ilop252Josquin des Prés.
Josquin des Prés.
Okeghem was still alive, and Dufay less than a score of years dead, when Josquin’s fame sprang to the sky. So great a stir did his gifts create in Rome that beside him the fame of all other composers paled. The Duke Hercules d’Este of Ferrara, for whom Josquin composed a mass entitledHercules dux Ferrariæ, called him the Prince of Music; and the Abbate Baini, director of the pontifical chapel in the early nineteenth century, says of him: ‘In a short time, by his new productions, he becomes the idol of Europe. There is no longer tolerance for any one but Josquin. Josquin alone is sung in every chapel in Christendom. Nobody but Josquin in Italy, nobody but Josquin in France, nobody but Josquin in Germany, in Flanders, in Hungary, in Spain—Josquin and Josquin alone.’[96]
Fables grew up about his name, as about that of Homer or Wilhelm Tell. It is said that the French monarch, under whom Josquin served, had a bad voice and a still worse ear. Nevertheless, he was fond of music and desired his brilliant retainer to compose something in which he could take part. Josquin was equal to the occasion. He constructed a quartette somewhat different from the usual sort, there being two upper parts in a canon, and a free bass. To these he added a fourth part, thevox regis, as he flippantly called it, consisting of a single note which it was theking’s office to repeat, almost incessantly, throughout the piece!
The emoluments even of a royal musician were evidently not always prompt or large, and Josquin is reported more than once to have given the cue to the king by compositions whose opening Biblical words contained a punning comment on the royal dilatoriness in paying salaries, or whose sacred meaning could be amusingly applied to his own indigence. When finally the king good-naturedly took the hint, Josquin poured out his gratitude in a motet, ‘Lord, thou hast dealt graciously with thy servant.’ One biographer of Josquin cynically declares that the thank-offering was not at all up to the mark of the petitions.
Gaiety and humor were often in evidence in his music, as one would expect from so witty, lively a character. His work generally shows a careful finish and attention to details. Naumann points out that he takes greater care in declamation, groups his voices for better color effects, and achieves results, especially in the masses, which foreshadow the grandeur and simplicity of the great period of ecclesiastical music under Palestrina. The Passion motets andStabat Materfor five voices are among the most famous of his works. Severe contrapuntal art is shown in the twoL’omme armémasses, as well as inPange linguaandFortuna desperata. The contrapuntal ingenuity, however, is lost sight of in a genial, naïve quality combined with nobility and ceremonial dignity.
His fame as a writer of chansons equalled his reputation in sacred music. In these also he stands far ahead of his contemporaries, paying more attention to syllabic values, and entering into the mood of the text. His manner is unforced and gay, and here, too, his great contrapuntal ingenuity is veiled by poetical, nicely calculated effects.
Concerning his work as a whole in comparison withhis predecessors, it is generally considered that he is more concise, easier to comprehend, less laden with artifice, and able at last to put soul into the elaborate framework of the polyphonic art. He is the first important musician whose work has come down to us in such quantities as to enable critics to judge adequately of his powers. He was in the prime of life when the art of printing music by means of movable types was invented, and for a century or more his compositions were included in almost every collection that was made. Among his extant works are thirty-two masses, fragments of masses, motets, some of them for five parts, and chansons. Portions of his work have been given to the public successively by Petrucci (early sixteenth century), in Junta’s edition, Rome, 1521, in theMissa XIIof Graphæus, 1539; and no less than seven special editions of portions of his works were made during the sixteenth century. Masses in manuscript are to be found in the archives of the papal chapel, as well as in the libraries of Munich and Cambrai. Besides these, numerous examples have been preserved in the works of Glarean, Sebald Heyden, Forkel, Burney, Hawkins, Kiesewetter, Ambros, and others. The number and importance of his commentators and editors are glowing tributes to the importance of the man himself. With the exception of Lassus, no other Netherland master enjoyed such fame, either during life or after death. He is called ‘Jodocus’ in affection, and described as ‘at once learned and pleasing, everywhere graceful, the universal favorite of the age, welcomed everywhere, ruling without a rival.’ Luther mentions the ‘Jodocus’ as one of his favorite composers, saying that others were mastered by notes, while Josquin did what he pleased with them.
And with all this popularity, even glorification, what living singer has ever sung, or what living amateur has ever heard, a note of his music? Specimensof it are not current, it is true; but neither are they inaccessible. Three hundred and fifty years are as nothing in the lifetime of a book, a building, a statue—even of a picture, so much more perishable.... Dante had need of a commentator before Josquin could have learned to read: the frescoes of Giotto were beginning to decay ere he visited Italy, and the beautiful cathedral of St. Quentin had entered its third century ere he first raised his voice in it.’[97]
The eclipse of Josquin’s fame, however, appears not to be quite so complete and thorough to-day as when the above words were written (1862). A number of German societies now regularly include his compositions in their programs, and some of his works have been given in New York during the current year (1914). But no matter how neglected, he occupies a great and honored place in the history of music. Hitherto, as we have seen, musicians had been almost entirely absorbed in the study and application of technical details. Their art was, first and foremost, an intellectual exercise, and its appeal, naturally, almost entirely limited to the intellect. To the modern amateur, good music is that which touches him. He wishes to be conscious of that indefinable spirit which is at once both simpler and deeper than intellect. The greater part of the contrapuntal subtleties of Okeghem must have left the listener cold, remaining in history only as amazingtours de force, whose artificial perfection could only be a stage in the development toward something higher. It was this higher quality, achieved by Josquin, which placed him at the head of composers of his time, and gives him importance in history. He, too, possessed the technical skill and learning necessary to the construction of contrapuntal riddles; he, too, was sometimes artificial, and occasionally surpassed even Okeghem in his quaint and grotesquecombinations. But such intellectual gymnastic feats were not an important matter with him. He used, and has the distinction of being the first to use, learning as a means of expression, as the vehicle of personal, subjective, and sympathetic utterance. His style became simpler and more transparent, his conception of the text more poetic, and, by reason of these qualities, truth and beauty of expression are his chief merits.
The labor of the Netherlanders, from Dufay to the death of Josquin, offers a spectacle of almost unparalleled activity and painstaking research. It was, for the art of polyphony, the period of youth and adolescence, with its enormous energy, its too great reliance upon intellect, and its comparative lack of mellowness and heart. Dufay was a singer in the papal chapel exactly one hundred years before Josquin held the same position. He, with other Gallo-Belgians and the English Dunstable, added to the body of technical knowledge, established the principles of design in composition, and brought sacred music into closer touch with folk-song. Okeghem and his immediate followers were intoxicated, not with the wine of poetry or passion, but with a desire for intellectual artifice and refinement. They expended their genius on technique as an end, and produced compositions beside which even the most intricate contrapuntal efforts of later days seem almost like child’s play. Such work carries within itself, however, the seeds of its own destruction, and, so far as it rested upon puzzling subtleties, it was doomed to die. Nevertheless, the schools of Dufay and Okeghem prepared the way and the materials for the third and greatest of the indigenous Netherland schools, that of Josquin. To him the resources of counterpoint were merely the means to obtain beauty of expression. It is for this reason that we regard him as the first great composer.
F. B.