This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Sixteenth centuary accidentals and ornamentation in selected motets of Josquin Desprez: a comparativbe study of the printed intabulations with the vocal sources Erictoft, Robert The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 09. Oct. 2021 g c1Yr, c-rj, prLr Ac.fl IN SELECTED MOTETS OF ,JOSQUIN DESPREZ: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF T}LE PRINTED INTABULATIONS WITH THE VOCAL SOURCES VOLUME I by ROBERT ERIC TOFT Dissertation for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy King's College University of London 198 ABSTRACT One of the major problems in Renaissance music scholarship has been to establish a precise understanding of the structure and development of pretonal polyphony. Scholars working toward this end have long been plagued by the ambiguities of pitch notation in the sources of vocal music from this period. Tablatures,owingto the nature of the notation, are the only Renaissance sources of polyphony which specify all pitches unambiguously. An examination of these sources, coupled with a reconstruction of the theoretical framework surrounding the incorporation of chromatic signs, is essential if one is to fully ascertain the details of pitch content and modal procedure operative during the period. The dissertation considers a composer who was most frequently chosen for intabulation in the sixteenth century--Josquin Desprez (d. 1521). The comparative study of the materials of the dissertation establishes the parameters of sixteenth — century practices in relation to Josquin's motets. Although this study does not purport to explain what his own practices may have been, it does illustrate how musicians during the fifty or so years after his death interpreted the pitch content of his motets. The thesis provides evidence not of a single practice but of diverse practices that were dependent, to a large part, on the preference of the Individual musician. It documents the range of options open to the Renaissance performer and demonstrates that a flexible 2 3 attitude toward the treatment of dissonance existed in the sixteenth century. Both singers and instrumentalists worked within a theoretical framework in which precepts and conventions were by no means immutable. Volume I of the dissertation discusses intabulation techniques, the filial relationships between the tablature arrangements and the vocal models, the theoretical framework surrounding the incorporation of chromatic signs, the intabulators' interpretations of pitch content in Josquin's motets and resolves the confusion associated with the pitch content and modal procedure of Absalon, fill ml. Volume II contains transcriptions of the printed intabulations of Josquin's motets that were examined for this dissertation. VOLUME I CONTENTS ABSTRACT . , . 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . • • • 5 *********** I. INTRODUCTION . 6 II. INTABULATION TECHNIQUES . 13 III. THE INTABULATIONS AND THEIR MODELS . 57 IV. THE THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK SURROUNDING THE INCORPORATION OF CHROMATIC SIGNS . • • • 74 V. THE INTABULATOR'S INTERPRETATIONS OF PITCH CONTENT IN JOSQUIN'S MOTETS . • • . 108 VI. ABSALON, FILl MI . • • •156 C 0 N C LU S I ON . • • • 178 NOTES . , . • • • • • • • , • • • • , , 180 APPENDIX • , , • • • • • , • • • • , • • , • • • , • , 212 B I B L I 0 G RAP HY • • • , • , • • • • • • • • , • , • • • • 278 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my gratitude to all those who aided in the development of this thesis: to Dr. Reinhard Strohm for his advice and encouragement at all stages of the project; to Professor Brian Trowell for many valuable suggestions; to Professor Herbert Kellman and Mr. Jerry Call of the University of Illinois Musicological Archives for Renaissance Manuscript Studies for placing the resources of the archives at my disposal and for answering my queries; to Dr. Charles Jacobs who provided photocopies of his 11.A. thesis; to Professor Arthur Ness for preparing a list of the variants in Francesco da Milano's tablature sources; to Horst Loeschmann for his generous help in collecting the motet variants; to Michael Morrow who brought certain aspects of Gene's instructions to my attention; to Janet Strohm, Music Librarian at King's College, London, for purchasing microfilms for my use; and to Elizabeth Manuel, Administrative Assistant in the Faculty of Music at King's College, London, for many kindnesses. This dissertation would not have been possible without the financial support of a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Hum nities Research Council of Canada and a grant from the Central Research Fund of the University of London. And finally, this project would never have been completed without the constant support and encouragement of my wife Margaret. 5 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION One of the major problems in Renaissance music scholarship has been to establish a precise understanding of the structure and development of pretonal polyphony. Scholars working toward this end have long been plagued by the ambiguities of pitch notation in the sources of vocal music from this period. During the Renaissance, the final shaping of the music in both harmonic and melodic content was the domain of the performer not the composer. Chromatic signs' largely were left unspecified in vocal sources consequently certain details of modal procedure were never notated. Singers were expected to be familiar with the rules governing the application of these signs and to make the appropriate alterations at the time of performance. Although the principles behind this improvisatory art were discussed in contemporary theoretical treatises and manuals, the explanations are far too cursory to yield a comprehensive understanding of sixteenth-century procedures. Through- out the centuxy, however, keyboard players, lutenists, vihuelists and guitarists continually intabulated vocal music for their respective instruments. These transcriptions have recorded the practices of many of the greatest performers from the era s thus providing modern scholars and performers with a precise view of how sixteenth-century musicians resolved the pitch ambiguities in contemporary vocal sources. Tablatures, owing to the nature of the notation, are 6 7 the only Renaissance sources of polyphony which specify all pitches unambiguously. An examination of these sources, coupled with a reconstruction of the theoretical framework surrounding the incorporation of chromatic signs, is essential if one is to fully ascertain the details of pitch content and modal procedure operative during the period. This avenue of approach has received scant attention in the musicological literature published to date even though leading musicologists such as John M. Ward, Howard Mayer Brown and James Haar have pointed to the necessity of this type of investigation since the early 195082. The present study will remedy the neglect that thi3 area has experienced. The dissertation will consider a composer who was most frequently chosen for intabulation in the sixteenth century--Josquin Desprez (d. 1521). A number of Josquin's motets were intabulated during the century and fifteen of these works have been chosen as the subject for this study. The motets were selected in preference to Josquin's mass cycles or to his secular works because the extant sources for both the intabulations and the motets themselves span the longest time period (the printed intabulations are dated between 1507 and 1578 and the printed vocal sources between 1504 and 1616) and encompass the widest geographic area (Poland, Germany, France, Spain and Italy) and. therefore offer a substantial cross - section of sixteenth—century practices. The materials of the dissertation include 55 vocal manuscripts, 21 printed vocal sources, 28 tablature sources and a number of theoretical treatises. A 8 comparative study of these materials will illuminate common procedures of the time. Although this study does not purport to explain what Josquin's own practices might have been, it does illustrate how musicians during the fifty or so years after his death interpreted the pitch content of his motets. The recognition of the existence of a range of practices will considerably modify our perception of the structure and development of pretonal polyphony. The lack of systematic knowledge in this area has forced modern editors to base their own interpretations of pitch content