Motivic Organization in Motets of Josquin Des Prez

and his Contemporaries  

Jennifer Thomas University of Florida

American Musicological Society Annual Meeting San Francisco, November 13, 2011

Overheard in a bar near La St Chapelle in Paris:

“If you don’t have any new musical ideas, steal from Josquin;

that’s what he would do.”

Lewis Lockwood, 1964:

“a sense of motivic organization . . . would eventually grow,

under very different means of harmonic extension and control,

into one of the permanently significant modes of

Western musical thinking.”

Fundamental materials

•  Pitch / Mode •  Tempo and meter •  Compass of the mode •  Identifying motives

Agricola: Si dedero Section I motives

•  Declamatory Long-Short-Short opening; elided with a

•  a—anacrusis, dotted quarter note, descending melismatic 16th notes

•  b—dotted rhythm, stepwise upward; an inverted relative of a

•  c—upper neighbor; first embedded in a, then independent

Agricola: Si dedero  

•  Motive a, a’ Motive b, b’ Motive c

Agricola Si dedero, first phrase

•  Motives a, b, and c densely populate the opening measures

•  Mode: G

Agricola: Si dedero Section II motives

•  d—ascending half notes, span 4th

•  e—falling 3rd; whole notes •  Function: foil to more active dotted

rhythms; braking device; later acts as contrapuntal accompaniment to dotted-rhythm motives

Agricola: Si dedero Structural articulation

Mm. 13-15: Motives a and b alternate in S and B. Motive e and opening motive provide harmonic foundation and stability

Agricola: Si dedero Structural articulation

•  Mm. 20-26 •  All five motives present in various

permutations, overlaps, elisions, juxtapositions

Agricola: Si dedero Structural articulation

•  Mm 30-3: complete synthesis

EMILY

•  Early •  Money •  Is •  Like •  Yeast

EMILY

•  Early •  Motive •  Is •  Like •  Yeast

Josquin: Gaude virgo opening

•  Mode: D •  Ideas derived from O,3,5,7,8,7 cell appear

throughout 0 3 5 7 8 7

Josquin: Gaude virgo

0,3,5,7,8,7 in O Virgo prudentissima

0,3,5,7,8,7 in Huc me sydereo

0,3,5,7,8,7 in Illibata dei virgo

0,3,5,7,8,7 in Illibata and Pater noster

0,3,5,7,8,7 in Praeter rerum

0,3,5,7,8,7 in Recordare virgo mater

Josquin: Gaude virgo opening

•  O,3,5,7,8,7 in point of imitation •  Repeated four times

Josquin: Gaude virgo

•  Opening idea transposed up a 5th to A

Extension; obssesive repetition  

Retrograde of cells in opening motive

Josquin: Gaude virgo

•  Lower voices create a new phrase using many elements of the original

Displacement of dotted rhythm; New: octave leap

Josquin: Gaude virgo •  Gradual transformation of cells

I-original  

II- phrase 2  

III-end of phrase 2  

IV-middle section of motet; new rhythmic identity  

Josquin: Gaude virgo, middle

Josquin: Gaude virgo

•  Static Contrapuntal Module: holding pattern before a cadence

•  Use of “obsessive repetition”

Reordering of motive cells; voice exchange

Josquin: Gaude virgo

•  Static Contrapuntal Module: holding pattern before a cadence

•  Similarity to “obsessive repetition”

Reordering of motive cells; voice exchange

Recording: A Sei Voci, Missa Ave Maris Stella

Josquin: Huc me sydereo

•  Static Contrapuntal Module: mm. 57-64

Josquin: Huc me sydereo •  Static Contrapuntal Module: mm. 57-64

Recording: Orlando Consort, Josquin Desprez: Motets

Josquin: Illibata dei

•  Static Contrapuntal Module: mm. 16-18 – Shifting between D and G orientation

Josquin: Illibata dei

•  Static Contrapuntal Module: mm. 16-18 – Shifting between D and G orientation

Recording: De Labyrintho & Walter Testolin, Josquin Desprez: Musica Symbolica

Josquin: Gaude virgo, end

Josquin: Ave maris stella •  Mode: G •  Melodic and Harmonic 5ths permeate the

work

Josquin: Qui habitat Phrase 1

•  Mode: G

Josquin: Qui habitat Phrase 2, motive c

•  A–Bb–A / D–Eb–D

Josquin: Qui habitat Point of imitation

•  Temporal spacing; pitch class; pitch level

Josquin: Qui habitat m. 203-11

Josquin: Qui habitat Vertical use of the motives

Josquin: Stabat mater •  Opening motives

Vertical 5ths and 2nds

Josquin: Stabat mater mm. 58-60; vertical 5ths and 2nds

Josquin: Stabat mater mm. 70-72; vertical 5ths and 2nds

Josquin: Stabat mater •  Multiple unrelated motives; all return significantly •  Cantus firmus and motivic identity

Josquin: Stabat mater

•  Secunda pars: Cantus firmus tune as motive

Josquin: Stabat mater •  Secunda pars: Cantus firmus tune as motive, m. 64

Josquin: Stabat mater •  Cantus firmus and motivic identity

Motive D

Josquin: Stabat mater

•  Motive D—marked in green

Josquin: Stabat mater

•  Cascade—marked in blue

Johannes Frosch “one might very profitably make a copy of

those things which are heard, not without pleasure, in the best Authors, and which should be studied. From these one might choose the best motives, at various times, and bring them together in a series, so that when one wants to use them, one has them readily at hand . . . These ‘imitations’ will give you practice and use as a student, and will also give you a basis for discovering other, more distant elements, which will be a small aid in this craft . . . [of composition] (translation, Lockwood, personal papers)

I Corinthians 14:7-10 “And even if things without life (i.e., musical

instruments) giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how

shall it be known what is piped or harped? For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who

shall prepare himself to the battle? So likewise ye, except ye utter by the tongue words

easy to be understood, how shall it be known what is spoken? For ye shall speak into the air.

There are, it may be, so many kinds of voices in the world, and none of them is without signification.