A Conversation and a skip later I found myself face to face with a rural to spot, sometimes extremely difficult, in various keys, once more. policemen, who looked perfectly ridiculous in a red with added rests…but the whole thing is always there, “Maurice, this is very good, you’ve done the work of an with Josquin and gold uniform and towering kepi. like in the superius of the Gloria and the “complaint honest artisan. You’ve written in the Franco-Flemish “Your music, please!” machines” in the bass of the Agnus 2.” style, and done the best you could with what you Those bright and beady eyes…why, yes, they were Josquin bent over the score, more and more interested: have.” In the church of Sainte Croix Vallée-Française, I was Josquin’s! He was actually there, and easily recognizable “This notation is wonderful, with the four voices one He winked and slipped away. about to give the starting pitch for the eleven singers in in his high green stockings. And he was obviously very above the other. In my day, we had to count the beats I opened my eyes. My scores were before me, and there the Métamorphoses and Biscantor! ensembles. cross. and really pay attention. When it’s printed like this, were the singers, waiting patiently. The pitch pipe I closed my eyes for a second… “What’s this Chascun me crie ...même Hercule! mass? you can take it easy…even have a snooze from time sounded an “A” and the first notes of the Kyrie from …and when I opened them again…my binder was I never wrote such a thing!” to time!” Hercules could finally plunge me into a marvelous empty! My music had disappeared! My tools, my “Calm down, Josquin…You and a lot of other people And then with great enthusiasm: fountain of youth. conductor’s scores covered with annotations! They ’d have probably forgotten your Chascun me crie Credo, “Look here, the Chascun me crie theme segues into vanished at the very moment I was finally going to use which was in Cambrai’s collection of musical scores.” Hercules through your Christe machine! And here in them! After four years of putting the program together, “Hmmm…” your Qui tollis the Hercules theme is sung by two tenors Maurice Bourbon, 5 September 2012 a year of analyzing Hercules, a month of writing out the “It’s true, it’s not your most accomplished work, and a fifth apart…like church bells ringing! And the mirror Chascun me crie ...même Hercule! score. I have to admit that its title is what first caught my image Chascun me crie theme, followed by the real 1- An homage to Harold Lloyd (Monte là-dessus, Safety Last, 1923) I threw myself into the search for the Grail I simply eye. It must have been a song tune…can you sing it theme of the Cum Sancto Spiritu! And the same thing had to find. My mad rush to locate it brought to mind 2 - Institut National de Polyphonie Vocale, see Messes Bourbon to me?” in the Osanna, which you illustrated with the Chascun (Editions de l’Homme armé HA01, 2009) all the obstacles I’d overcome: the difficulty of finding “Beeee – C – D – E – Deeee – G!” me crie theme…and the symmetry of the In excelsis Deo. venues, the singers who didn’t answer their phones, “No, I know the melody, for that I can just listen to the Are there more?” who arrived late for rehearsals and left early, the piece. It’s the words I need!” “Yes, the fun is in hunting for them!” refused funding requests, the distributors who weren’t “???” I smiled at his excitement, and said, interested in the recording, the politician who told “In any case, the theme had a lot of potential. I literally “Another thing I enjoyed was paying homage to Bach me how to perform Josquin, my serious lumbago, my stuffed the rest of the mass with it, even the tiny motifs in Agnus I and to you in Agnus 2. When the two are terrible fatigue… hidden in the “machines” – the repeated themes - superimposed at the beginning of Agnus 3, I pay At the Pont Ravagers station, I caught a train…that you’re so fond of. homage to the two greatest polyphonists.” would be the quickest way! But no, it took off in the Josquin relaxed a bit. The sun shining from the garden “Yes, you’ve mentioned this Bach fellow to me wrong direction! I tried to get out while it was still into the INPV (2) cafeteria lit up his figure, and the before…” moving slowly, but the door was blocked…Luckily I students, watching from the windows, laughed and “And I even parodied my own work in the Sanctus, managed to open a window, only to began an exhausting elbowed each other. using the “couscous” and the main theme from my descent along a huge building, from balcony to balcony, “But why did you call it “…même Hercule?” Petits Z’oiseaux Mass.” from G clefs to F clefs… “I simply wanted to make the collection of your But Josquin was no longer listening. He had suddenly “Your papers, please!” 1 complete masses more coherent by including the noticed the laughing young faces at the windows. To my surprise, I’d almost reached the sidewalk . A hop principal theme from Hercules as well. It’s often difficult He drew himself up and became a true Maestro 14 15 Josquin Desprez Italy. Bartolomeo del Cavalieri mentions that Josquin Josquin’s successor, Jacob Obrecht, who had become Ferrariae, and bear witness to Josquin’s musical genius also sent another of his works through the singer Maestro di Capella in September 1504 for a salary of at the height of his maturity. in Ferrara Verbonnet, who was employed at the chapelle royale in 100 ducats, and who also died in 1505. Antoine Brunel The evidence that has come down to us – sixteen France. This music has not been identified, but “certa replaced Obrecht; Josquin valued this composer’s manuscript and nine printed sources, nine excerpts cosa nova che dice ha fatto Josquin” (was certainly a new work, and wrote a mass based on Brunel’s motet Mater included in sixteenth-century musical treatises, four 1 A letter dating from 14 August 1502 from Girolamo piece that Josquin says he wrote). Josquin was hired patris . tablature transcriptions for viheula, pieces inspired by da Sestola (known as “Coglia”) to Ercole (Hercules) some weeks later as Maestro di Capella, becoming the Ercole I’s reign, which lasted from 1471, when he the Hercules mass and examples of re-use with modified d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, recommended that the latter best-paid singer in the Ferrarese chapel. Jachet de succeeded Borso d’Este, until his death in 1505, stood texts – shows that Josquin’s mass was admired, widely take Josquin des Prez into his service in order to “place Marville, the musician from Lorraine who preceded out for his great interest in the arts. Culture was at disseminated, frequently sung and recopied. a crown upon your chapel”. Coglia recruited talent Josquin, was brutally fired, and was reduced to begging its zenith in Ferrara during the last quarter of the The originality of the mass stems from the way its throughout Europe, and the artists he enrolled worked Ercole’s son-in-law to reinstate him: fifteenth century. The Duke, who was interested in musical subject is derived from its title. The Italian to make the Duke’s reign ever more impressive. A rival Since the arrival of this singer from Milano, I have received literature and the fine arts and also played instruments, theoretician Zarlino called this technique “sogetto talent scout, Gian de Artiganova, or Gian Gascon, neither a salary nor anything else from the Duke…I beg of chose his musicians himself. Jacob Obrecht, Heinrich cavato dale vocali”, (literally “a subject carved out of recommended another composer, Heinrich Isaac, you, for love of the Altissima Nativita, to see the Duke and Isaac, Alexandre Agricola, Antoine Brumel and the vowels”). Josquin, who invented the procedure, to Ercole in a letter written two weeks later, on 2 to have me reinstated in my chapel. Johannes Martini were all employed in his chapel, the fashioned the mass’s cantus firmus from the vowels in September. Jachet de Lorraine, singer. most renowned of its time; the philosopher Pic de la the work’s title. He used the same process in the Missa 2 I mention to you that Isaac wrote in just two days a motet Jachet’s request came to nothing, however: a letter written Mirandole (1463-94) also contributed to the city’s La sol fa ré mi . on the “A-E-A-G-A-E-C” theme, which is excellent. Of in April of the same year, from Giacomo d’Adria, the intellectual renown. Although its title clearly identifies the mass’s dedicatee, him it can be said that he is a quick man in the art of Mantuan ambassador to the Ferrara court, specifies No documents relate Josquin’s daily activities in the nothing is known about the circumstances or the date composing. the imminent arrival of the musicians Verbonnet and ducal court. Luckily, though, ambassadorial letters of its composition. Josquin certainly wrote it in honor I recommend him to Your Excellency rather than Josquin, Josquin from Paris. A document from Modena, dating have been preserved. In February 1605 Ercole d’Este’s of Ercole d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, but where and when because he is of a better nature among his companions and from October 1503, lists singers and their salaries, and ambassador asked Josquin to examine a musical work did this take place? Can it have been in 1487, during will write new pieces more often.