A Reaction to Vince Mazzoni's Renaissance Listening Journal

In the beginning of Vince’s analysis of the Hilliard Ensembles recording, Motets et Chansons, he summarizes the style of Josquin des Prez by stating that he “preserves the tradition of textual clarity while emphasizing varied vocal texture and human emotion.” Vince did a fine job evaluating the dominance of the text and the role that variety plays in his music. But I wanted to know more about the ways Josquin is able to convey the depth of human emotion in his music, so when I listened to this recording, I had a distinct purpose: to experience the range of emotions in the music and uncover the techniques that he uses to display them.

Josquin was composing music at a time when the motet was a very important genre. Unlike the motets of the Medieval period, Renaissance motets were entirely sacred and the focus was on the words. These motets no longer had multiple texts, but rather one, and every compositional choice was made to enhance the meaning of the words. In his analysis of the first motet on the recording, Ave Maria, Gratia Plena, Vince discussed several techniques that characterize Josquin’s music, including imitation, seamless polyphony, a mixing of polyphony and homophony and varied vocal textures. All of these techniques can be found in the other motets on the album, as well as other methods which are used to display the emotions of each particular motet.

The motet Absalon, fili mi, a lament of David, is a lament for the death of his son Absalom. Josquin sets the text in a low register and writes slower rhythms to give the listener a real sense of the grief David felt for the loss of Absalom. Although there are only five lines of poetry, the music stretches on, moving slowly towards the last phrase, “Let me live no longer, but descend into hell weeping,” where the bass finally settles on B-flat. This motet displays one of the extremes of human emotion, grief, by setting a very slow pace and rarely leaving the lower registers of the voices.

The motet De profundis clamavi is set in a similar way. In the opening line the psalmist cries, “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord, hear my voice!” Josquin begins his motet with each voice entering individually, highest to lowest. Each voice is low in its range, so when the bass finally enters the sound is low and solemn. The rhythmic motion is slow, and the mood is very grave. As the text becomes more optimistic near the end, “With the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption,” the upper voices sing in a higher register, filling out the sound, and the rhythm becomes much more active. Even the harmonies sound more hopeful. Josquin allows the voices to rest on thirds and sixths, whereas the opening was built on emptier intervals. The raising of the register, quickening rhythmic motion, and near-triadic harmonies lead the listener from the more somber cry of the opening phrase to the hopeful redemption of the end.

In his journal, Vince stated, “Josquin artfully blends his techniques so his music does not sound technical, but captures the listener through beautiful colors and varied textures.” I absolutely found this to be true while I was listening to this recording. I had a hard time dwelling on the technical aspects of Josquin’s writing because I was so taken with the colors he uses to exhibit the emotional character of each piece. Vince’s journal gave me several launching points for my own analysis. I really enjoyed reading it, and listening to this recording of Josquin’s music.

Palestrina: Missa Assumpta est Maria

When the Council of Trent met from 1545 to 1563, they intended to eliminate all polyphony from the Mass. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was able to convince them that polyphony does have a place in that Mass, and can be used to enhance and clarify the texts through simple melodies with lighter, more balanced textures. The Missa Assumpta est Maria is a perfect example of this style of writing, and how it is effective.

The Mass is scored for six voices: two sopranos, one alto, two tenors, and one bass. Palestrina achieves a certain lightness throughout the work by exploring primarily the voices' upper ranges. Even the basses rarely dip into their lower range (Coates, 127). He varies the textures by only sounding a few voices at a time, which also contributes to the lightness of the work. The Kyrie and Agnus Dei in particular feature this type of texture play. Palestrina rarely has all six voices sing simultaneously (Roche, 28). For example, All six voices sing “Kyrie eleison”, but only four sing “Christe eleison,” and even within these textures, voices are constantly dropping out and joining in.

The Missa Assumpta est Maria is based on a pre-existing motet, Assumpta est Maria in Caelum, which can be heard in the opening of the Kyrie and the Sanctus. Palestrina's use of the motet marks his Mass as a paraphrase Mass, since he does not quote the motet exactly or entirely. He altered voicing, rearranged rhythms, and related only about the first ten measures clearly to the motet. In the absence of obvious motet references, Palestrina provides a short figure of five ascending notes to unify his work. This ascent is first presented in the third bar, and appears often throughout the piece. This little ascending theme could be interpreted as symbolic of the Assumption, which the work celebrates (Coates, 127).

Unlike the Kyrie and Agnus Dei whose main interest is texture, the Gloria and the Credo are more homophonic and demonstrate the ways Palestrina is able to paint the text. When the words “Laudamus te,” (“we praise thee”) is sung, five voices sing in strict homophony covering a range of two octaves, creating a full sound to sing praise to God. All six voices sing “Adoramus te,” (“we adore thee”) and “Glorificamus te” (“we glorify thee”), expanding the texture and the range to the fullest sound in the movement. This full, homophonic voicing is used by Palestrina in the sections where the text is giving glory directly to God. This type of attention to the text can be found throughout the work, and especially in the wordier movements, like the Gloria and the Credo. Palestrina uses homophony in these movements in such a way that the music almost sounds Baroque, and can be seen as a precursor to the music of his successors (Roche, 28).

The entire piece is written in common time, except for one short section at the end of the Sanctus, which is in triple meter. Further research led me to discover that finding a passage in triple meter anywhere in Palestrina’s music is rare. He reserves triple time for certain passages to express joy. In his Masses, he uses the triple meter specifically for the words of the Sanctus, “Hosanna in excelsis,” (“Hosanna in the highest”) (Boyd, 40). It is also at this point that he seems to break away from the strict clarity of his polyphony and allows himself to be a bit more creative, blurring the sounds of the voices and obscuring the text more than anywhere else in the work.

Listening to this work gave me a deeper comprehension of how Palestrina was able to use polyphony to clarify the text of the Mass. I can now understand why the Church was unable to ban all polyphony from the service. Palestrina’s music is so beautiful and so clear, unlike the compositions of many of his predecessors. The polyphony of Palestrina really does enhance the text of the Mass, deepening the experience of the listener.

Works Cited

Boyd, Malcolm. 1973. Palestrina’s Style. London: Oxford University Press.

Coates, Henry. 1948. Palestrina. London: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd.

Roche, Jerome. 1971. Oxford Studies of Composers: Palestrina. London: Oxford University Press.