveiling the multi-level reliance on a borrowed melody and its text

(as in Je me complains); or meaningfully interpreting features that are otherwise regarded as compositional anomalies (as in Pour souhaitter).

Musico-rhetorical analysis of the multi-voice chanson repertory of the first quarter of the sixteenth century demonstrates that rhetorical thought permeates secular music writing, and we can detect its influences in various compositional choices, both on the large structural level and on the surface details of the individual melodic lines. The understanding of the conventions of fifteenth-century poetry in combination with recent approaches in literary theory throw into relief word-music relationships that would otherwise remain unrecognized to the modern scholar. Such understanding contributes to the aesthetic pleasure of the musical settings, since knowledge of

the reciprocal relationship between the text and the music and, subsequently, of the composer’s

readings of his texts enhances both our satisfaction and appreciation of these works. As written records of a performative art, these musical readings open a window towards what contemporary

508 audiences of poetry and music might have perceived as important, challenging, intellectually satisfying, or simply amusing.

509

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______. “Music as Heard: Listeners and Listening in Late-Medieval and Early Modern Europe (1300-1600).” The Musical Quarterly 82, nos. 3-4 (Special Issue “Music as Heard”) (1998): 432-433.

Wesner Zuckerman, Amanda. “The Chansons of Loyset Compère: A Model for a Changing Aesthetic.” In Music in Renaissance Cities and Courts: Studies in Honor of Lewis Lockwood, ed. Jessie A. Owens and Anthony M. Cummings, 483-501. Warren, MI: Harmonie Park Press, 1997.

Wilkins, Nigel. “The Post-Machaut Generation of Poet-Musicians.” Nottingham French Studies 12 (1968): 40-84.

______. “Music and Poetry at Court: England and France in the Late Middle Ages.” In English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. V. J. Scattergood and J. W. Sherborne, 183- 204. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983.

Wimsatt, James I. Chaucer and His French Contemporaries: Natural Music in the Fourteenth Century. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.

Winn, James A. Unsuspected Eloquence: A History of the Relations between Poetry and Music. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.

Zumthor, Paul. “Le carrefour des rhétoriqueurs: intertextualité et rhétorique.” Poétique 27 (1976): 313-337.

______. Le masque et la lumière: La poétique des Grands Rhétoriqueurs. Paris: Seuil, 1978.

______, ed. Anthologie des Grands Rhétoriqueurs. Paris: Union Générale d’Editions, 1978.

Modern Editions of Multi-Voice Chansons

Bernstein, Jane A., ed. Leschenet, Maillard, Le Brun, Lupi. The Sixteenth-Century Chanson, vol. 18. New York: Garland, 1990.

Brown, Howard M., ed. Theatrical Chansons of the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.

______, ed. A Florentine Chansonnier from the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent: Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, MS Banco Rari 229. 2 vols. Monuments of Renaissance Music, vol. 7. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.

Canti C. Numero cento cinquanta. Monuments of Music and Music Literature in Facsimile I, 25. New York: Broude Brothers, 1978.

528 Hewitt, Helen, ed., Canti B, Numero cinquanta, Venice, Ottaviano Petrucci, 1502. Monuments of Renaissance Music, vol. 2. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967.

______, ed. Harmonice Musices Odhecaton A. Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1942. Reprint, New York: Da Capo Press, 1978.

Hillier, Paul, ed. Le Beau Ballet d’Amour: An Anthology of French Chansons from the Sixteenth Century. Devon, UK: Antico Edition, 1991.

Jacobs, Charles, ed. LeRoy & Ballard’s 1572 Mellange de Chansons. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1982.

Josquin des Prez. Werken. Ed. Albert A. Smijers. Amsterdam: G. Alsbach, 1922-1969.

Lowinsky, Edward E., ed. The Medici Codex of 1518: A Choirbook of Motets Dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino. 3 vols. Monuments of Renaissance Music, vols. 3-5. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968.

Meconi, Honey. “Style and Authenticity in the Secular Music of Pierre de la Rue.” Ph. D. diss., Harvard University, 1986.

Picker, Martin, ed. The Chansons Albums of Marguerite of Austria. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1965.

______, ed. Josquin des Prez: Parody Chansons. Hackensack, NJ: Jerona Music Corporation, 1980.

______, ed. Fors seulement: Thirty Compositions for Three to Five Voices or Instruments from the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Recent Researches in the Music of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, vol. 14. Madison, WI: A-R Editions, 1981.

Prioris, Johannis. Opera omnia. Vol. 3, Motets and Chansons, ed. T. Herman Keahey and Conrad Douglas. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, vol. 90. N.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1985.

Richafort, Jean. Opera omnia. Vol. 3, Magnificats and Chansons, ed. Harry Elzinga. Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, vol. 81. N.p.: American Institute of Musicology, 1999.

Taruskin, Richard, ed. D’ung aultre amer: Seventeen Settings in Two, Three, Four, and Five Parts (Modern Score), Five Partbooks in Original Notation. Miami: Ogni Sorte Editions, 1983.

529 Other Editions of Music

Bernstein, Lawrence F., ed. La couronne et fleur des chansons à troys. New York: The Broude Trust, 1984.

Josquin des Prez. The Collected Works of Josquin des Prez. Vol. 27, Secular Works for Three Voices, ed. Willem Elders, Jaap van Benthem, and Howard M. Brown. Utrecht: Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1987.

______. The Collected Works of Josquin des Prez. Vol. 28, Secular Works for Four Voices, ed. David Fallows. Utrecht: Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 2005.

Maniates, Maria R., ed. The Combinative Chanson: An Anthology. Recent Researches in the Music of the Renaissance, vol. 77. Madison, WI: A-R Editions, 1989.

Meconi, Honey, ed. Fortuna desperata: Thirty-six Settings of an Italian Song. Recent Researches in the Music of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, vol. 37. Middleton, WI: A-R Editions, 2001.

Ockeghem, Johannes. Collected Works. Vol. 3, Motets and Chansons, ed. Richard Wexler and Dragan Plamenac. Boston: Schirmer, 1947-92.

Perkins, Leeman L. and Howard Garey, eds. The Mellon Chansonnier. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979.

530

APPENDIX 1

INVENTORY OF MULTI-VOICE CHANSONS FROM THE 1490s TO C. 1520

NG: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (Macmillan, 2001)

Composer and Title Voices Conflicting Earliest source Canon Poetry Notes Attributions Multi-Voice Chansons by Josquin Messa motteti can[z]oni Cueur langoreulx 5 Josquin (N. del Judici, c. 1526) yes aristocratisant Josquin [La aristocratisant (motet- Cueurs desolez/ Plorans ploravit 5 Rue] RISM J681 (1549) no chanson) VienNB Mus. 18746 Douleur me bat 5 Josquin (1523) yes aristocratisant Du mien amant 5 Josquin VienNB Mus. 18746 yes aristocratisant En non saichant 5 Josquin RISM 154515 no aristocratisant doubtful in NG Faulte d'argent 5 Josquin AugS 142a (1505-14) yes popularisant Incessament livré suis 5 Josquin VienNB Mus. 18746 yes aristocratisant Je me complains 5 Josquin VienNB Mus. 18746 yes popularisant Josquin/ Gombert/ Je ne me puis tenir d'aimer 5 Sermisy MunBS 1508 (c. 1545) no aristocratisant La Spagna 5 Josquin RISM 15371 no instrumental doubtful in NG L'amye a tous/ Je ne vis oncques 5 Josquin RISM J681 no combinative doubtful in NG exists also à 6 with a si placet Ma bouche rit 5 Josquin UppsU 76b (c. 1515-35) no aristocratisant part Mi larés vous 5 Josquin RISM 15407 no aristocratisant doubtful in NG N'esse pas ung grant desplaisir 5 Josquin RISM 15407 yes aristocratisant aristocratisant (motet- lament on death Nymphes des bois/ Requiem 5 Josquin RISM 15081 no chanson) of Ockeghem

531 Composer and Title Voices Conflicting Earliest source Canon Poetry Notes Attributions Parfons regretz 5 Josquin VienNB Mus. 18746 yes aristocratisant also in VienNB Plaine de deuil 5 Josquin BrusBR 228 (1508-1516) yes aristocratisant Mus. 18746 Plusieurs regretz 5 Josquin VienNB Mus. 18746 yes aristocratisant only 3 voices Adieu mes amours (Ave Maria gratia plena) 6 Josquin BolC R142 (c. 1530-50) n/a aristocratisant survive Josquin/Barbé/ Le Brung/ Allégez moy 6 Willaert RISM 15407 yes popularisant Baisés moy 6 Josquin RISM 15022 yes popularisant doubtful in NG only 1 voice Fors seullement 6 Josquin BolC R142 (c. 1530-50) n/a aristocratisant survives J'ay bien cause de lamenter 6 Josquin RISM 15407 yes aristocratisant doubtful in NG aristocratisant (motet- Nymphes, nappés/ Circumdederunt me 6 Josquin RISM 15371 yes chanson) Petite camusette 6 Josquin VatP 1980-1 (c. 1518-23) yes popularisant Pour souhaitter 6 Josquin RISM 154515 yes aristocratisant Regretz sans fin 6 Josquin RISM 154515 yes aristocratisant Se congié prens 6 Josquin BolC A 71 (c. 1515-20) yes aristocratisant RISM 154515; BolC Tenez moy en vos bras 6 Josquin R142 (c. 1530-50) no popularisant Vous l'arez, s’il vous plaist 6 Josquin RISM 154515 yes aristocratisant Vous ne l'aurez pas 6 Josquin RISM 154515 yes aristocratisant

Multi-Voice Chansons by La Rue (asterisk denotes conjecturally attributed works) also in VienNB Cent mille regretz 5 La Rue/Josquin VatP 1982 (c. 1513-23) yes aristocratisant Mus. 18746 attr. in VienNB D'ung aultre aymer 5 La Rue VienNB Mus. 18746 no aristocratisant Mus. 18746 only 1 voice survives; En l'amour d'une dame 5 La Rue LonBL 19583 (c. 1535) n/a aristocratisant doubtful in NG

532 Composer and Title Voices Conflicting Earliest source Canon Poetry Notes Attributions attr. in VienNB Fors seullement 5 La Rue VienNB Mus. 18746 yes aristocratisant Mus. 18746 also in VienNB Incessament mon povre cueur lamente 5 La Rue/Josquin VatP 1980-1 (c. 1518-23) yes aristocratisant Mus. 18746 Adieu comment* 5 La Rue VienNB Mus. 18746 yesa uncertain (textless) lament on death aristocratisant (motet- of Jean de Cueurs desolez/ Dies illa* 5 La Rue BrusBR 228 no chanson) Luxembourg also in VienNB Dueil et ennuy* 5 La Rue BrusBR 228 yes aristocratisant Mus. 18746 probably aristocratisant Il fault morir* 6 La Rue RegBC 120 (c. 1518-19) no (textless) doubtful in NG probably aristocratisant Je n'ay regretz* 5 La Rue VienNB Mus. 18746 yes (textless) Je ne dis mot* 6 La Rue BrusBR 228 yes aristocratisant Quant il advient* 5 La Rue BrusBR 228 yes aristocratisant also in VienNB Sailliés avant* 5 La Rue VatV 11953 (c. 1515-16) yes uncertain (textless) Mus. 18746

Multi-Voice Chansons by Mouton Ce que mon coeur pense 5 Mouton RISM 15722 no popularisant Du bon du coeur, ma chere dame 5 Mouton VienNB Mus. 18746 no aristocratisant a 6-voice version appears La rousée du mois de may 5 Mouton RISM 15722 no popularisant in RISM 154514 Le berger et la bergère 5 Mouton RISM 154315 no popularisant Vray Dieu d'amours 5 Mouton RISM 15722 no aristocratisant Vray Dieu, qu'amoureux ont de peine 6 Mouton RISM 15722 no aristocratisant

533

Composer and Title Voices Conflicting Earliest source Canon Poetry Notes Attributions Other Multi-Voice Chansons A moy seulle/ Comme femme 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no combinative (textless) attr. Odh A; terminus ante quem 1487 when Stokem died; also appears in VienNB Mus. Brunette m'amiette 5 Stokem Odhecaton A (1501) yes popularisant (textless) 18746 Choisisses vrais amoreux 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no uncertain (textless) probably aristocratisant Coeur doloreulx qui vit 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no (textless) Consideres mes incessantes plaintes/ Fortuna desperata 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no combinative (textless) probably aristocratisant Cueuer endurci 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no (textless) attr. in 15722; also appears in VienNB Mus. D’amour je suis desheritée 5 Richafort CambriP 1760 (1509-16) no aristocratisant 18746 probably aristocratisant Dame d'honneur 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 yes (textless) instrumental D’ung aultre aymer/ Cela sans plus 5 Le Brung VienNB Mus. 18746 no combinative arrangement Doise espoir 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no uncertain (textless) no musical relationship with aristocratisant (motet- Josquin's Douleur me bat/ O vos omnes 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no chanson) (textless) Douleur me bat Bauldeweyn/ instrumental En douleur en tristesse 5 Grefinger VienNB Mus. 18746 yes aristocratisant arrangement

534 Composer and Title Voices Conflicting Earliest source Canon Poetry Notes Attributions

possibly instrumental; also appears in Entré je suis en grant penser (Par vous je VienNB Mus. suis) 5 Prioris FlorC 2439 (1506-14) yes popularisant 18746 lament on death aristocratisant (motet- of Anne of Fiere attropos/ Anxiatus est 5 Moulu FlorL 666 (1518) no chanson) Brittany 4 different anon. and textless versions appear at the end of instrumental VienNB Mus. Fors seullement 5 anon. (several) VienNB Mus. 18746 arrangements 18746 Franc coeur, qu'as tu/ Fortuna dun gran tempo 5 De Vigne Canti B (1502) yes combinative probably popularisant Garde le tret 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no (textless) Hor oires une chanzon 5 anon. Odhecaton A (1501) no popularisant (textless) probably aristocratisant Le grant doueil 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no (textless) probably aristocratisant J’ay ung regretz 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no (textless) probably aristocratisant J’ay mis mon coeur 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no (textless) Appenzeller/ Je m'y levay par ung matin 5 Verdelot VienNB Mus. 18746 yes popularisant combinative, no text FlorBN BR 229 (1492- survives for possibly Je suis d’Alemagne/ Joliettement m’en vay 5 anon. 93) no Joliettement instrumental Je suis nuyt et jour 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no uncertain (textless) La jonne dame 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no uncertain (textless) La sol mi fa mi: Cantus de anglia 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no popularisant (textless)

535 Composer and Title Voices Conflicting Earliest source Canon Poetry Notes Attributions probably aristocratisant Mon cour vit in tristicia 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no (textless) N’avez point veu mal assenée 5 Le Brung BolC Q26 (c. 1540-50) yes popularisant Richafort/ also in VienNB Ne vous chaille 5 Werrecore VatP 1980-1 (c. 1518-23) no aristocratisant Mus. 18746 On a mal dit de mon amy 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no uncertain (textless) Pro chasser fait 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no uncertain (textless) Qui vult aymer il fault estre joieux 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no uncertain (textless) probably aristocratisant copied twice in Sans vous veoir 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 yes (textless) VienNB 18746 response to N’esse pas ung Si vous n'avez autre desir 6 Le Brung RISM 154515 yes aristocratisant grant desplaisir Tout a par moy 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no uncertain (textless) Tout a rebors 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no uncertain (textless) Vide vous 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no uncertain (textless) probably aristocratisant Vostre beaulté 5 anon. VienNB Mus. 18746 no (textless) the Latin texts Vray Dieu d'amours/ Sancte Iouanes/ Ora pro aristocratisant (motet- unfold as nobis 5 Japart Canti C (1503) no chanson) ostinati FlorBN BR 229 (1492- possibly [Untitled] 5 Isaac 93) no uncertain (textless) instrumental aThe information on the appearance or not of a canon in the textless chansons of VienNB Mus. 18746 derives from secondary sources.

536

APPENDIX 2

CONTEMPORARY MANUSCRIPT SOURCES AND PRINTED EDITIONS OF MULTI- VOICE CHANSONS

Manuscript sources

(sigla and citations follow those used in the Census Catalog of Manuscript Sources of Polyphonic Music, 1400-1550)

AugsS 142a Augsburg. Staats- und Stadtbibliothek. MS 20 142a (olim Cim. 43; = SchlettKK #18).

BolC A71 Bologna. Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale. MS A71.

BolC Q26 Bologna. Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale. MS Q26.

BolC R142 Bologna. Civico Museo Bibliografico Musicale. MS R142.

BrusBR 228 Brussels. Bibliothèque Royale. MS 228.

CambraiBM 125-8 Cambrai. Bibliothèque Municipale. MSS 125-128 (olim 124).

CambriP 1760 Cambridge. Magdalene College. Pepys Library. MS 1760.

CopKB 1873 Copenhagen. Det Kongelige Bibliotek. MS Ny kongelige Samling 1873.

CorBC 95-6 and Paris BNN 1817 Cortona. Biblioteca Communale. MSS 95-96 and Paris. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Département des Manuscrits. Nouvelles Acquisitions Français. MS 1817.

FlorBN BR 229 Florence. Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale. MS Banco Rari 229 (olim Magliabechi XIX. 59).

537 FlorC 2439 Florence. Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica Luigi Cherubini. MS Basevi 2439 (“Basevi Codex”).

FlorC 2442 Florence. Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica Luigi Cherubini. MS Basevi 2442 (“Strozzi Chansonnier”).

FlorL 666 Florence. Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana. MS Acquisti e doni 666 (“Medici Codex”).

HalleU 1147 Halle an der Saale. Universitätsbibliothek. MS Ed. 1147.

HamSU Hamburg. Stadtbibliothek. MS ohne Signatur.

LeipU 49 Leipzig. Universitätsbibliothek. MS Thomaskirche 49 (1-4) (olim III, A. alpha 17-20) and MS Thomaskirche 50 (olim III, A. alpha 21).

LonBL 19583 London. British Library. Reference Division. Department of Manuscripts. MS Additional 19583.

ModE F.2.29 Modena. Biblioteca Estense e Universitaria. MS a.F.2.29 (olim Lat. 1232).

MunBS 1508 Munich. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Musiksammlung. Musica MS 1508.

ParisBNC 851 Paris. Bibliothèque Nationale. Département de la Musique. Fonds du Conservatoire. MS Rés. Vma 851 (“Bourdenay MS”).

RegB C120 Regensburg. Bischöfliche Zentralbibliothek. MS C 120 (olim D XII) (“Pernner Codex”).

SGallS 463 Sankt Gallen. Stiftsbibliothek. MS 463 (“Tschudi Liederbuch”).

SGallS 464 Sankt Gallen. Stiftsbibliothek. MS 464 (“Tschudi Liederbuch”).

UlmS 237 Ulm. Münster Bibliothek. Von Schermar’sche Familienstiftung. MS 237 (a-d).

538 UppsU 76b Uppsala. Universitetsbiblioteket. MS Vok. mus. hs. 76b.

UppsU 76c Uppsala. Universitetsbiblioteket. MS Vok. mus. hs. 76c.

VatP 1980-1 Vatican City. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MSS Palatini Latini 1980-1981.

VatP 1982 Vatican City. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Palatini Latini 1982.

VatV 11953 Vatican City. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Vaticani Latini 11953.

VienNB Mus. 18746 Vienna. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Musiksammlung. MS Mus. 18746 (olim A.N.35.H.14).

VienNB Mus. 18810 Vienna. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Musiksammlung. MS Mus. 18810 (olim A.N.35.E.126).

Printed Sources

Harmonice musices Odhecaton A. Venezia: O. Petrucci, 1501. [RISM 1501]

Canti B. Numero cinquanta. Venezia: O. Petrucci, 1501. [RISM 15022]

Canti C. Numero cento cinquanta. Venezia: O. Petrucci, 1503. [RISM 15043]

Mottetti a cinque. Libro primo. Venezia: O. Petrucci, 1508. [RISM 15081]

Messa motteti can[z]oni. Roma: Nicolo del Judici, c. 1526. [RISM 15267]

Novum et insigne opus musicum (Nürnberg: Formschneider, 1537-38) [RISM 15371]

Selectissimae necnon familiarissimae cantiones, ultra centum vario idiomate vocum, tam multiplicium quam etiam paucar. Ed. S. Salblinger. Augsburg: M. Kriesstein, 1540. [RISM 15407]

Vingt et six chansons musicales & nouvelles a cincq parties convenant tant a la voix comme aussi propices a iouer de divers instruments. Antwerp: Tylman Susato, 1544. [RISM 154315]

539 Le cinquiesme livre contenant trente & deux chansons a cincq et a six parties composées pas maistre Nicolas Gombert & aultres excellens autheurs. Antwerp: Tylman Susato, 1544. [RISM 154413]

Le sixiesme livre contenant trente & une chansons nouvelles a cincq et a six parties convenables & propices a iouer de tous instruments. Antwerp: Tylman Susato, 1544. [RISM 154514]

Le septiesme livre contenant vingt & quatre chansons a cincq et a six parties, composées par feu de bonne memoire & tres excellent en musicque Iosquin des Pres, avecq troix Epitaphes dudiet Iosquin, composez par divers aucteurs. Antwerp: Tylman Susato, 1545. [RISM 154515]

Trente sixiesme livre contenant trente chansons tres musicales, a quatre, cinq et six parties, en cinq livres, dont le cinquiesme livre contient les cinqiesmes et sixiesmes parties, le tout de la composition de feu Iosquin des prez, tres corectement imrimees par Pierre Attaingnant. Paris: Pierre Attaingnant, 1549. [RISM J681]

Livre de meslanges, contenant six vingtz chansons, des plus rares, et plus industrieuses qui se trouvent, soit des autheurs antiques, soit des plus memorables de nostre temps: composées à cinque, six, sept, & huit parties, en six volumes. Paris: Le Roy & Ballard, 1560. [not in RISM]

Mellange de chansons tant des vieux autheurs que des modernes, a cinq, six, sept, et huict parties. Paris: Le Roy & Ballard, 1572. [RISM 15722]

540