Josquins Qui Habitat and the Psalm Motets

Josquin's Qui habitat and the Psalm MotetsAuthor(s): Leeman L. PerkinsSource: The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Fall 2009), pp. 512-565Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/jm.2009.26.4.512 .

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The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 26, Issue 4, pp. 512–565, ISSN 0277-9269, electronic ISSN 1533-8347. © 2010 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press’s Rights and Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/ jm.2009.26.4.512.

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I wish to thank most sincerely the readers to whom the article was referred prior to publication, especially Joshua Rifkin for his trenchant observations and Patrick Macey for his helpful sug-gestions. Any remaining deficiencies or infelicities are my own.

1 “The Aria of the Clanging Soup Spoons,” July 16, 2006, previewing the produc-tion of Stephen Hartke’s The Greater Good, or the Passion of Boule de Suif.

Josquin’s Qui habitat and the Psalm Motets

LeeMAN L . PeRkINS

I n a recent article previewing the production of

a contemporary opera, New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini made some observations that may seem pertinent to the current state of af-fairs in Josquin scholarship1:

Matters of style have tended to dominate the critical discourse when a new work is introduced. Is the score tonal or atonal? Cerebral or pop-ulist? Neo-Romantic, Neo-Classical, or neo-whatever? Is it 12-tone or postmodern? And so on.

In all the arts—film, fiction, dance, pop, but particularly classical music—there has been too much concern with style. . . . Style is easy to recognize and not that hard to imitate. But defining an artistic voice is hard. . . . While some composers seem captives of the styles they imi-tate, others somehow exude a personal voice.

As anyone knows who has been following scholarly developments in Josquin-related studies, much time and attention have been devoted over the last half century (and more) to the attempt to define the style of Josquin’s music. This is not surprising. On one hand, Josquin has been universally recognized as one of the major figures of his age; and on the other, efforts to define and evaluate his compositional achievements have been part of an investigation of wider scope aimed at defining the

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musical style of a critical period in the development of western polyph-ony. In my view, there has been considerable success in dealing with the period in general, perhaps at least in part because the tendency at the time was clearly toward conformity to well established compositional norms. As for individual works and composers, such as Josquin, I sug-gest that stylistic analysis is much better adapted to grounding useful generalities than to the definition of personal style.

To begin, there is still much confusion as to the authorship of a sig-nificant number of compositions from Josquin’s time, and for the com-poser himself the difficulties of stylistic definition are especially acute. The wide dissemination of his works, which brought them to regions where he never set foot and persisted for decades after his demise, appears to have entailed more than the usual uncertainties regarding attributions in the sources. Consequently, the scholarly community is still grappling with the most fundamental and the thorniest of issues in striving to establish a well grounded canon of the composer’s works. But if the questions still being asked appear basic, their resolution has proven to be unexpectedly difficult.

How is it possible to untangle conflicting ascriptions and to identify errors of attribution left behind by the scribes and the printers of the time, even where no discrepancies exist? Is it possible to discover how they occurred? Did the mistakes arise from confusion, carelessness, or perhaps even intentional deceit? If the latter, what can the reason have been for knowingly attaching Josquin’s name to compositions that were not of his creation? Was it really in some instances, as has been sug-gested, “a well-intentioned attempt to cater to the new Lutheran mar-ket with works supposedly by Luther’s favorite composer”?2 Can one untangle the even more problematic instances in which the attributions are all to Josquin, but for which there are other reasons for doubt, such as distances in time and place from his years of compositional activity and from the areas in which he is known to have lived and worked, to say nothing of the problems posed by anecdotal evidence?3

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is it really possible to estab-lish stylistic criteria of any kind capable of bestowing clarity on such troublesome cases and of helping to distinguish with some degree of confidence between works rightly attributed to Josquin and those writ-ten by his students and imitators, including not only his contemporaries but also composers of subsequent generations?

2 See Jeremy Noble, “Josquin,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (hereafter NG 2), ed. Stanley Sadie, 2nd ed. (London: Macmillan, 2001), 13:234.

3 See, for example, Rob C. Wegman, “Who Was Josquin?” in The Josquin Companion, ed. Richard Sherr (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 21–50.

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Analysis and Generalities of Style

As described in The New Grove Dictionary, style has been viewed by historians as “a distinguishing and ordering concept, both consistent of and denoting generalities,” making it possible to group “examples of music according to similarities between them.”4 Style analysis has been used in this manner in the musicological disciplines since the earliest stages of their development to group compositions into coher-ent repertories, and thereby to define and describe distinctive periods in the history of Western music. This has been done on the basis of traits deemed characteristic of a given age and place and that can be seen to distinguish general stylistic trends from those that precede and follow. Despite the difficulties inherent in the process and the less than tidy stylistic generalities upon which one necessarily depends, what might be described as a working consensus has emerged, as re-flected in the general use of standard period-labels as historical style categories.

Similarly, scholars have made use of stylistic commonalities and dif-ferences to define musical genres and to distinguish them one from another. For example, it has proven instructive in dealing with settings of the Mass Ordinary from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries to note features of compositional practice that distinguish them from con-temporaneous motets; motets are likewise differentiated from secular genres as well as from sacred works in related but distinctive musical traditions, such as the settings of Mass propers, psalms, or Magnificats. It is thus possible to speak of mass and motet, chanson, frottola, and madrigal, or canzona and ricercar, and to connote by these and other appropriate terms the general stylistic features by which they have been defined.

Such distinctions have been formulated to reflect what is judged to be typical and usual in the handling of the most fundamental musi-cal parameters—melody, rhythm, harmony, form, sound source, and texture—to which may be added other distinctive features, such as the treatment of a text, reliance upon preexistent musical material, or a predetermined compositional or rhetorical program. When used to generalize about a repertory, moreover, the stylistic insights achieved can be truly enlightening, even within the relatively small groups of compositions that represent the Josquin tradition.

To illustrate the point, one can turn to Ludwig Finscher’s discus-sion of the four-voice motets ascribed to Josquin in the sources. Draw-ing upon his intimate acquaintance with the works in question and

4 Robert Pascall, “Style,” NG 2, 24:638.

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with the motet repertory of the period more generally, he has found it possible to sort them into three coherent sets on the basis of shared features—without necessarily separating them at the same time from like compositions by Josquin’s immediate contemporaries: (1) compara-tively simple settings that feature block chords, slow syllabic declamation, and frequent fermatas and rests; (2) highly polished and elegant settings of chant melodies that make systematic use of pervading imitation and give less attention to a declamatory presentation of the text; and (3) a “third” style, illustrated by the psalm motets, in which chant melodies are rarely heard and the presentation of the text makes use of a variety of contrapuntal procedures, including homophonic declamation, pervasive imitation, duos in alternating registers, and restrained rhetorical gestures that prefigure the madrigalisms of the succeeding generation.5

It is possible to view in a similar light Joshua Rifkins’s stylistic analy-ses of a repertory of motets that can be identified with Milan and placed in the 1470s and 1480s. Beginning with the motetti missales, in particu-lar, and including other works found in the Gaffurius codices, he has argued convincingly that this group of works, and those attributed to Gaspar [Weerbeke] and Loyset [Compère] in particular, “show a suf-ficient number of common traits to create an unmistakable collective profile . . . despite the inevitable differences in style from one composer to another.”6 The purpose of his analysis is to ground his claim that Jos-quin’s Ave Maria . . . virgo serena reflects the very same stylistic tradition, and he has been able to make a persuasive case by drawing individual pieces together on the basis of the easily recognizable traits they have in common while necessarily leaving aside those unique features that may be seen to constitute an individual compositional voice.

As useful as stylistic generalizations of this sort may be in drawing together works of a specific type or class under a common stylistic um-brella, they are far more difficult to apply in distinguishing individually among compositions of a single genre, and even more difficult still in identifying the work of a given composer. The smaller and more cir-cumscribed the group of like pieces involved in stylistic comparison, the greater the number of shared elements—and the more challenging it thus becomes to differentiate between any two composers, or even any two works, on the basis of style alone.

5 Ludwig Finscher, “Four-Voice Motets,” in The Josquin Companion, 251. Finscher goes on to assert that these categories cannot be used to establish a chronology for Josquin’s motet repertory as they had been earlier, partly because of mistaken assumptions con-cerning the early stages of Josquin’s career, but he clearly subscribes to the validity of the stylistic criteria.

6 Joshua Rifkin, “Munich, Milan, and a Marian Motet: Dating Josquin’s Ave Maria . . . virgo serena,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 56 (2003): 239–350, esp. 265–82.

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The Decanonization of the Psalm Motets

For any analytical study intending to establish the likely authorship of a given musical composition, the indispensable foundation has to be a substantial repertory of securely attributed works that can pro-vide a basis for comparison. As surprising as it may seem, however, the psalm motets for which Josquin’s authorship has been most widely ac-cepted and can be most persuasively argued from the evidence at hand comprises no more than about one of every six or seven compositions that carry his name. Of the ninety-one sacred motets once believed to be Josquin’s, twenty-four were psalm motets; and of the fifty-two ti-tles included in the four volumes of the New Josquin Edition dedicated to motets based on psalm texts, two-thirds have been relegated to the doubtful and unauthentic categories. Only seven have been given a place among the compositions of unchallenged attribution in the list of works in the The New Grove Dictionary7 (see table 1).

This represents a substantial reduction from the number of psalm motets that Helmuth Osthoff had proposed including in the Josquin canon in his pathbreaking monograph of 1962–65,8 and that were generally still accepted as the composer’s work when the International Josquin Festival-Conference convened in New York in 1971.9

In attempting to identify compositions with a legitimate place in Josquin’s oeuvre, Osthoff had already found reason to cast doubt on the re-liability of an ascription to Josquin for a fair number of works. Since then, beginning with the Festival-Conference itself, the process of winnowing out pieces of doubtful parentage has proceeded on two separate if related fronts: (1) work by various scholars in the field intending to eliminate spe-cific works from the canon on the basis of source studies as well as stylistic evidence provided by the most reliably attributed compositions in the rep-ertory, and (2) the efforts of contributors to two major reference works—The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001) and the second edition of Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (completed in 2007)—in dividing all compositions ascribed to Josquin between those deemed to be actually his and those considered “doubtful and misattributed.”

Among the individual studies, edgar Sparks’s contribution to the Festival-Conference focused on a group of six motets that Osthoff had accepted as genuine Josquin, even though Osthoff had judged them to be inferior to the composer’s usual level of skill. All but one have

7 Jeremy Noble and Jeffrey Dean, NG 2, 13:242–46.8 Osthoff, Josquin Desprez (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1962, 1965), 2 vols.9 See the tabulations made by Winfried kirsch, “Josquin’s Motets in the German Tra-

dition,” in Josquin des Prez, Proceedings of the International Josquin Festival-Conference (London: Oxford University Press, 1976), 261–78.

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attributions in the sources only to Josquin; but for Osthoff the decisive factor common to all was a contrapuntal formula that he identified as a Satzfehler—actually not a contrapuntal error at all, but rather a type of dissonant cadence in which the conventional suspension and its reso-lution sound simultaneously.10 He excuses the alleged infelicities by

10 Sparks, “Problems of Authenticity in Josquin’s Motets,” in Proceedings of the Inter-national Josquin Festival-Conference, 345–66. The following motets are in question: In illo tempore stetit Jeus à 6 (NJE 19.6), Nesciens Mater à 5 (NJE 24.7), Ave verum corpus natum à 5 (NJE 21.3), Victimae paschali laudes à 6 (NJE 22.7), Inter natos mulierum à 6 (NJE 19.10), and Responsum acceperat Simeon à 6 (NJE 20.11).

Table 1

Psalm motets deemed attributable to Josquin des Prez∗

De profundis clamavi (à 5)—1 pars (Mot. v : 51, no. 90 = NJE 15.13)Psalm 129 + Requiem, Pater noster

Domine ne in furore tuo (à 4)—2 partes (Mot. ii : 21, no. 39 = NJE 16.6)Psalm 37: 2–4, 7, 11, 22–23

In exitu Israel (à 4)—3 partes (Mot. iii : 36, no. 51 = NJE 17.4)Psalm 113, doxology and repeat of v. 27a, Nos qui vivimus (as antiphon?)

Miserere mei Deus (à 5)—3 partes (Mot. ii : 21, no. 37 = NJE 18.3)Psalm 50 complete with recurring ostinato

Misericordias Domini (à 4)—3 partes (Mot. ii : 25, no. 43 = NJE 18.4)Compilation of verses from Psalms 88, 32, 85, 144, 122, and 30 (or 70) and Lamentations 3:22

Memor esto verbi tui (à 4)—2 partes (Mot. ii : 16, no. 31 = NJE 17.14)Psalm 118:49–64, short doxology and return

Qui habitat in adiutorio (à 4)—2 partes (Mot. iii : 37, no. 52 = 52 NJE 18.7)Psalm 90 with return to opening verse

*Not included here is Domine, non secundum peccata (à 2–4) in 3 partes (Mot. i : 4, no. 13 = NJE 16.10), a tract for ash Wednesday with text taken from Psalms 102:10 and 78:8–9. The work is not a psalm motet, then, but rather a plainsong setting intended for liturgical use and is listed in The New Grove Dictionary among the Rit-ual Works. Josquin’s is, in fact, one of a surprising number of polyphonic versions of this tract ascribed to composers associated with the papal chapel in the 1480s and 1490s; see Richard Sherr, “Illibata Dei virgo nutrix and Josquin’s Roman Style,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 41 (1988): 455–62.

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positing that the works came early in Josquin’s career, before his mature style had been fully developed, and thus as Sparks observes, “argues . . . for authenticity on the basis of inadequacy.”11 As Sparks clearly shows, the cadential configuration in question is not to be found in securely attributed Josquin from the early years of his career (for Osthoff, pre-sumably, the 1470s and 1480s).12 Rather it is characteristic of compos-ers who flourished in the 1530s and 1540s, in particular Clemens non Papa and Gombert. This is also the period during which the sources for these motets originated. The significance of the Satzfehler as a criterion for Josquin’s authorship is thus turned on its head, and Sparks is able to conclude by rejecting the attributions to Josquin for all six motets.13 Not surprisingly, the authors of the Josquin work list in The New Grove Dictionary agreed, relegating them without exception to the opera dubia, and Sparks is cited in justification of their placement.14

Sparks noted as well that two of these motets, Nesciens mater and Ave verum corpus natum, are deeply indebted for their musical materi-als to a Josquin motet of impeccable attribution and wide distribution, Inviolata, integra et casta es.15 He saw Nesciens mater in particular as repre-sentative of a large group of works written by an apprenticing composer as a reworking of the most prominent elements of an admired master-piece. This was also what Patrick Macey saw in Celi enarrant, a psalm motet found only in sources of German origin from the middle of the sixteenth century.16 As he is able to demonstrate, the composer of this work drew upon the opening verse of Josquin’s celebrated Miserere mei Deus (NJE 18.3) for the prima pars of his own motet, reworking and vary-ing somewhat the musical material—changing the order in which the voices enter, for example—but clearly relying heavily on his model. In like manner the unknown composer borrowed from the opening of Ave caro Christi cara, which he must have believed to be Josquin’s work, to open the secunda pars of his motet. Here he quotes the beginning of that earlier setting almost exactly.17 For the tertia pars as well, the

11 Ibid., 347.12 See below the section Problems of Chronology, pp. 525–26.13 Sparks, “Problems of Authenticity,” 357–59.14 Noble and Dean, NG 2, 13:250–58.15 Sparks, “Problems of Authenticity,” 350.16 Patrick Macey, “Celi enarrant: An Inauthentic Psalm Motet Attributed to Josquin,” in

Proceedings of the International Josquin Symposium Utrecht 1986, ed. Willem elders (Utrecht: Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1991), 25–44. The sources are Pe-treius 15386, Berg and Neuber 15534, and kassel, Landesbibliothek, Ms 24.

17 As Macey observes, Ave caro Christi cara is found in two Netherlandish sources from early in the sixteenth century with an attribution to Noel Bauldeweyn and is given to Josquin only in a later German source (15545). There is consequently reason for dis-agreement as to its authorship.

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composer of Celi enarrant turned to a motet ascribed to Josquin, lifting the first twelve measures directly from the latter’s Fama malum.

Working along similar lines and with two of the most securely at-tributed psalm motets to provide paradigms of Josquin’s style, Macey has been able to identify two additional works as emulatory rework-ings of Josquin’s psalm motets by composers in training.18 Levavi oculos meos in montes (NJE 17.13), which survives in a single source (Petreius’s Tomus secundus psalmorum selectorum of 1539) with an ascription to Josquin, was clearly modeled on Qui habitat in adiutorio (NJE 18.7). Per-haps prompted by the similar textual conceits of the opening verse of the two psalms, the unknown composer lifted the leaping upward fifth and the rising melodic line of his model and adapted the borrowed material for the opening of his composition. Again at the beginning of the secunda pars he turned to the corresponding section of Qui habitat for his inspiration, this time quoting directly. And at the end of the piece he follows Josquin in returning to the opening for both text and music. No less telling than the borrowings are the portions written by the imitator without Josquin’s help. Because they exhibit a much lower level of contrapuntal skill, these passages enable Macey to put together a substantial catalogue of compositional ineptitudes.

Macey is able to trace a similar relationship between Josquin’s widely known Memor esto verbi tui and a setting of Nunc dimittis servum tuum found only in a pair of Italian manuscripts: Padua A17 (from 1522) and, with an attribution to Josquin, Bologna Q20 (ca. 1530). Both Osthoff and Noble harbored doubts as to the validity of the sole attribution, and a close comparison of the two compositions leaves little doubt as to the derivative nature of Nunc dimittis and the compositional procedures of the imitator. In this instance as well, the opening and closing sections of the later piece are those most obviously derived from Josquin’s motet, in particular the doxology and the repetition of the opening material. Here the contrapuntal skill of the emulator clearly suffers in contrast to that of Josquin himself.

More recently, eric Jas has examined anew the contrapuntal fabric of Jubilate Deo omnis terra, a motet found only in sources of German ori-gin from 1539 and later. (Josquin’s authorship has been rejected both for the work list in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and by Jas himself as editor of volume 17 of the New Josquin Edition.)19 Unlike the other

18 Patrick Macey, “Josquin as Classic: Qui habitat, Memor esto, and Two Imitations Un-masked,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 118 (1993): 1–43.

19 eric Jas, “What’s in a quote? Josquin’s (?) Jubilate Deo, omnis terra reconsidered,” Early Music 37 (2009): 9–19; New Josquin Edition, vol. 17, Texts from the Psalms 3, ed. eric Jas (Utrecht: koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 2008), Criti-cal Commentary, 57–68. The sources in question (in chronological order) are Petreius

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examples cited, there is no borrowing here of structurally significant blocks of material as the framework upon which a new work is con-structed. Instead there is a series of quotations, four in all, from works ascribed to Josquin in the sources of German origin (and almost exclu-sively there): Ave caro Christi cara (NJE 21.1), Domine ne in furore tuo (NJE 16.7), In Domino confido (NJE 17.3), and Usquequo, Domine (NJE 18.12). These borrowings, seen in the light of other stylistic anomalies—and perhaps even more, the work’s transmission exclusively in late German sources—led Jas to the conclusion that the motet is not by Josquin.

Macey, too, has returned to reconsider one of the motets he ed-ited for the New Josquin Edition, the setting of Psalm 129 for low voices, De profundis clamavi (NJE 15.11),20 which was consigned to the doubt-ful category in the New Grove work list on the strength of an ascrip-tion to Champion. It circulated widely, having found a place in six manuscripts, five prints, and Glareanus’s Dodecachordon; and although the manuscripts are predominantly German in origin, some of them relatively late, one of the primary lines of transmission begins with a pair of Italian prints: Antico’s Motetti libro primo (15213)and [c. 1521]7 (publisher unknown). As for the attributions, the spoiler in this in-stance is Vienna NB 15941, a set of three partbooks copied in the atelier of Petrus Alamire for Raimund Fugger between 1521 and 1531 (the superius is wanting). Here the ascription, found only in the tenor partbook, is to Champion, most likely Nicolaus (c. 1475–1533), whose surviving compositions include three masses (one incomplete), two psalm motets, and a song in Flemish. Focusing on what he terms “com-positional habits,” defined as “musical procedures that appear with rela-tive frequency in a composer’s oeuvre”—specifically the spread of no-tational values used from long to fusa, cadential structures, dissonance treatment, texture, and rhetorical shape—Macey compares De profun-dis clamavi with Champion’s known works on one hand and some of Josquin’s most securely attributed motets on the other. He concludes that the evidence, both source critical and style critical, favors Cham-pion as the composer.

Whereas the carefully argued studies summarized here carry con-viction, evidence for the changes in status of the psalm motets that have been relegated to the spurious and doubtful categories in the work list

15399 (Josquin), Dresden SL 1/D/6 (Josquin), Dresden SL 1/D/501 (anonymous), and Vienna NB Mus. 15500 (anonymous).

20 Macey, “Josquin and Champion: Conflicting Attributions for the Psalm Motet De profundis clamavi,” in Uno Gentile et Subtile Ingenio, Studies in Renaissance Music in Honour of Bonnie J. Blackburn, ed. M. Jennifer Bloxam, Gioia Filocamo, and Leofranc Holford-Strevens (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), 453–68; New Josquin Edition, vol. 15, Texts from the Psalms 1, ed. Patrick Macey (Utrecht: koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziek-geschiedenis, 2009), xxii and 1–9.

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for The New Grove Dictionary—usually with a necessarily cryptic justifica-tion on grounds of style—is much less conclusive, and the difficulties in reaching agreement as to the authorship of individual compositions on stylistic grounds are abundantly clear. Also apparent in this connection is the tension between the evidence of the sources and questions of style. For example, the authorship of two of the compositions accepted by Martin Picker as genuine Josquin for volume 16 of the New Josquin Edition has been called into question. Concerning Domine, exaudi ora-tionem meam (NJE 16.5), found only in German sources from mid century and later, Picker declared that “the style of this motet tends to confirm Josquin’s authorship,” observing that “the direction and shape of the me-lodic lines often directly convey the sense of the words.”21 In this regard he both accepted and reinforced the opinion of Osthoff, who had ob-served that “the word-tone correlation, together with the general compo-sitional style, correspond to the well attested psalms of the master’s final creative period.”22 By contrast, the work list of The New Grove Dictionary describes it as untypical both in its structure and its treatment of the text, and judges it to be harmonically stagnant as well.23

Picker made a similarly positive judgment regarding the setting of Domine ne in furore (NJE 16.7), transmitted in a northern Italian source from about 1530 as well as in a manuscript, two prints, and a treatise that originated in German-speaking areas. He asserted that essentially be-cause of its “style and quality,” the motet can be accepted unquestionably as Josquin’s. He goes so far as to claim that it is an “even finer work” than another motet (NJE 16.6) with the same opening, even though the latter has a far better claim on Josquin’s authorship, not only because there are no conflicting attributions, but more importantly because of its much wider distribution in the sources.24 Here again his judgment echoes that of Osthoff, who opines that “this outstanding composition exhibits in ev-ery respect the hand of Josquin.”25 Despite the combined weight of these two scholarly opinions, the New Grove work list relegates this motet to the doubtful and misattributed category, judging the “rhythm and word-setting untypical” and the style to be “later.”26

21 New Josquin Edition, vol. 16, Motets on Texts from the Old Testament, Texts from the Psalms 2, ed. Martin Picker (Utrecht: koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muz-iekgeschiedenis, 2000), Critical Commentary, 27–28.

22 Helmuth Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2 vols. (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1965), 2:141: “Das Wort-Ton-Verhältnis wie der Gesamtstil entsprechen den gut bezeugten Psalmen des Meisters aus seiner letzten Schaffensperiode.”

23 Noble and Dean, NG 2, 13:253.24 Picker, Motets on Texts from the Old Testament, Texts from the Psalms 2, NJE, 16:56–57.25 Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2:133–34: “Die ausgezeichnete komposition deutet in

jeder Hinsicht auf die Hand Josquins.”26 Noble and Dean, NG 2, 13:253.

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The conflicts are similar with regard to the psalm motets included in volume 18 of the New Josquin Edition, beginning with Mirabilia testimo-nia tua (NJE 18.1).27 It is found in three late German sources with only one independent attribution to Josquin, a circumstance that raises seri-ous reservations as to its composer on source-critical grounds. And yet Osthoff wrote of it in glowing terms:

The masterful counterpoint reveals, especially in the cadences, certain suspension formulae and ways of treating appoggiaturas that are often found in the music of Josquin. Consequently, both in purely musical terms and with respect to the excellent balance between the character of the text and its musical setting, there is no sound reason to doubt the attribution [to Josquin].28

The New Grove list shifts this motet as well to the “doubtful and misat-tributed” section with the comment that “rhythm and word-setting” are “untypical.”

Here it is possible to argue that the stylistic evaluations proffered il-lustrate serious methodological problems posed by analyses of this kind. Osthoff, in pointing to cadences and appoggiaturas, draws attention to features that are among the most formulaic compositional devices of the period, and the most easily imitated—hardly the kind of musical evi-dence needed to authenticate with any certainty an ascription to Josquin. As for the work list of The New Grove Dictionary, the terse stylistic com-ment given as justification for the shift in status is hardly illuminating. Although Josquin’s authorship is rejected because the “rhythm and word-setting” are “untypical,” there is no indication as to precisely which norms the piece violates or how and by whom those norms were established. Once again, given the narrow dissemination of this motet exclusively in late German sources, one cannot help but wonder if the authors of the list gave greater weight to the source-critical evidence than to matters of style even though their determination is justified in stylistic terms.

Difficulties arise even when Osthoff and the New Grove work list are in agreement, as with Qui regis Israel (NJE 18.9).29 Osthoff did not hesi-tate to reject the attribution to Josquin as “unglaubhaft” (unbelievable) on stylistic grounds, observing that the bassus is poorly integrated into

27 For a more extended discussion, see the New Josquin Edition, vol. 18, Texts from the Psalms 4, ed. Leeman L. Perkins, (18.1) Section 4, evaluation of the Sources, and Section 7, Authorship (forthcoming).

28 Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2:138: “Die meisterhafte kontrapunktik zeigt vor allem bei den kadenzen bestimmte Vorhaltskonstruktionen und Behandlungsformen von Wechselnoten, wie sie häufig bei Josquin vorkommen. So liegt rein musikalisch und an-gesichts der trefflichen äquivalenz von Textcharakter und Musik kein triftiger Anlass vor, die Zuschreibung zu bezweifeln.”

29 For a more extended discussion, see the New Josquin Edition, vol. 18, (18.9).

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the five-part imitative counterpoint and that the choice of text—ran-domly selected verses from Psalm 79 with some modifications and ad-ditions—hardly conforms to Josquin’s basic principles.30 However valid his comment regarding the counterpoint exemplified in this piece, Os-thoff is not specific as to the principles of textual manipulation on the basis of which Josquin’s authorship has been rejected. After all, Jos-quin’s treatment of the psalm texts does not invariably follow the same pattern. He did not always set a complete psalm or take the verses in order as found in the Bible. Misericordias Domini (NJE 18.4), for exam-ple, which has a much stronger claim on Josquin’s authorship than Qui regis Israel,31 is also a centonization that combines non-sequential psalm verses with other material, presumably for devotional or rhetorical pur-poses. As for the work list, in this instance the comment “texture and structure anomalous” seems to reflect Osthoff’s judgment of Qui regis Israel. However, the nature of the alleged anomalies is not explained, and the late German sources may also have weighed heavily in the bal-ance. In the present climate of decanonization, their provenance is an immediate cause of suspicion with respect to the attributions they transmit.

Commenting on Paratum cor meum (NJE 18.5), a complete setting of Psalm 107,32 Osthoff praises the work for its expressive power and inner warmth, but not without qualification. He seems to sense that the com-poser has failed to achieve a technically adequate interpretation of the text.33 Although apparently hesitant to reject the source attributions outright, given the qualities of the motet perceived as Josquin-like, he

30 Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2:130: “die Fünfstimmigkeit [ist] in recht unsystem-atischer Art nur der klangverstärkung nutzbar gemacht. Am meisten fällt die Behand-lung des Basses auf, der an der kontrapunktisch-imitativen Durchführung der Themen überhaupt nicht beteiligt ist and lediglich als klangträger mit etwas Melismenaufputz fungiert. . . . Dazu gesellt sich die Fragwürdigkeit des Textes . . . eine ganz lose und frei ausgestaltete Anknüpfung an [Psalm 79], die in solcher Form kaum Josquins Grudsätzen entspricht.”

31 Joshua Rifkin has raised doubt as to the reliability of the attribution of Misericor-dias Domini in his essay “Munich, Milan, and a Marian Motet,” 328–29, casting doubt on the arguments made by Patrick Macey in “Josquin’s Misericordias Domini and Louis XI,” Early Music 19 (1991): 162–77, that the motet in question may have been written for Louis XI early in Josquin’s career. The work is given to Josquin in two of the three manu-scripts in which it has been transmitted, however, and in all four of the prints, the earliest of which goes back to 1519. In addition, collation of the variants suggests three separate lines of transmission, albeit with some contamination: one for the two Florentine manu-scripts, another for Petrucci, and a third for the German prints. See the discussion in the New Josquin Edition, vol. 18, (18.7).

32 For a more extended discussion, see New Josquin Edition, vol. 18, (18.5).33 Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2:137f. “Die Motette ist im ganzen eine eindrucksvolle,

von innerem Schwung erfüllte, wenn auch satztechnisch nicht bis ins letzte ausgewogene Musikalisierung des Psalms.” (The motet is expressive and is filled with internal momen-tum, although it is not a completely balanced setting of the Psalm.)

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points to what he sees as the prevalence of “archaic” elements of style—the “singular” reduction of the texture from four to three voices for the middle pars, the absence of imitative counterpoint, and the as yet imperfect melding of text and music. He then declares that these fea-tures may be taken as an indication that this is one of the earliest of Josquin’s Psalm motets, dating perhaps from his years in Rome, if not earlier to his time in Milan.34 In sharp contrast, the work list for The New Grove Dictionary rejects without reservation the ascriptions in the sources, describing the composition not as early but as “sprawling” and “post-Josquinian.” Once again it seems possible that the relatively late date and Germanic origins of the first source with an attribution (Petreius’s Tomus secundus psalmorum selectorum of 1539)35 may have played a part, however indirectly, in the conclusion reached as to its authorship.

In fact, it seems increasingly clear that a primary influence on the process of removing compositions from the Josquin canon has been an ever more rigorous application of the methods of source criticism, and this trend appears to have engendered a growing distrust of the as-criptions in the late German sources. The reassuringly straightforward paradigms upon which source criticism is based—numerical superior-ity of independent attributions in the sources, proximity of time and place to the path of the composer’s career, the relative reliability of a scribe or an editor, and the careful collation of variant readings—have apparently been seen of late as preferable to the more subjective and variable practices of stylistic analysis, the conclusions of which have proven vulnerable to challenge by colleagues in the field, as we have seen.36 I believe it is owing to this trend, rather than to any intensified campaign of innovatory stylistic analysis, that an increasing number of compositions that were earlier accepted as genuine Josquin have now been relegated to the “spurious” and “doubtful” categories. In fact, the evident difficulty in reaching unassailable conclusions as to the reliabil-ity of an attribution to Josquin on stylistic grounds alone has prompted one of the most prominent scholars in the field to declare that if there

34 Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2:138. “Dafür spricht das starke Vorwalten ‘archaischer’ elemente, das singuläre Trizinium des Mittelteils, das Fehlen des durchimitierenden Prin-zips, die vielfach noch unausgeglichene Verbindung von Sprache und Musik.”

35 Paratum cor meum is also found in Cortona, Biblioteca Communale, Mss 95–96/Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, n.a.f. Ms 1817 and in Florence Biblioteca Nazionale, Mss Magliabechi XIX 164–167, but without attribution. The version published in the Le Roy & Ballard print of 1555, Josquini pratensis . . . moduli, Liber primus, appears, surprisingly, to depend upon the German print.

36 Concerning problems that these two modes of inquiry can be seen to have in common, see Joshua Rifkin, “Problems of Authorship in Josquin; Some Impolitic Obser-vations,” Proceedings of the International Josquin Symposium Utrecht 1986 (Utrecht: Vereniging voor Neerlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1991), 45–47.

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are misattributed psalm motets in the sources, “they can scarcely be dis-tinguished from the genuine pieces by stylistic criteria.”37 The reasons for such an observation must lie in good measure with the very nature of style criticism as it has been traditionally practiced. Attempting to use stylistic analysis alone as a method of determining the reliability of a composer attribution in a musical source means adapting it to an end for which it was not initially intended and for which, one might argue, it has proven to be a rather ineffective tool.

Problems of Chronology

Osthoff’s references to chronology, noted above, reflect yet another historical quandary that has bedeviled the use of stylistic analysis, both as a means of constructing a believable canon of works reliably ascribed to Josquin and, in particular, as an aid in establishing a coherent order of events with respect to the composer’s career. A fundamental difficulty for Josquin’s biography has in fact only recently been resolved: that posed by the composer’s long time Doppelgänger, Judocus de kessalia or de Fran-cia. Before this ghost was laid to rest definitively by archival research, especially that of Lora L. Matthews and Paul Merkley,38 and of Adalbert Roth,39 scholars in the field struggled with an apparent anomaly. A com-poser whose career was believed to have begun as early as 1459 at the cathedral in Milan saw his works included in the sources of the period no earlier than the mid 1480s40 when he was presumably already well into his 40s, whereas his high reputation is first clearly evident only in the early 1500s with the inclusion of his compositions in the elegantly printed

37 See Finscher, “Four-Voice Motets,” 272.38 For a summary of their findings, a review of the relevant bibliography, and a brief

assessment of the impact on Josquin scholarship, see Paul Merkley, “Josquin Desprez in Ferrara,” Journal of Musicology 18 (2001): 544–83.

39 See Lora Matthews and Paul Merkley, “Iudocus de Picardia and Jossequin Leb-loitte dit Desprez: The Names of the Singer(s),” Journal of Musicology 16 (1998): 200–26, and Adalbert Roth, “Judocus de kessalia and Judocus de Pratis,” Recercare 12 (2000): 23–51. The role of these scholars in separating the two musicians known as Judocus has also been sketched briefly by Joshua Rifkin in “Munich, Milan, and a Marian Motet,” 243–44.

40 The earliest convincingly dated source to include a composition believed to be by Josquin, his Ave Maria . . . virgo serena, is the initial segment of the manuscript in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, Mus. Ms 3154. Thomas Noblitt dated this part of the collection to ca. 1476 on the basis of the watermark evidence; see “Die Datierung der Handschrift Mus. Ms. 3154 der Staatsbibliothek München,” Die Musikforschung 27 (1974): 36–56. However, T. elizabeth Cason and Joshua Rifkin, working independently, have both concluded (though for different reasons) that the compilation of the collection contin-ued until the mid 1480s, as indicated by lots of paper apparently dating from as late as 1482–85, and that based on changes in the hand of the main scribe over the decade in which he was working on it, the Josquin motet was one of the last pieces to be added, probably in 1485 or 1486. For a very dense and detailed discussion of the evidence, see Rifkin, “Munich, Milan, and a Marian Motet,” 239–350, esp. 294–95.

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collections of Ottaviano Petrucci.41 Now that these two Josquins have been separated, however, it is possible to posit the birth of the well-known com-poser in the 1450s, only slightly earlier than his first employment was once believed to have begun. Consequently, the datable events in his career can be seen to unfold in a more coherent and understandable way.

The compression of Josquin’s putative career reduces the tempta-tion to divide his works artificially into the traditional pattern of “early,” “middle,” and “late,” and to see more clearly the stylistic differences in the compositions ascribed to him as a reflection of the various tradi-tions in which he worked and of the tastes of his patrons. It also makes it possible to set aside the ill-conceived grouping of works by means of chronologically incoherent commonalities of style and to search anew to identify the characteristics that are uniquely his. This means turn-ing from shared stylistic generalities to those features that constitute a composer’s characteristic and personal voice—traits that are distinctive enough to leave a clear trace but that may be subtle enough to escape easy recognition and are more difficult to imitate than conventional traits of the style of the period.

Is it possible, then, given the ferment that has often characterized Josquin scholarship in recent decades, that we are now approaching the point at which the focus could be shifted more consciously and clearly from the generalities of stylistic analysis to the more difficult task of identifying and defining more fully and precisely what it is that consti-tutes a personal voice for a composer of this period, and to discover in the process that which is most individual and distinctive—in fact most unmistakably Josquinian—about the music of Master Desprez?42

Josquin Reception and the Psalm Motets

The difficulty arises in part from the fact that the motets most se-curely ascribed to Josquin often depart in some surprising way from what have come to be viewed as the compositional norms generally associated with his works, and there is no entirely consistent pattern among them, either musically or textually. Thus it is that the most strikingly distinctive compositions in the small repertory shown in table 1 are undoubtedly the

41 These publications were as follows: six chansons under Josquin’s name in the Odhecaton of 1501; the Liber primus missarum Iosquini of 1502; Motetti A of 1502 (the open-ing motet), Motetti B of 1503, Motetti C of 1504, and Motetti libro quarto of 1505; the Mis-sarum Josquin liber secundus of 1505; and the Missarum Josquin liber tertius of 1514.

42 A promising start in exploring new approaches to research of this nature is that adopted by Anne-emmanuelle Ceulemans, “Une étude comparative du traitement de la mélodie et de la dissonance chez Ockeghem et chez Josquin Desprez,” in Johannes Ocke-ghem: Actes du XLe Colloque international d’études humanistes, ed. Philippe Vendrix (Abbe-ville: klincksieck, 1998), 707–53.

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two motets for five voices, Miserere mei Deus (NJE 18.3) and De profundis clamavi (NJE 15.13), each of which could in fact be viewed as virtually sui generis.43 De profundis clamavi is unusual first of all because of its text, a complete setting of Psalm 129, which has a liturgical function in the Of-fice for the Dead, to which have been added the supplications tradition-ally heard toward the beginning of the Absolution: “Requiem eternam dona eis, domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis; kyrie eleison, Christe elei-son, kyrie eleison, Pater noster.”44 Also noteworthy is the work’s musical design, which is based on a strictly canonic structure; three of the five parts (superius, bassus 2, and altus) are in exact imitation throughout. This con-trapuntal procedure was presumably adopted for rhetorical purposes as a symbolic representation of the caption found with the motet in Ms. Cap-pella Sistina 38: “Les trois estas sont assemblés pour le soulas des trespassés (The three estates are assembled to console the departed).” This suggests a memorial or devotional purpose (if not an actual funeral service), the historical context for which is still in dispute.45 Probably as a consequence of the adoption of these contrapuntal constraints, the musical fabric of the motet unfolds continuously in a single pars, entirely without clear ca-dential articulation, and the modal orientation is often ambiguous, up to and including the final sonority on e. Both these features are highly unusual for Josquin’s motets, as is the total lack of paired duos. And even though the presentation of the text is severely syllabic, characteristic pas-sages of fully homophonic declamation are completely—and, in fact, nec-essarily—wanting, given the strictly canonic structure of the work.46

Very unlike De profundis clamavi (NJE 15.13) is Josquin’s magisterial setting of Psalm 50, Miserere mei Deus (NJE 18.3), one of the seven peniten-tial psalms, which he is believed to have composed shortly after beginning his service at the court of ercole I d’este in Ferrara in 1503.47 Following a pattern that may have been inspired by Savonarola’s meditation on this

43 Concerning the motets for five voices, see John Milsom, “Motets for Five or More Voices,” in The Josquin Companion, 281–320.

44 My thanks to the anonymous referee who suggested that Josquin treated his text as a “gradual psalm” in accordance with a local ordo in exequiis defunctorum as it would have been observed when a body was present. The liturgical context in question is trace-able in its outline, if not its detail, in the Liber Usualis (Paris, 1960), 1763 and 1767–68, where Psalm 129 is replaced by the Responsory Libera me, Domine.

45 See Milsom, “Motets for Five or More Voices,” 305, note 51.46 See Milsom’s discussion, ibid., 301–6.47 This is the claim made by Girolamo Folengo in his Opus Merlini Cocai Poete Man-

tuani Macaronicorum . . . (publ. 1518), as was first noted A. W. Ambros, Geschichte der Musik (Leipzig: F. e. C. Leuckart, 1887–1911), 3:12, and later cited in Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 1:57, by Patrick P. Macey in “Josquin’s Miserere mei Deus: Context, Structure, and Influ-ence” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1985), 18, and in Bonfire Songs: Savon-arola’s Musical Legacy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), 184, as well as in Lewis Lockwood, Music in Renaissance Ferrara 1400–1505 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 261, where the pertinent passage is given in the original tongue.

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extended supplication for forgiveness, Josquin punctuates the psalm verses with a recurring refrain, which is based on a psalm tone and reit-erates the opening invocation.48 To this highly articulated structure the composer has added a scalewise manipulation of the motto in the first tenor, which descends through the octave from e to e in the prima pars, ascends from e to e in the secunda pars, halving the duration of its notes in the process, and descends once again in the tertia pars, this time from e to a and in the original values. The result, while entirely compatible with Josquin’s rhetorical concepts and compositional procedures gener-ally, is nonetheless unique as far as the psalm motets are concerned.49

This leaves a small group of five motets that share a number of sig-nificant features: they were all written for four voices; they are divided into two or three partes, according to the length of the text; and they all mod-ify the psalm text in some small yet unconventional way.50 As indicated in table 1, the words for Misericordias Domini draw upon a variety of biblical passages, including half a dozen psalms and the Lamentations of Jer-emiah, presumably because of the special purpose for which it may have been intended.51 Similarly, if we can credit the account by Glareanus of the circumstances that prompted the composition of Memor esto verbi tui (17.14), the verses from Psalm 118 selected for the polyphonic setting (49–64) were meant to deliver a message to king Louis XII of France concerning a promised benefice.52 This would account for the passage chosen and for the repetition of the initial line at the end, following a short doxology. There is a similar closing device in the setting of In exitu Israel (NJE 17.4), which includes all of Psalm 113 and makes musical reference to the tonus peregrinus to which it was usually chanted.53 The addition at the end of a brief doxology and a repeat of the first half of verse 27 (suggesting, perhaps, the return of an antiphon) may have been intended to make the work acceptable for liturgical use. Similar

48 Concerning the historical context for this motet, see Macey, “Josquin’s Miserere mei Deus,” 15–26, and also his Bonfire Songs, 184–92.

49 See, among the many other discussions of this work, which was famous already in its day, those in Macey, Bonfire Songs, 38–51, and in “Josquin and Musical Rhetoric,” in The Josquin Companion, 492–523, as well as in Milsom, “Motets for Five or More Voices,” ibid., 295–300.

50 Concerning this small group of psalm motets, see Finscher, “Four-Voice Motets,” 272–79.

51 Macey has suggested that the motet was intended as a special plea on behalf of Louis XI for the prolongation of his life after a serious illness in the final years of his reign; see “Josquin’s Misericordias Domini and Louis XI.”

52 Doubt has been raised as to the veracity of this anecdote by the fact that the motet, Bonitatem fecisisti cum servo tuo (NJE 15.5), which Glareanus identified as Josquin’s thanks for the benefice when it was finally awarded, is actually by Carpentras. In this con-nection see Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 1:41–42, and Macey, “Josquin,” in NG 2, 13:224.

53 See New Josquin Edition, vol. 17, (17.4), Critical Commentary, 19–46.

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in this regard is Josquin’s setting of Qui habitat in adiutorio Altissimi (NJE 18.7), which provides polyphony for all of Psalm 90. Here again, al-though the composer does not include a doxology, he does return for his conclusion to the text and music of the opening verse, thereby perhaps implying an antiphon with its possibilities for liturgical use.54 Domine ne in furore (NJE 16.6) takes its text from Psalm 37, another of the seven penitential psalms,55 but uses only selected verses—the open-ing three and last two with two others from the middle of the poem. It is noteworthy that the passages selected are set for low voices (three of which share the tenor range with a bass below), perhaps because of the rueful nature of the emotions they express, and that these unusually grave sonorities set the work apart from the others in this small reper-tory of presumably canonical pieces.

Apart from the exceptions already noted, the motets of this tiny cluster also exhibit the stylistic features generally associated with motets securely attributed to Josquin: a close structural relationship between text and music; a fairly severe syllabic declamation of the words; a spar-ing but telling use of rhetorical devices such as mimetic textual illustra-tion; and a varied palette of musical textures that favors imitative en-tries of the voices, makes frequent use of paired repetitions, and turns to homophonic declamation to articulate the structure and to give spe-cial emphasis to words and phrases of particular importance.56 These characteristics are easily recognized and have been widely discussed in the analytical literature dealing with Josquin. And indeed, if the reper-tory that has survived under Josquin’s name includes numerous misat-tributions, as it would appear, one can only conclude that these most typical features were not unduly difficult to imitate.57 Is it not, in fact, this combination of general stylistic traits associated with his music, on

54 The inclusion of a doxology in the final verses of In exitu Israel and Memor esto verbi tui is something of a puzzle. Its presence in a polyphonic motet is usually taken as evidence that the composer was providing for the possibility of liturgical use; but the emerging opinion at present appears to be that psalm motets, even more than motets in other categories, were usually meant for a devotional or paraliturgical context rather than as a replacement for plainchant at Mass or in the holy offices. If this is true, the function of the doxology in the psalm motets in question has yet to be explained. In this connection see, for example, Anthony M. Cummings, “Toward an Interpretation of the Sixteenth-Century Motet,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 34 (1981): 43–59; Jeffrey Dean, “Listening to Sacred Polyphony c. 1500,” Early Music 25 (1997): 611–36; and Honey Meconi, “Listening to Sacred Polyphony,” Early Music 26 (1998): 372–79.

55 This psalm has a place in the liturgy for Good Friday; cf. Liber Usualis, 698.56 See, for example, the concise characterization by Finscher, “Four-Voice Motets,”

251.57 As Finscher has observed with respect to Memor esto, “There is a certain amount of

predictability, general orderliness, and clarity, and this style is very easy to imitate. And so it was imitated.” Ibid., 278.

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one hand, and the unique compositional procedures to be noted in the individual works most securely ascribed to him, on the other—a mar-riage of stylistic conformity and creative originality—that makes the at-tribution problem so acute for Josquin, especially with respect to motets on texts taken from the psalms?

Assuming this to be so, is it possible to discern in these same works details in the musical facture of a more subtle nature? Do Josquin’s psalm motets betray characteristics not so easily discovered or imitated that can be seen to constitute not simply an aspect of Josquin’s general style, but rather the essential elements of a personal voice that, like a kind of musical fingerprint, might help distinguish his compositions from those of his students and imitators?

Josquin’s Psalm Motets and His Compositional Voice

One such indicator may be Josquin’s use of what might be termed the iterative procedures to which attention has been drawn repeatedly by scholars who have examined most closely his compositional craft. Howard Mayer Brown, for example, took note of them in his discussion of motets for six voices ascribed to Josquin and to Mouton, pointing to a compositional strategy that he identified as “varied repetition.”58 Sim-ilarly, Joshua Rifkin, in his characterization of Josquin’s music, coined the neologism “motivicity,” which he defines as “the maximum perme-ation of a polyphonic complex by a single linear denominator or set of denominators.”59 Milsom refers in his essay on the distributional analy-sis of Josquin’s music to what he calls the “combinative impulse,” draw-ing attention to “block repetitions” and “obsessive” reiterations.60 More recently, in an essay on Josquin’s and De Orto’s Mass music from papal sources, Jesse Rodin has denoted a particular variety of contrapuntal it-eration with the memorable phrase “conspicuous repetition.”61 To this latter type one could also add by extension what might be seen in cer-tain contexts as a type of repetition that is intentionally inconspicuous, perhaps even surreptitious: hidden in the melodic and contrapuntal

58 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 Interna-tional Josquin Symposium, Utrecht 1986, 185–207, esp. 201.

59 Joshua Rifkin, “Miracles, Motivicity, and Mannerism,” in Hearing the Motet, ed. Dolores Pesce (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 243–59, or his earlier study in which he introduces the concept in connection with Josquin’s Huc me sydereo (“Motivik—konstruction—Humanismus,” in Die Motette: Beiträge zu ihrer Gattungsgeschichte, ed. Herbert Schneider, Neue Studien zur Musikwissenschaft 5 [Mainz: Schott, 1992]: 105–34).

60 Milsom, “Analyzing Josquin,” in The Josquin Companion, 431–84.61 Jesse Rodin, “‘When in Rome…’: What Josquin Learned in the Sistine Chapel,”

Journal of the American Musicological Society 61, no. 2 (2008): 307–72, esp. 343–53. I should like to thank Mr. Rodin for sharing with me the full text of his essay prior to its publication.

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fabric of the music rather than thrown into relief at the beginning of a phrase or as the motive for a point of imitation. Although rarer in Josquin than conventional repetition, it is possible to argue that it is no less crucial to what appears to be his distinctive compositional voice.

Of course, repetition is universally recognized as a prominent as-pect of Josquin’s compositional style generally. First of all, it is the un-avoidable consequence of the syntactic imitation that he weaves into such significant strands of his musical fabric. It is also naturally evident in patterns of paired imitation. In either case the musical recurrence is usually associated with the repetition of a corresponding element of the text. Thus linked to the verbal structure and syntax, it falls within the realm of conventional practice. By contrast, when the musical repeti-tion is not directly or necessarily tied to a textual one but has instead what seems to be an autonomously musical function, it may be recog-nized as distinctive—conspicuously if it emerges clearly from the musi-cal texture, surreptitiously if it seems to be hidden within it.

All five of the psalm motets for four voices identified here as those most likely to be by Josquin have virtually unassailable attributions, but none has a stronger pedigree than Qui habitat in adiutorio Altissimi; it is one of the most widely circulated, having been included in fourteen manuscripts, three prints, and seven instrumental tabulations, three manuscript and four printed, including the Bakfark reprint (see Ap-pendix 2). It thus figures in what has been posited as the “core rep-ertory” of motets dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, those that have been included in at least twenty sources of the period.62 Given the extensive dissemination of this work, the unanimity of the independent attributions to Josquin provides near certainty that it was written by him. Surprisingly, despite its unquestionable ascription and its centrality to the motet repertory of the period, it has received rela-tively little attention from either scholars or performers. There is but one published study concerning it,63 and no professional recording is as yet available. It seems ideally suited, however, to illuminate Josquin’s use of iterative procedures in what appear to be uniquely characteristic ways. It has therefore been taken as a touchstone for the problems of

62 Jennifer Thomas has constituted this central motet repertory by setting an arbi-trary lower limit of at least twenty manuscripts and prints to identify the motets of the period to be included. Qui habitat is no. 33 in her list of fifty-four “core” compositions. See “The Core Motet Repertory of 16th-Century europe: A View of Renaissance Musical Culture,” in Essays on Music and Culture in Honor of Herbert Kellman, ed. Barbara Haggh (Paris: Minerve, 2001), 335–76.

63 See Macey, “Josquin as Classic.” I should like to thank Professor Macey for sharing with me as well a sensitive and detailed analysis of this motet, as yet unpublished, that he presented at the conference held at the Department of Music at McGill University, Febru-ary 12–13, 2000: Form and expression in Renaissance Polyphony.

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authorship raised by the psalm motets ascribed to Josquin. The follow-ing discussion of its compositional makeup, in terms of both its general style and its distinctive features, attempts to identify more clearly what is unique about Josquin’s compositional voice and to establish more firmly criteria for judging the likelihood of his involvement in the com-position of other motets of the same type.

Iterative Procedures in Josquin’s Qui habitat 64

It is no surprise at the opening of Qui habitat to see the initial half-verse set as a classic point of imitation, with the four voices entering every two breves from the superius on down, the first three entering at the same pitch, g, and the bassus on Gamma-ut an octave lower (see ex. 1). As the melodic line rises in each of the voices by at least a seventh, it generates a striking mimetic gesture meant to mirror the sense of the words, “the aid of the most high.” The ascending motion is most emphatic in the superius, which makes an octave leap upward to declaim the word “altissimi” (mm. 4–5). Josquin then sets up a tonal tension that persists throughout the work (see ex. 2): a reference in the superius to the first psalm tone with its characteristic semitone inflec-tion upward from a1 (implying a D final) is answered in the altus at the lower fourth (mm. 10–16). This suggests in turn a transposition of the psalm tone to a G final with b-fa, which becomes the governing modal orientation of the work.65

More significant in the present context are the first instances of internal repetition not to be explained solely by conventional pro-cedures linked to syntactic imitation. In the second half-verse, as the other voices deliver the words of the psalm in their proper order (at least initially), tenor and bassus give special emphasis to the text phrase “in protectione,” passing it back and forth on the same melodic phrase, first from d1 (m. 10) and then from the g below (m. 12). A related figure conceived for “Dei celi” in the superius (mm. 12–14) is given a more rhythmically compact form, harmonized in parallel thirds in tenor and bassus, and then appears in invertible counterpoint at the sixth in the superius and bassus for “commorabitur” (mm. 18–20). This word, the last of the verse (meaning to abide or to dwell) is likewise

64 For the complete text of the motet, together with an english translation, see Appendix 1.

65 evidence that this was the opinion of at least one sixteenth-century copyist is pro-vided by the Cambrai MS 125–8. In the version given there, the end of the prima pars has been modified to conclude with a sonority on C (instead of the A in all other readings), and that for the secunda pars to a sonority on G (instead of the D found in other sources) together with a concluding “Amen”!

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given rhetorical emphasis with an iteration of the cadence in the supe-rius (mm. 18–20 = mm. 20–22) and a third statement in the tenor at the lower octave (mm. 22–24/1).

In the following verse the composer illustrates the text with an in-genious musical conceit in the bassus, combining the declaration “Dicet domino” (he will say to the Lord) with the words meant to be spoken, “susceptor meus es tu” (thou art my protection). He increases the effect by passing this declaration of hope from voice to voice—bassus, altus, superius, and tenor—each time with the same melodic motif but from a mix of starting pitches (g, d1, a1, d1) and in an ever-changing poly-phonic context that culminates with homorhythmic declamation in all the parts. The verse comes to a close with an emphatic and appropriate

example 1. Qui habitat, mm. 1–10

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http://www.jstor.org/action/showImage?doi=10.1525/jm.2009.26.4.512&iName=master.img-000.jpg&w=312&h=315



534

in pro - tec - ti - o ne De - i cae - li, De -

in pro - tec - ti - o - ne De -

in pro - tec - ti - o - ne

Al - tis - si - mi, in pro - tec - ti - o - ne

i cae - li com - mo - ra - bi -


De - i cae - li com -

De - i cae - li com - mo - ra - bi -

tur, com - mo - ra - bi - tur.

tur.

mo - ra - bi - tur, com - mo - ra - bi -

tur. Di - cet Do - mi -

8

8

8

8

8

8

10

15

20

Psalm tone

Psalm tone

example 2. Qui habitat, mm. 10–32/1

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gesture: a repetition of the cadential formula in the superius (ex. 3, mm. 41–44 = mm. 44–47) involving both words and music for “sperabo in eum” (I shall trust in Him).

A different type of internal repetition makes its appearance with the third verse of the psalm (ex. 4). A declamatory opening with “Quo-niam ipse” in three voices yields to a duo (in superius and altus) for “liberavit me de laqueo venantium et a verbo aspero” (he hath deliv-ered me from the snare of the hunters and from the harsh word) that unfolds in an imitative sequence in descending thirds, moving briefly in parallel motion (m. 51) and then unravelling as the two voices move toward the articulation of a clear cadence to the G final.

in pro - tec - ti - o ne De - i cae - li, De -

in pro - tec - ti - o - ne De -

in pro - tec - ti - o - ne

Al - tis - si - mi, in pro - tec - ti - o - ne



De - i cae - li com -

De - i cae - li com - mo - ra - bi -

tur, com - mo - ra - bi - tur.

tur.

mo - ra - bi - tur, com - mo - ra - bi -

tur. Di - cet Do - mi -

8

8

8

8

8

8

10

15

20

Psalm tone

Psalm tone

Di - cet Do - mi - no:

Di - cet Do - mi - no: su - scep - tor me - us es

tur.

no: su - scep - tor me - us es tu,

su - scep - tor me - us es tu, su - scep - tor me - us es tu,

tu, es tu, su - scep - tor me - us es

Di - cet Do - mi - no: su - scep - tor me - us es tu,

su - scep - tor me - us es tu,

8

8

8

8

24

28

example 2. (continued)

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536

Repetition of text and music returns in verse 5 (ex. 5) for “veritas” (mm. 69–72), heard first in the tenor starting on the pitch a and then an octave lower in the bassus with the tenor following a third higher for three statements in all. Meanwhile the altus goes its own way, declaiming the text as it lies in an overarching line without turning back for text or music. Did the unusual treatment of the text in this brief passage serve a rhetorical purpose? Was it meant as a symbolic evocation of truth as an enduring and encompassing shield? In any event, it leads to a firm, repeated refusal to yield to nocturnal fears, made more emphatic by a de-scending sequence of two breves in the lower three parts (mm. 73–74 = mm. 75–76) that extends with a partial third statement into the cadence to G (mm. 77–79). As the psalm proceeds to name the specific dangers

example 3. Qui habitat, mm. 41/3–47

[spera-] - bo in e - um, spe -

[De-] us, spe - ra - bo in e - um,

[spe-] - ra - bo in e - -

[De-] us, spe - ra - bo in e - um.

ra - bo in e - um. Quo - [niam]

spe - ra - bo in e - um.

um, spe - ra - bo in e - um. Quo - [niam]

spe - ra - bo in e - um. Quo - [niam]

8

8

8

8

(41)

45

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that need not be feared, including “arrows that flieth in the day and busi-ness that walketh about in the dark,” the composer responds with yet another internal repetition of music and text (ex. 6). While the superius oscillates between a1 and b1-fa, initially in a two-breve pattern for “in die a negotio perambulante,” a rising motif b-fa to f1 containing its own in-ternal repetition is heard with “a negotio,” first in the altus (m. 85) and then in the tenor (m. 87).

In the approach to the final cadence of the prima pars (ex. 7), a new point of imitation introduces verse 8, “Verumtamen oculis tuis” (Truly with thine eyes), with a point of imitation (S, T, B, A) that yields little by little to homophonic declamation (m. 133/3 in S) for “considerabis retributionem peccatorum videbis” (thou shalt consider and see the re-ward of the wicked). Hidden within the resulting simultaneities, surpris-ingly, is a pattern of repetition—the first to appear in this motet in a fully

example 4. Qui habitat, mm. 47/2–53

Quo - ni - am ip - se li - be - ra - vit me de

Quo - ni - am ip - se li - be -

Quo - ni - am ip - se

Quo - ni - am ip - se

la - que - o ve - nan - ti - um, et a ver - [bo]

ra - vit me de la - que - o ve - nan - ti - um, et

8

8

8

8

(47)

51

Sequence

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538

declamatory texture. It is based on a dotted rising figure first used to in-troduce the point of imitation (m. 128) and is then most clearly perceived in the tenor (but with echoes in the altus). Initially three semibreves in length, it is heard twice, then extended by a minim, in which form it is heard three times more, drawing all four parts toward a full cadence to G.

A dramatic sesquialteral shift to a ternary meter opens the secunda pars and introduces one of the most persistent patterns of internal rep-etition of the entire work (ex. 8). All of verse 10 and the beginning of verse 11 are declaimed with voices in pairs, phrase after phrase being derived from the four-breve module heard first in superius (from g1, m. 156) and tenor (an octave lower, m. 157), then in bassus (from d, m. 159) and altus (from a, m. 160), then again in superius (from g, m. 162) and tenor, somewhat truncated (from g, m. 163), in altus (from d, m. 164) and bassus (from d1, m. 165), and further in the tenor (from


cir - cum - da - bit te ve - ri - tas e - jus: non ti - me -

ve - ri - tas, ve - ri - tas, ve - ri - tas e jus: non ti - me -

[cir-] da - bit te ve - ri - tas, ve - ri - tas e - jus: non

bis a ti - mo - re noc - tur - no.

- bis a ti - mo re noc - tur - no.

ti - me - bis a ti - mo - re noc - tur - no.

8

8

8

8

(69)

74

cum -

to[scu-]

te

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a, m. 166), the altus (from d1, m. 175), and finally in the superius (from a1, m. 176), for a total of eleven statements. Notable as well in this passage is the renewed tension between mode 1 in its transposition to G and in its untransposed location with D as the final. Both of these finals and the reciting pitch for the first psalm tone (a) as well—each of which has a minor third above and a whole step below—serve as start-ing points for the recurring melodic figure.66 Only when the meter shifts back to the original imperfect tempus diminutus (m. 181) does this brief phrase disappear from the contrapuntal web; and a cadence to G (m. 188) finally resolves the modal ambiguity.

66 Macey sees in this passage a reference to the tonus peregrinus, which alternates between reciting pitches on a and g; but it could also be explained as the more or less simultaneous use of the species of fifth and fourth characteristic of mode 1 from all three of the defining pitches: G, D, and A (see “Josquin as Classic”).

example 6. Qui habitat, mm. 83/2–88/1

cir - cum - da - bit te ve - ri - tas e - jus: non ti - me -

ve - ri - tas, ve - ri - tas, ve - ri - tas e jus: non ti - me -

[cir-] da - bit te ve - ri - tas, ve - ri - tas e - jus: non

bis a ti - mo - re noc - tur - no.

- bis a ti - mo re noc - tur - no.

ti - me - bis a ti - mo - re noc - tur - no.

8

8

8

8

(69)

74

cum -

to[scu-]

te

[di-] e, a ne - go - ti - o per -

in di - e, a ne - go - ti - o per -

[vo-] lan - te in di - e,

[sa-] git - ta vo - lan - te in di - e,

am - bu - lan - te in - te - ne - [bris]

am - bu - lan - te in te - ne - [bris]

a ne - go - ti - o per - am - bu - lan - [te]

a ne - go - ti - o per - am - bu - lan - [te]

8

8

8

8

(83)

87

-

-

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540


Ve - rum - ta - men o - cu - lis tu - is

[appropin-] qua - bit. Ve -

Ve - rum - ta - men o - cu - lis tu - is con -

Ve - rum - ta - men o - cu - lis

con - si - de - ra - bis, con - si - de - ra - bis: et re - tri -

rum - ta-men o - cu - lis tu - is con - si - de - ra - bis: et re - tri -

si - de - ra - bis, con - si - de - ra - bis, con - si - de - ra - bis: et re - tri -

tu - is con - si - de - ra - bis, con - si - de - ra - bis: et re - tri -

bu - ti - o - nem pec - ca - to - rum vi - de - bis.




8

8

8

8

8

8

(127)

131

136

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541

example 8. Qui habitat, mm. 156–69/1, 175–79/1

Ve - rum - ta - men o - cu - lis tu - is

[appropin-] qua - bit. Ve -

Ve - rum - ta - men o - cu - lis tu - is con -

Ve - rum - ta - men o - cu - lis

con - si - de - ra - bis, con - si - de - ra - bis: et re - tri -

rum - ta-men o - cu - lis tu - is con - si - de - ra - bis: et re - tri -

si - de - ra - bis, con - si - de - ra - bis, con - si - de - ra - bis: et re - tri -

tu - is con - si - de - ra - bis, con - si - de - ra - bis: et re - tri -





8

8

8

8

8

8

(127)

131

136

32 Non ac - ce - dat ad te ma - lum:

32 non ac - ce - dat ad

32 Non ac - ce - dat ad te ma - lum:

32 Non ac - ce - dat ad te ma -

et fla - gel - lum non ap - pro - pin - qua - bit

te ma - lum: et fla - gel - lum non ap - pro - pin - qua - bit

et fla - gel - lum, et fla - gel - lum non

- lum: et fla - gel - lum non ap - pro - pin-

o. Quo - ni - am an - ge - lis su - is

ta Quo - ni - am an - ge - lis su - is man - da [vit]

ap - pro - pin - qua o.

qua - bit ta-

8

8

8

8

8

8

156

162

168 175

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

9)

11)

-

- [bit]

[-bernacul-]10)

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542

An imitative duo between bassus and altus announces verse 13 (ex. 9), encompassing the repetition of an asymmetrical figure, first seven, then six minims in length; the four statements of the initial duo are then replicated when tenor and superius respond. As these two voices spin out the repetitive phrase, they add a descending sequential pattern (ex. 10) that leads to a salient cadence to G (mm. 211/4–216/1) and then to a repetition of the sequential descent (mm. 216/2–220/1), starting a pitch higher in the superius with the bassus in parallel tenths below and the tenor in imitation as all four voices drive toward another emphatic cadence to G.

As in the passage just cited, where repetition in the music accompa-nies that of the second half-verse of the psalm, the iterative procedures that mark the setting of verse 15 are held back until after the opening declaration “Clamabit ad me” (He shall cry to me). Repetition comes this time with altus and bassus tracing in imitation a dramatic mimetic


Su - per a - spi - dem et ba - si - li - scum am - bu -

Su - per a - spi - dem et ba - si - li - scum am - bu - la -

Su - per a - spi - dem et ba - si - li - scum

la - bis:

Su - per a - spi - dem et ba - si - li - scum am [bulabis]

bis:

8

8

8

8

207

(202)

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

-

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543

gesture that rises swiftly through a fifth. Only then does the altus intro-duce a figure a breve and a half in length (first heard from c1, m. 237) that will be taken up in an oscillating sequence in imitation between altus and bassus a semibreve apart (ex. 11). And although the words of the psalm flow without repetition, an additional half dozen iterations are heard in the music before the lines fall into parallel motion and ar-ticulate a decisive cadence to G.

An example of the iterative procedures that permeate this motet may be seen in the lightly overlapping entry of verse 16 (ex. 12), be-ginning “Longitudine dierum replebo eum” (I will fill him with length of days). Here the motif that opens the new point of imitation, sounded first in tenor and superius, then in alto and bassus, appears to be derived from the rising seventh—fifth plus third—of the dramatic initial phrase

example 10. Qui habitat, mm. 211/4–220/1

[ambula-] bis: et con - cul - ca - bis le - o - nem et dra - co -

et con - cul - ca - bis le - o - nem et dra - co - -

nem, et con - cul - ca - bis le - o - nem et dra - co - nem.

et con - cul - ca - bis le - o - nem et dra - co - nem.

nem, et con - cul - ca - bis le - o - nem et dra - co - nem.

et con - cul - ca - bis le - o - nem et dra - co - nem.

8

8

8

8

Sequence2)(211)

216

1)

3)

4)

(3)

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544

of the motet, so that it serves to anticipate the return of that phrase, both text and music, and bring the work to a close (compare ex. 1). Of interest at that juncture as well is the sustained octave on G to which the cadence had resolved in altus and bassus (mm. 246-48) and which may be seen as a mimetic gesture suggested by the opening word of the psalm verse, “Longitudine.”

In light of the instances cited, it may be argued that a particularly striking feature of Qui habitat, the most widely circulated of Josquin’s psalm motets, is the pervasive nature of the internal repetitions, both conspicuous and inconspicuous, that permeate Josquin’s counterpoint. Moreover, similar passages occur with some frequency in each of the four other psalm motets for four voices that are most securely attrib-uted to him. A detailed description of these examples lies beyond the


Ex - au - di - am e - um: cum ip - so sum in tri - bu - la - ti - o - ne: e - ri -

e - go ex - au - di - am e - um: cum ip - so sum in tri - bu - la - ti - o - ne:

pi - am e - um et glo - ri - fi - ca - bo e - - um.

e - ri - pi - am e - um et glo - ri - fi - ca - bo e - um.

8

8

8

8

237

242

1) 2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

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example 12. Qui habitat, mm. 246–50, 253–57

Ex - au - di - am e - um: cum ip - so sum in tri - bu - la - ti - o - ne: e - ri -

e - go ex - au - di - am e - um: cum ip - so sum in tri - bu - la - ti - o - ne:

pi - am e - um et glo - ri - fi - ca - bo e - - um.

e - ri - pi - am e - um et glo - ri - fi - ca - bo e - um.

8

8

8

8

237

242

1) 2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

Lon - gi - tu - di - ne di - e -

Lon - gi - tu - di - ne di - e - rum re - ple -

Lon - gi - tu - di - ne di - e - rum re - ple -

Lon - gi - tu - di - ne di - e - rum

et os - ten - dam il - [li]

bo e - um:

et os - ten - dam il - [li]

re - ple - bo e - um:

8

8

8

8

8

8

(246)

(253)

258

[bo]

-

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546

scope of this essay, but the most relevant passages have been noted in the following list (table 2).67

Because they are surprisingly rare in the motet repertory of the composer’s immediate contemporaries, such iterative procedures do indeed appear to constitute a feature of Josquin’s unique voice that ei-ther went unrecognized by other composers or that required imagina-tive powers and contrapuntal skills beyond their reach.

It is of course possible to argue that details such as those described above simply represent facets of Josquin’s style, and that the distinction between general stylistic traits and a distinctive personal voice is not particularly helpful or meaningful. Nonetheless, there is a significant difference in approach between seeking to establish a broad stylistic paradigm for the works of a composer and his time, and undertaking a search for aspects of style that are arguably personal and distinctive—those that can be identified as constituting a unique compositional nexus by which we can judge the authenticity of a piece with a ques-tionable attribution. As has been observed, the repetition of melodic material from voice to voice is an intentional and unavoidable result of syntactic imitation. Yet it is generally text-related, not to say text-driven, and does not engender or even suggest independent iterative proce-dures of the sort found in Qui habitat and in the other psalm motets with impeccable claims to Josquin’s authorship. These are clearly not inherent in the style generally associated with the motet in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. Quite the contrary. Moreover, Jos-quin has infused substantial iterative elaborations of melodic material not only into imitative and contrapuntal passages but also into declama-tory and homorhythmic passages, and it is possible to conclude that he did so for reasons that are more genuinely musical than textual or even rhetorical.

Psalm Motets with Attributions in Dispute

It is not within the scope of this study to survey all psalm motets as-cribed to Josquin in at least one source that have given rise to conflict-ing opinions as to their authorship. It seems reasonable, however, to look back at compositions cited earlier to see if the iterative procedures under discussion can cast any light on the problems raised.

With respect to Domine, exaudi orationem meam (NJE 16.5), accepted as authentic by Martin Picker but relegated to the misattributed category

67 Not included in this group of motets because of its unique structural features and its five-part texture is Miserere mei Deus (NJE 18.3), but it is pertinent to note at this point that the work in question provides a veritable compendium of iterative procedures, including numerous examples of every variety seen thus far.

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Table 2

Iterative procedures in psalm motets securely ascribed to Josquin

Domine ne in furore tuoBassus: mm. 9–14Bassus: mm. 48-53; superius: mm. 52–57; bassus: mm. 56–61Altus: mm. 62–66; tenor: mm. 63–66; superius: mm. 66–70; bassus: mm. 67–70Altus: mm. 78–81; superius: mm. 79–81Tenor and bassus: mm. 98–104Bassus: mm. 119–21All voices: mm. 192–97; bassus: mm. 192–200

In exitu IsraelSuperius and altus: mm. 17–22 (with acceleration of third statement)Superius: mm. 23–30 (including repeat of the cadence)All voices: mm. 50–55Altus: mm. 60–64; tenor: mm. 62–66All voices: mm. 78–83All voices (altus, tenor, bassus; then superius, altus, tenor): mm. 93–97Superius and tenor, followed by altus and bassus: mm. 112–20Superius and tenor, altus and bassus, and superius and tenor: mm. 124–42

Memor esto verbi tuiTenor and bassus: mm. 1–9Superius and altus: mm. 11–19Tenor and bassus: short sequence, mm. 73–75All voices: mm. 96–104 = 104–12Superius and tenor: mm. 150–56, followed by bassus and altus: mm. 156–64Bassus and tenor: mm. 192–97 = 197–202Bassus and tenor: mm. 229–38 (sequence)Superius and altus: mm. 251–53 (sequence) = tenor and bassus: mm. 254–57All voices: mm. 274–76 = mm. 277–79Superius and altus alternating with bassus and tenor: mm. 311–19 (cf. opening)

Misericordias DominiTenor and superius: mm. 93–98 (repeated figure, 4× in tenor, 3× in superius)Altus and bassus: mm. 98–101 (previous figure again repeated, 3× in each voice)Superius and tenor: mm. 129–32 (oscillating figure)All voices: mm. 148–58 (descending sequence)All voices: mm. 220–25 (descending sequence; cf. mm. 148–58)

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548

in the works list of The New Grove Dictionary (see above, p. 521), the iterative procedures are in fact those to be expected in Josquin’s gen-eral style. The motet opens in what might be considered typical fash-ion with a lengthy duo in exact imitation at the lower fifth between superius and altus, and two-part imitation is found extensively through-out the work. However, the imitative usage involved belongs to the cat-egory of Josquin’s stylistic traits most easily recognized and imitated. In addition, the only place in the prima pars where the use of repetition rises above the conventional comes with the declamation of the phrase “in me turbatum est [cor meum]” ([my heart] is troubled within me) (ex. 13), which is presented sequentially in the superius, first from d1 (m. 84), then from f1 (m. 88), and finally from c2 (m. 92). The repeti-tion is clearly intended to achieve rhetorical intensification of the text,

in me tur - ba - rum est, in me tur -

me spi - ri - tus me - - -

in me tur - ba - tum est,

per me spi - ri - tus; in me tur -

ba - tum est, <in me tur - ba - tum est>

us; in me tur - ba - tum est cor me -

<in me tur - ba - tum est> cor me -

ba - tum est cor me - um,

8

8

8

8

84

90

1) 2)

3)

example 13. Domine, exaudi orationem meam, mm. 84–96

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549

but it is confined to a single voice. The other parts go their own ways as the point of imitation unfolds, and there is none of the ingeniously integrated internal repetition that characterizes the counterpoint of Qui habitat. Moreover, all the repetitions to be seen in the course of the work are text-generated; words and music are repeated together, and nowhere does one see the kind of elaboration of melodic and rhyth-mic figures and patterns to be found in the works securely ascribed to Josquin.

Similar observations can be made with respect to Domine ne in furore (NJE 16.7) (see above, pp. 521). Imitative writing, mostly in two parts, alternates with passages in homophonic declamation, usually in four voices. As has been established, these are among the general features of Josquin’s style that appear to have been most widely recognized and frequently imitated. And again, the kind of internal repetition that to a greater or lesser extent characterizes the psalm motets most confidently given his name is entirely wanting. even where repetition might have been most effective, both as a compositional device and as a mimetic gesture for the word “furore,” at the beginning of the secunda pars (ex. 14), the composer appears to have been unable to imitate the sweeping melisma first heard in the altus (m. 94) without alteration or truncation in the other voices.

Mirabilia testimonia tua (NJE 18.1), as might be expected, features imitative counterpoint with all the usual elaborations.68 Paired voices, either in imitation or in free counterpoint, balance passages for all four parts, just as simultaneous declamation is juxtaposed with the con-trapuntal textures, often with the clear intent to highlight important elements of the text. But the writing makes use of these procedures neither as frequently nor as consistently as might be expected with Jos-quin. More importantly for the present context, the use of repetition in this motet is more formulaic and more conventional than that usu-ally found in the psalm motets most likely to be his. The setting of the opening verse departs already from Josquin’s usual practice, for although the voices enter in imitative pairs—with superius and altus followed by tenor and bassus—the second phrase brings no repetition of either text or music. Lacking in particular are the kinds of pervasive iterative procedures so often seen in Josquin’s psalm motets. In most in-stances repetition involves merely a literal restatement of the music just heard when paired voices are used, or with some modification when music is repeated but words are not. even a sequential repetition of two breves for the altus in a point of imitation with the words “attraxi spiri-tum” (I panted) goes no further (ex.15). either the composer saw no

68 For a more extended discussion, see the New Josquin Edition, vol. 18 (18.1).

in me tur - ba - rum est, in me tur -

me spi - ri - tus me - - -

in me tur - ba - tum est,

per me spi - ri - tus; in me tur -

ba - tum est, <in me tur - ba - tum est>

us; in me tur - ba - tum est cor me -

<in me tur - ba - tum est> cor me -

ba - tum est cor me - um,

8

8

8

8

84

90

1) 2)

3)

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550

advantage in working the iteration through the other three voices, or was unable to do so.

Skillful use of iterative compositional procedures points in a differ-ent direction for the motet Usquequo, Domine, oblivisceris me (NJE 18.12), a complete setting of Psalm 12. Suspicion has been cast on its author-ship, perhaps in part because the four sources in which it appears are all German, all late (the earliest is the Petreius print of 1538), and all from the same tradition of transmission.69 In any case, it has attracted little

69 In addition to Petreius’s Tomus primus psalmorum selectorum and the similarly named edition by Montanus and Neuber of 1553, the work is found in Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliotek, Ms Mus. 1/D/501 (superius only), and Rostock, Bibliothek der Univer-sität, Ms Mus. Saec. XVI-71/1(1–4); see the New Josquin Edition, vol. 18, (18.12).

example 14. Domine ne in furore, mm. 92–99

Tur - ba - tus est a fu - ro -

Tur - ba - tus est a fu - ro - re

Tur - ba - tus est

re o - cu - lus me - us;

o - cu - lus me - us;

a fu - ro - re

Tur - ba - tus est a fu - ro - re

8

8

8

8

Secunda pars92

96

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favorable attention.70 Osthoff, although brief in his comments, ex-pressed no doubt as to its authorship and saw as typical both the treat-ment of the text and the contrapuntal style. As evidence for this asser-tion, he notes the iteration of the opening phrase at the conclusion of the work (as in Qui habitat and Memor esto) and points to a pair of passages that he found typical of Josquin’s mimetic gestures: a shift to triple meter for the words “Qui tribulant me, exultabunt” ([lest] they that trouble me rejoice) (mm. 115-26) and a rising octave in the su-perius to illustrate “altissimi” (the highest), similar to the treatment of

70 There is, however, a lovely recording by La Chappelle Royale, directed by Philippe Herreweghe, Josquin Desprez, Motets (Harmonia Mundi, HMC 901243, 1986).

example 15. Mirabilia testimonia tua, mm. 41–46

[peru-] i et at - tra -

et at - tra xi, at -

pe - ru - i et at -

et at - tra - xi,

xi spi - ri - tum,

tra - xi spi - ri - [tum]

tra - xi spi - ri - tum,

at - tra - xi spi - ri - tum, qui - a

8

8

8

8

41

44

-

-

-

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552

that conceit at the opening of Qui habitat (m. 172).71 Despite Osthoff’s generally positive assessment, Usquequo, Domine is consigned in The New Grove Dictionary to the “doubtful and misattributed” category with the as-sertion “counterpoint untypical.”72 A similar classification was adopted for the second edition of Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, which places it among the “Werke zweifelhafter echtheit,” with the qualifica-tion “stylistich problematisch aber möglich” (stylistically problematic but possible).73 David Fallows’s extensive monograph does not discuss the work, presumably in keeping with the author’s restriction of his scope to works he considers authentic.74

Why the part writing in this motet should be considered untypical is explained by Noble only in passing and in briefest terms. Pairing it with Caeli enarrant, he suggests that by comparison with motets such as Memor esto verbi tui and Domine ne in furore tuo, the “motivic development seems short-breathed and mechanical,” and the four-part writing “often rhythmically congested and clumsy.”75 There is reason to question that characterization, however, and to agree instead with Osthoff. As Noble concedes, the work exemplifies virtually all the features associated with Josquin’s style generally. The presentation of the text reflects not only the traditional structure of the psalm but also a clear grasp of its mean-ing. Taken one syntactic unit at a time, the consecutive phrases become the essential components of the textual and musical structure, to be articulated in the usual manner by a wide variety of compositional de-vices. Voices are paired in various registers, these duos alternating with the fuller sonorities of three and four voices. The declamatory rhythms of the music are derived generally from those of the Latin verse, and a rather severely syllabic delivery is tempered, where appropriate, with short melismatic flights. Punctuation has been provided by a variety of cadential formulas with differing degrees of finality to clarify both the musical structure and the intended meaning of the text.

In addition to its conformity to these general stylistic traits, Usque-quo, Domine displays iterative procedures very much like those associated here with Josquin’s unique compositional voice, a kind of internal rep-etition that cannot be accounted for solely in terms of the conventional compositional procedures associated with syntactic imitation. The most striking instances come at the conclusion of the prima pars with psalm verses 3 and 4. Verse 3, “Usquequo exaltibatur inimicus meus super me?”

71 Osthoff, Josquin Desprez, 2:134.72 Noble and Dean, NG 2, 13:258.73 Ludwig Finscher, “Josquin des Prez,” Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 2nd

ed., Personenteil vol. 9, 1229.74 David Fallows, Josquin (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009).75 Noble, NG 2, 13:233–34.

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(How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?) is introduced by a brief phrase repeated in a descending pattern that may be intended to suggest the supplicant sinking ever lower in the eyes of the Lord by comparison with his enemy (ex. 16). Both half verses are declaimed to the same musical material, and the internal repetition is sequential in nature, beginning with the duo between altus and bassus from b-fa and f1 (m. 54), then a fourth lower from f and c1 (for “inimicus meus,” m. 57), again from b1-fa and its lower octave in superius and tenor (mm. 59–61), with altus and bassus contributing related material, and yet again a fourth lower in the superius in parallel tenths with the bassus (mm. 61–65) as the second half of the verse is repeated. A return to b-fa and f1 as starting pitches for yet another imitative duo between tenor and superius, with the bassus chiming in from d (m. 62), leads into the closing material for verse 4, “Respice et exaudi me, Domine, Deus veritatis” (Consider, and hear me, O Lord, my God). This plea is set to an animated dotted figure (ex. 17), which in turn is treated se-quentially so that it permeates the final measures. But this time the pat-tern of imitation rises as well, as if to symbolize a repeated cry for help against the enemy as it rises heavenward.76

Of particular interest in this regard is the segment of Usquequo domine that Jas has identified as one of those quoted by the presum-ably anonymous composer of Jubilate Deo (ex. 18). The energetic dot-ted figure first heard in superius and tenor with “ego autem” (m. 128) returns in close imitation at the minim with the bassus joining in as the superius extends the pattern with a modest sequence. Then, as the entire half-verse is declaimed, “ego autem in misericordia tua speravi” (but I have trusted in thy mercy), all four voices spin out the figure sequentially and melismatically, the superius in particular, as they drive into the cadence: an appropriate rhetorical gesture to illustrate the vigor and duration of the psalmist’s hope. As Jas has suggested, the brief quotation from the superius of this passage in Jubilate Deo indicates that the borrower believed his source to be le-gitimately ascribed to Josquin.77 Also noteworthy in this connection is the fact that all the excerpts included in Jubilate Deo make use of itera-tive procedures to a greater or lesser extent—an indication that the apprentice composer saw writing of this kind as characteristic of his model. In any case, it would seem possible that passages such as these sufficiently resemble the compositional voice of Josquin as it has here been described, especially in the use of internal iterations embedded

76 For a fuller discussion see the New Josquin Edition, vol. 18 (18.12).77 Jas, “What’s in a Quote,” 14–17 and exs. 5 and 6; see above, p. 519.

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example 16. Usquequo, Domine, mm. 54–67

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http://www.jstor.org/action/showImage?doi=10.1525/jm.2009.26.4.512&iName=master.img-001.jpg&w=309&h=459


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Re spi - ce

Re - spi - ce et ex -

me Re - spi - ce et

Re - spi - ce et ex -

et ex - au - di me, Do - mi - ne

au - di me, Do - mi - ne De - us

ex - au - di me, Do - mi - ne

- au - di me, Do - mi - ne De -

De - us ve - ri - ta - tis.

ve - ri - ta - tis.

De - us ve - ri - ta - tis.

- us ve - ri - ta - tis.

8

8

8

8

8

8

69

72

76 18.12

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556


e - go au - tem in mi - se -

si mo - tus fu - e - ro

ro e - go au - tem

si mo - tus fu - e -

ri - cor - di - a tu - a spe -

e - go au - tem in mi - se - ri - cor - di - a

in mi - se - ri - cor - di - a

ro e - go au - tem in mi - se - ri - cor - di

- ra - vi.

tu - a spe - ra - vi.


a tu - a spe - ra - vi.

8

8

8

8

8

8

[fue-]

128

132

137 18.12 10

-

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in the musical fabric, that a convincing argument can be made for the attribution of Usquequo, Domine to him.

Conclusions

Clearly, the iterative procedures on which this essay has focused represent but one aspect of Josquin’s distinctive compositional voice, however noteworthy and useful it may eventually prove to be in sorting out problems of ascription in the Josquin canon. If ever a consensus is to be reached, however, as to which works are truly his and which are not, additional criteria of the same sort are needed. As Howard Brown has observed,

Judging conflicting attributions on the basis of style presupposes that we have a firm grasp of the compositional techniques and personal mannerisms unique to each composer. But the examination and evalu-ation of the personal styles of the great composers of the Renaissance has hardly yet begun. In order to identify what is individual or idiosyn-cratic about the work of Josquin, Mouton, or any other musician of the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, we need to take special care to ask the right questions of the music we study.78

Brown suggests that instead of concentrating on details that may have involved the intervention of a scribe, editor, or publisher, we should turn our attention instead to such broader issues as “compositional strategies, habits and practices.” He has exemplified his remarkable sense of musical style with this approach in his assessment of motets for six voices by Josquin and Mouton, but a great deal of work remains to be done.

It may be that at this point musicology could look for help to re-lated disciplines. In 1984, Donald Foster, then a graduate student in english literature at the University of California in Santa Barbara, sub-mitted a book proposal to Oxford University Press based on his (then incipient) doctoral dissertation, the study of a funeral elegy attributed to a certain W.H. (recte, perhaps W.S.). He had discovered that the poem contains a substantial number of citations from and references to the plays of Shakespeare as well as turns of phrase that suggested an author intimately familiar with the writings of the Bard. The pur-pose of his study of the poem was not to prove that it had been writ-ten by Shakespeare but rather to discover, if possible, who the author

78 Brown, “Notes Towards a Definition of Personal Style: Conflicting Attributions and the Six-Part Motets of Josquin and Mouton,” 188–89.

e - go au - tem in mi - se -

si mo - tus fu - e - ro

ro e - go au - tem

si mo - tus fu - e -

ri - cor - di - a tu - a spe -

e - go au - tem in mi - se - ri - cor - di - a

in mi - se - ri - cor - di - a

ro e - go au - tem in mi - se - ri - cor - di

- ra - vi.



a tu - a spe - ra - vi.

8

8

8

8

8

8

[fue-]

128

132

137 18.12 10

-

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actually was. His premise was that a determination of that nature might be reached with some degree of certitude through the study of inter-nal evidence. This meant immersing himself in studies of attribution theory, on one hand, and sharpening his skills in textual analysis on the other: finding efficient ways to quantify, for example, “the frequency of common function words” (and, but, not, that) . . . the rate of feminine endings and of enjambment.” It also involved cataloguing words, turns of phrase, and syntactical idiosyncrasies rarely found except in Shake-speare as well as compiling archives of comparative texts for possible authors and other examples of the same genre.79

In 1996, his tentative attribution of the funeral elegy to Shake-speare attracted the attention of the national news media, and a front-page article in The New York Times was followed by a televised interview on ABC. The subsequent flash of celebrity would involve him in identi-fying correctly the intentionally anonymous author of the book Primary Colors as Joe klein. He was also called upon to examine the manifesto that helped to convict Ted kasczynski as the “Unabomber.” Thanks to his analytical skills, he was even able to restore a correct attribution to the well known celebration of the Yuletide, The Night Before Christmas, removing credit for its authorship from Clement Clarke Moore—who seems to have dishonestly allowed a mistaken attribution to himself to be perpetuated—and restoring it to its rightful creator, the amiable descendent of New York Dutch progenitors, Major Henry Livingston.80 His approach to these various problems of attribution was informed by the conviction

that no two individuals write exactly the same way, using the same words in the same combinations, or with the same patterns of spelling and punctuation. No two adults . . . have read the same books [or, we might add, heard the same music]. No one writes consistently fluent sentences. It is that pattern of difference in each writer’s use of lan-guage [and we might again add: in each composer’s use of his compo-sitional skills], and the repetition of distinguishing traits, that make it possible for a text analyst to discover the authorship of anonymous, pseudonymous, or forged documents.81

79 Don Foster, Author Unknown: On the Trail of Anonymous (New York: Henry Holt, 2000), 36–37.

80 Lawrence F. Bernstein, to whom I owe particular thanks for a meticulous read-ing of an earlier version of this essay and for many helpful comments, suggested that a model for research of this nature might be sought as well in the literature concerning the authorship of the Federalist Papers, perhaps in a study such as that by Frederick Mosteller and David L. Wallace, Applied Bayesian and Classical Inference: The Case of the Federalist Papers (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1984).

81 Foster, Author Unknown, 5–7.

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As Foster observes, however, work of this kind is painstaking, time-consuming, often frustrating, and may not always produce the desired result.82 Scholarly intuition may also play a role, as is clear from some of the insights achieved by Brown, Finscher, Macey, Rifkin, and others; but it seems clear that this is not sufficient. Impressionistic judgments of authorship to which any scholar may on occasion be prone, especially in connection with the Josquin canon, need to be at least confirmed, if not entirely supplanted, by meticulous analysis of the relevant com-positions to identify patterns of musical language and recurrences of distinguishing traits capable of defining the individual voice of a com-poser as surely as a fingerprint or a sample of DNA. With the computer as a tool to help with the kind of analysis that needs to be done, it now seems possible to take up the challenge of this difficult but important task and to develop methods that will eventually yield a surer, more reli-able foundation for dealing with the difficult problems of attribution. A clearer picture of the historical developments in music of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries depends upon it.

Columbia University

82 Professor Foster kindly informed me in a personal communication that his con-tinued work on the elegy has led him to a different conclusion as to its author, suggesting, perhaps, that the more distant the object of study in time and place, the more difficult it is to recognize the authorial voice.

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aPPeNdix 1

Qui habitat in adiutorio Altissimi, text and translation

Josquin has set the complete Psalm 90 of the Vulgate Bible with a return to the initial half-verse, text and music, at the end. This psalm has a place in the liturgical calendar for two separate observances. It is to be sung on Sundays throughout the year as the second psalm at compline (see Liber Usualis [Paris, 1960], 265). It also provides the text (less verses 8–10 and with a few minor changes) for the tract for the first Sunday of Quadragesima (see Liber Usualis, 533). Its utilization for two such significant events in the liturgy may help to account for the unusual number of polyphonic settings based upon it.83

Prima pars

(1) Qui habitat in adiutorio altissimi,in protectione dei caeli commorabitur.

(2) dicet domino: susceptor meus es tu et refugium meum;deus meus, sperabo in eum.

5 (3) Quoniam ipse liberavit84 me de laqueo venantium,et a verbo aspero.

(4) Scapulis suis obumbrabit tibi,et sub pennis ejus sperabis.

(5) Scuto circumdabit te veritas ejus;10 non timebis a timore nocturno;

(6) a sagitta volante in die, a negotio perambulante in tenebris,ab incursu, et demonio meridiano.

(7) Cadent a latere tuo mille, et decem millia a dextris tuis;ad te autem non appropinquabit.

15 (8) Verumtamen oculis tuis considerabiset retributionem peccatorum videbis.

(9) Quoniam tu es, domine, spes mea;altissimum posuisti refugium tuum.

Secunda pars

(10) Non accedet85 ad te malum,20 et flagellum non appropinquabit tabernaculo tuo.

83 See Jennifer Thomas, Motet Database Catalogue Online, www.ants.ufl.edu/motet/default.asp.

84 Liberabit in kassel, Mss Mus. 24/1–4.85 Only Munich, BS Ms. 10 reads (correctly) accedet; all other sources consulted read

accedat.

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(11) Quoniam angelis suis [deus]86 mandavit de te,ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis.

(12) in manibus portabunt te,ne forte offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum.

25 (13) Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis,et conculcabis leonem et draconem.

(14) Quoniam in me speravit87, liberabo eum;protegam eum, quoniam cognovit nomen meum.

(15) Clamabit88 ad me, et ego exaudiam eum; cum ipso sum in tribulatione;

30 eripiam eum, et glorificabo eum.(16) longitudine dierum replebo eum,

et ostendam illi salutare meum. (1) Qui habitat in adiutorio altissimi.

Translation

(1) He that dwelleth in the aid of the Most High shall abide under the protection of the God of Jacob.

(2) He shall say to the lord: Thou art my protector and my refuge;my God, in him will i trust.

(3) For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunters and from the harsh word.

(4) He will overshadow thee with his shoulders:and under his wings thou shalt trust.

(5) His truth shall compass thee with a shield:thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night.

(6) Of the arrow that flieth in the day,of the business that walketh about in the dark,of invasion, or of the noonday devil.

(7) a thousand shall fall at thy side,and ten thousand at thy right hand,but it shall not come nigh thee.

(8) but thou shalt consider with thine eyes,and shalt see the reward of the wicked.

86 In a passage sung as a duo by superius and altus, the word deus is found only in the altus and only in the primary source, Munich, BS Ms. 10. However, it seems clear from the melodic writing, which is predominantly syllabic at this point, that the composer must have had the word in his mind and provided for its declamation.

87 Sperabit in kassel, Mss Mus. 24/1–4.88 Surprisingly, this verb is given not in the future tense but in past tense, clamavit,

in all sources consulted. Moreover, in the version used for the tract, the verb invocare, which replaces clamare, is also in past tense: invocavit.

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562

(9) because thou, O lord, art my hope,thou hast made the most High thy refuge.

(10) There shall no evil come to thee,nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling.

(11) For he hath given his angels charge over theeto keep thee in all thy ways.

(12) in their hands they shall bear thee up,lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

(13) Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk,and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.

(14) because he hoped in me, i will deliver him;i will protect him because he hath known my name.

(15) He shall cry to me, and i shall hear him;i am with him in tribulation;i will deliver him and i will glorify him.

(16) i will fill him with length of days,and i will shew him my salvation,

(1) He that dwelleth in the aid of the Most High.

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aPPeNdix 2

Sources for Qui habitat

Manuscripts

Amsterdam, University Library (formerly Toonkunst-Bibliotheek, Wetenschappelijke Afdeling, Ms. 208 F 7), anonymous—AmstM 1

Cambrai, Médiathèque (formerly Bibliothèque Municipale), Mss. 125–128, Josquin de pres—CambraiBM 125–128

Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Ms. Grimma 57, (Altus missing), anonymous—DresSL Grimma 57

Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek, Schloss Friedenstein (formerly Landes-bibliothek), Ms. Chart. A. 98, (“Gothaer Chorbuch”), anonymous—GothaF A98

Hradec králové, krajske Muzeum, Literárni Archiv, Ms. II A 21 (olim 8707), B only, anonymous—HradkM

kassel, Murhard’sche Bibliothek der Stadt kassel und Landesbibliothek, Mss. 4o Mus. 24/1–4, Josquin—kasL 24

Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Musiksammlung, Musica Ms 10, Josquin—MunBS 10

Perugia, Biblioteca Communale Augusta, Ms. 3314 (olim I.M. 1079 1–3), S only, Josquin—PerBC 3314

Regensburg, Bischöfliche Zentralbibliothek, Ms. A.R. 863–870, Josquin de Prees—RegB 863–70

Regensburg, Bischöfliche Zentralbibliothek, Ms. A.R. 940–941, Jos-quin—RegB 940–1

Toledo, Catedral, Obra y Fabrica, Ms. Reservado 23, anonymous—ToleF 23

Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms. Cappella Sistina 38, Josquin des Pres—VatS 38

Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Musiksammlung, Ms. Mus. 15941 (Superius missing), anonymous—VienNB 15941

Zwickau, Ratsschulbibliothek, Ms. XLI, 73, anonymous—ZwiR 41/73

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Early Printed Editions

Novum et insigne opus musicum (Nuremberg: H. Formschneider, 1537), Ios.—15371

Josquini Pratensis, musici praestantissimi, moduli . . . Liber primus (Paris: A Le Roy & R. Ballard, 1555), A and B only, Josquin—[J678]

Tertia pars operis musici (Nuremberg: Montanus & Neuber, 1559), Josquin de pres—15592

Manuscript Intabulations

Lüneberg, Ratsbücherei, MS Mus. Ant. Pract. kN 1196, anonymous—LüneR 1196

Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Musiksammlung, Musica Ms 267, Josquin—MunBS 267

Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Musiksammlung, Musica Ms 272, anonymous—MunBS 272

Printed Intabulations

Tabulatur auff die Laudten etlicher Preambuel, Teutscher, Welscher, und Francö-sischer stück . . . durch Hans Gerle (Nuremberg: H. Formschneider, 1533), anonymous—15334

Sebastien Ochsenkun, Tabulaturbuch auff die Lauten von Moteten, Frantzö-sischen, Welschen und Teütschen Geystlichen und Weltlichen Liedern . . . (Heidelberg: Johann kohlen, 1558), Josquin des Pres—155820 (Brown 15585)

Valentini Greffi Bakfarci Pannonii Harmoniarum musicarum in usum testu-dinis factarum. Tomus primus (Crakow: Lazarus Andrea, 1565), Josquin Despres—156522 (Brown 15651)

Valentini Greffi Bakfarci Pannonii Harmoniarum musicarum in usum testu-dinis factarum. Tomus primus (Antwerp: Widow of Johannes Latius, 1569), Josquin Despres—156936 (Brown 15691)

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abSTRaCT

Traditional methods of stylistic analysis may be useful for delimit-ing repertories and musical genres on the basis of common features, but they have proved inadequate to the task of distinguishing between general style traits that a composer may choose to cultivate and the compositional voice that is uniquely his own. Particularly relevant in this regard are the questions raised by compositions ascribed to Josquin Desprez. examples from among the psalm motets that bear his name in the sources illustrate the usefulness of stylistic criteria in establishing af-finities shared by a group of works and, conversely, the radically differ-ent conclusions that have been drawn by scholars working in the field regarding specific pieces as to their composer and the date of their composition. This circumstance has apparently led to an increased re-liance on source-critical criteria for accepting or rejecting Josquin’s authorship.

Josquin’s Qui habitat in adiutorio Altissimi, one of the most widely circulated and securely attributed of the psalm motets that carry the composer’s name, serves as a paradigm for identifying compositional procedures that go beyond the stylistic generalities shared by Josquin and his immediate contemporaries (i.e., traits in use everywhere that could be imitated with comparative ease by a skilled composer) and that can therefore be understood as elements of Josquin’s unique com-positional voice. The most striking feature of this sort in Qui habitat is a skillful and ingenious use of a variety of iterative procedures, including internal repetitions that appear to be largely wanting in the music of his contemporaries even in their use of syntactic imitation.

Owing to their close identification with the composer’s unique id-iom, such procedures furnish a touchstone for determining the reliabil-ity of the attributions in the sources. Specifically, their presence in the small repertory of psalm motets that appear to have been more or less universally admitted to the Josquin canon provides a basis for compari-son with a number of works whose attributions to Josquin have been questioned.

keywords: attribution; Josquin; psalm motet; source criticism; stylistic analysis

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Josquins Qui Habitat and the Psalm Motets

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