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Chapter
9
Franco-Flemish Composers, 1450-1520
Outline
  1. Political Change and Consolidation (see map, HWM Figure 9.1)
    1. France
      1. Defeated England in the Hundred Years’ War
      2. The duchy of Burgundy came under control of the king of France.
      3. By ca. 1525, France was a strong, centralized state.
    2. Spain
      1. The marriage of Queen Isabella of Castile and Léon and Ferdinand of Aragon united north-central and eastern Spain.
      2. Isabella and Ferdinand in 1492
        1. Conquered the Moors, taking over southern Spain
        2. Expulsion of Jews from Spain
        3. Sponsored Columbus’s journey, beginning the era of European colonization
    3. Hapsburg Empire
      1. United with Spain through marriage in the sixteenth century
      2. Ruled Austria, the Low Countries, southern Italy, Spain, and Spanish America
    4. Italy
      1. Invaded by France in 1494
      2. Continued to be composed of independent city-states and dominated by foreigners until the nineteenth century
      3. Wealthy Italian courts continued to hire musicians trained in the north.
  2. Ockeghem and Busnoys
    1. Ockeghem and Busnoys were the most renowned composers of their generation.
    2. Jean de (or Johannes) Ockeghem, ca. 1420–1497 (see HMW biography, page 194, and HWM Figure 9.2)
      1. Sang in the Antwerp cathedral choir
      2. Served Charles I, duke of Bourbon, for a short time
      3. Served the kings of France from the 1450s to his retirement
        1. Entered the service in 1451
        2. 1454–1465: Held the post of chaplain
        3. 1464: Became a priest
        4. After 1465: Was master of the chapel
      4. Traveled a little, and had contact with Du Fay, Binchois, and Busnoys, but was not as cosmopolitan as Du Fay
      5. Composed relatively few works
        1. Masses, motets, chansons
        2. Developed his own style, synthesizing past, present, and his own style elements
        3. Known for his unique masses
    3. Antoine Busnoys (or Busnois, ca. 1430–1492)
      1. Served the Hapsburg Empire
      2. Known for his chansons
    4. Chansons
      1. Three-voice texture in treble-dominated style
      2. Use the formes fixes, especially rondeau
      3. Characteristics from Du Fay’s generation are still evident (smooth melodies, preference for thirds and sixths, careful dissonance treatment)
      4. New features
        1. Longer melodies
        2. More imitation
        3. Greater equality between the voices
        4. More frequent use of duple meter
      5. Je ne puis vivre by Busnoys (HWM Example 9.1 and NAWM 38)
        1. Smooth, arching melody employing a wide range
        2. Constantly changing rhythms
        3. Imitation between tenor and cantus over free conterpoint in the contratenor
        4. The contratenor is more singable than in Du Fay’s style.
  3. Masses
    1. Comparison with Du Fay
      1. Ockeghem and Busnoys were influenced by Du Fay.
      2. Du Fay quoted from Ockeghem and Busnoys’ Missa L’homme armé when he composed his mass on the same tenor.
    2. Vocal ranges (see HWM Example 9.2)
      1. Four-voice texture with a wide range
      2. Bassus voice goes lower than in Du Fay’s generation.
      3. Each voice sings a span of a twelfth or thirteenth.
      4. Passages in two- or three-voice texture contrast the dark, full texture resulting from the lower, increased ranges.
    3. Phrases are long, with few cadences and elision to smooth them.
    4. Busnoys and Ockeghem use a cantus firmus, often deployed in a highly individual manner.
  4. Ockeghem’s Masses
    1. Cantus-firmus masses
      1. Composed seven
      2. Missa de plus en plus
        1. Takes its cantus firmus from the tenor of Binchois’s chanson De plus en plus (NAWM 34)
        2. The Binchois tenor is altered rhythmically and with added notes.
    2. Other mass types
      1. Several motto masses
      2. One plainsong mass
      3. Requiem mass is also plainsong.
    3. Missa Cuiusvis toni (Mass in any mode)
      1. Can be sung in mode 1, 3, 5, or 7
      2. Performers use different clef combinations and musica ficta.
    4. Missa prolationum (HWM Example 9.3 and NAWM 39)
      1. Technical tour de force
      2. Notated in two voices but sung in four
      3. Uses all four prolation signs, a different one in each voice
        1. Superius and alto sing the same music but in different meters
        2. Tenor and bass sing another melody, also in different meters.
      4. Canon (Latin, “rule”)
        1. Deriving two or more voices from a single melody
        2. Voices may be delayed, inverted, or retrograde.
      5. Missa prolationum is both a mensuration canon and a double canon.
        1. Mensuration canon is when the “rule” is meter.
        2. Double canon is when there are two melodies treated using a rule.
  5. The Next Generation of Franco-Flemish Composers
    1. Three composers born at about the same time: Jacob Obrecht (1457 or 1458–1505), Henricus Isaac (ca. 1450–1517), and Josquin des Prez (ca. 1450–1521)
      1. Born in the Low Countries
      2. Trained in the Low Countries
      3. Traveled widely
    2. General traits
      1. Structure of vocal works largely determined by the text
      2. Melody and texture
        1. All lines were singable
        2. Each voice equal
        3. Four-voice texture standard; sometimes five or six voices
        4. Imitative counterpoint and homophony most common textures
        5. Pervading imitation: imitation involving all four voices
        6. Borrowed melodies are distributed through all the voices.
      3. Harmony
        1. Full triadic chords predominate and begin to replace open fifths and octaves at cadences.
        2. The bass becomes the lowest voice in the harmony.
      4. Genres
        1. Mass and motet continue to dominate sacred music.
        2. Chansons break away from the formes fixes and take on new shapes.
        3. Instrumental music becomes more common.
    3. Jacob Obrecht (see HWM Figure 9.3)
      1. Works
        1. Thirty cantus-firmus masses
        2. Twenty-eight motets
        3. Many chansons
        4. Songs in Dutch
        5. Instrumental works
      2. Imitation
        1. Used more often than in previous generation
        2. Point of imitation: series of imitative entrances (HWM Example 9.4)
      3. Clarity
        1. Clear tonal center, confirmed by cadences
        2. Clearly audible structure
    4. Henricus Isaac
      1. Worked for Lorenzo de’ Medici in Florence and Emperor Maximilian I in Austria
      2. Works
        1. Thirty-five masses
        2. Fifty motets
        3. Choralis Constantinus, cycle of settings for the Proper for most of the church year
        4. Secular songs in French, Italian, and German
        5. Untexted works (probably instrumental)
      3. Homophonic texture
        1. Isaac encountered homophonic song in the carnival tradition of Florence.
        2. His songs in German (Lied, pl. Lieder) include homophonic texture borrowed from Florentine tradition.
        3. Homophonic texture became part of the sixteenth-century style.
      4. Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen (NAWM 40 and HWM Example 9.5)
        1. German secular song: Lied (pl. Lieder)
        2. Composed for court or elite circles but in a folk or popular style
        3. Homophonic with melody in the superius
        4. Strophic
        5. Cadences resolve to triads.
        6. Later became a chorale, O Welt, ich musss dich lassen (O world, I now must leave thee)
    5. Text setting
      1. This generation was concerned with fitting music to the words.
      2. In their compositions, phrases of text could be grasped as an uninterrupted thought.
      3. Printed and handwritten music now had to be more precise in text underlay.
  6. Josquin Des Prez (ca. 1450–1521)
    1. Biography (see HWM biography, page 204, and HWM Figure 9.4)
      1. Most influential composer of his time
      2. His given name was Josquin Lebloitte; “des Prez” was a nickname.
      3. Probably born in northern France
      4. Served in the chapel of the duke of Anjou in the 1470s
      5. Ca. 1484–89: singer in the duke’s chapel in Milan
      6. 1489–95 or later: singer for the Sistine Chapel in Rome
      7. 1501–03: worked in France, possibly for King Louis XII
      8. 1503: appointed maestro di cappella to Duke Ercole I d’Este in Ferrara for a noble court and earned the highest salary in that court’s history
      9. 1504: left Ferrara, possibly to escape the plague, and took a position as provost at the church of Notre Dame at Condé-sur-l’Escaut, where he remained until his death.
    2. Works
      1. At least eighteen masses
      2. Over fifty motets
      3. Sixty-five chansons (ten instrumental)
    3. Fame
      1. Martin Luther called him “Master of Notes” in 1538.
      2. Glareanus compared him to Homer.
      3. Cosimo Bartolo (1567) compared him to Michelangelo (see HWM Source Readings, page 205).
      4. Composers emulated his style.
      5. His works were performed for almost a century after his death.
      6. Publishers falsely attributed works to him in order to boost sales of their books.
  7. Josquin’s Motets
    1. Style characteristics consistent with his generation:
      1. Texts drawn from Mass Proper or other sources
      2. Music freely composed, i.e., not based on chant
      3. Clarity in phrasing, form, and total organization
      4. Textures include imitation and monophony and are transparent throughout.
      5. Careful declamation of text
    2. Text depiction and expression: Josquin was the first major composer to use music to depict the meaning of the text.
    3. Ave Maria . . . virgo serena (NAWM 41)
      1. One of his earliest motets (1485) and one of his most popular
      2. The texture is constantly changing (see HWM Example 9.6).
        1. The motet opens with several overlapping points of imitation.
        2. Variety is created through changing the number of voices.
        3. Homophonic passages alternate with imitation.
      3. Text setting
        1. Each segment of the text is given a unique musical treatment that concludes with a cadence on the tonal center C.
        2. Words are declaimed naturally.
      4. Text depiction
        1. Homophonic texture suggests fullness in setting of “solemni plena gaudio” (full of solemn jubilation).
        2. A passage of harmony suggesting fauxbourdon evokes an old-fashioned style and a sense of reverence for the text “Ave, cuius conceptio” (Hail to her whose conception, see HWM Example 9.6).
  8. Josquin’s Masses
    1. General qualities
      1. Like the motets, they are varied and abound in technical ingenuity.
      2. Most use a secular tune as a cantus firmus.
      3. Principal types of structure (see HWM Figure 9.5)
        1. Cantus firmus
        2. Imitation
        3. Paraphrase
    2. Cantus-firmus masses
      1. Missa L’homme armé super voces musicales transposes the cantus firmus two successive degrees of the hexachord for each movement.
      2. Missa Hercules dux Ferrariae uses a soggetto cavato dalle vocali (“subject drawn from the vowels” of the hexachord syllables) as the theme.
    3. Imitation mass
      1. Sometimes also called “parody mass”
      2. Josquin’s Missa Malheur me bat borrows from all voices of the original polyphonic song.
      3. Resemblance to the original is strongest at the beginning and end of the new work.
      4. This technique works best when the source is composed for equal voices, i.e., imitative or homophonic.
      5. Became the most common type of mass after ca. 1520
    4. Paraphrase mass: Missa Pange lingua (NAWM 42)
      1. Based on a plainchant
        1. All four voices sing the source chant at some point.
        2. Phrases from the original generate motives for the new work.
        3. The original chant is paraphrased.
      2. Source chants chosen for their context, e.g., to honor a patron or a saint
      3. Imitation in paired voices, a characteristic of Josquin’s style
      4. The Credo highlights important words with homophony.
  9. Josquin’s Chansons
    1. New style in this generation
      1. Strophic texts, with virtually no use of the formes fixes
      2. Four- or five-voice texture, all voices meant to be sung
      3. All parts equal
      4. Employ imitation and homophony
    2. Mille regretz (NAWM 43)
      1. Attributed to Josquin
      2. Representative of his style ca. 1520
      3. Each new phrase of text receives its own particular treatment; e.g., HWM Example 9.7 sets one phrase in paired imitation and the next in four-voice imitation.
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