Opus One. The New Yorker, June 21, 2021.
Also: A Listening Guide to Josquin Desprez.
Some acknowledgments: I'm grateful first and foremost to Jesse Rodin and Joshua Rifkin, for inviting me into their genially duelling West Coast / East Coast Josquin seminars and for answering innumerable elementary questions. I also learned from the Josquin experts, veteran and rising, who were in attendance at the seminars: Fabrice Fitch, Peter Urquhart, Donald Greig, Emily Zazulia, John Milsom, Wolfgang Fuhrmann, Clare Bokulich, Christina Kim, and Sam Bradley, among others. At The New Yorker, deep thanks to Nina Mesfin for checking the piece; Andrew Boynton for copyediting it; and, as ever, Daniel Zalewski for humoring my obsessions and guiding them toward readability.
Here is a rough summary of the scholarship that informed the piece. The principal modern resource for the composer's threadbare biography is David Fallows's Josquin (Brepols, 2009), a result of extraordinarily thorough research and keen musical insight. Not everyone agrees with Fallows's conclusions and suggestions — the notion that Josquin spent time in Hungary has yet to be widely embraced — but the book is indispensable. So is Richard Sherr's anthology The Josquin Companion (Oxford UP, 2000), which gives a comprehensive overview of the work; in my article, I paraphrase John Milsom's commentary on the Miserere in his essay on the five- and six-voice motets ("Like an experienced preacher, Josquin varies his voice according to the significance of the moment"). Willem Elders's Josquin des Prez and His Musical Legacy: An Introductory Guide (Leuven UP, 2015) is a concise introduction, though somewhat preoccupied with numerological speculation. Jesse Rodin's Josquin's Rome (Oxford, 2012) contains some of the sharpest, most vivid writing on the music to date. Edward Lowinsky's massive anthology Josquin des Prez: Proceedings of the International Josquin Festival-Conference Held at the Juilliard School at Lincoln Center in New York City, 21-25 June 1971 (Oxford UP, 1976) is a gorgeous object, but much of it has been rendered obsolete, particularly in light of the revision of Josquin's birthdate from c. 1440 to c. 1450, and its grandiose tone has aged poorly (“Though we are commemorating Josquin’s death, we are also rejoicing in his resurrection," said Claude Palisca in his opening remarks). If my principal research base, the UCLA library, had been open, I might have delved into Helmuth Osthoff's two-volume Josquin Desprez (Schneider, 1962-65), but, perhaps for the best, the doors were closed. Lacking access to the New Josquin Edition, I relied heavily on the repository of scores at the Josquin Research Project.
On fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century more broadly, I read or re-read the relevant chapters of Richard Taruskin's Oxford History of Western Music; Gustave Reese's classic tome Music in the Renaissance (ponderous in appearance, but absurdly rich in musical detail); more recent surveys by Leeman Perkins and Allan W. Atlas; Anna Maria Busse Berger and Jesse Rodin's Cambridge History of Fifteenth-Century Music, which encompasses much social and cultural history as well as musical analysis; and, hot off the presses, Fabrice Fitch's incisive Renaissance Polyphony (in the Cambridge Introductions series). Andrew Kirkman's The Cultural Life of the Early Polyphonic Mass: Medieval Context to Modern Revival (Cambridge, 2010) is also unusually broad in scope. I also explored some monographic studies of other composers of the period; particularly enlightening were Rob Wegman's Born for the Muses: The Life and Masses of Jacob Obrecht (Oxford, 1994) and Alejandro Enrique Planchart's Guillaume Du Fay: The Life and Works (Cambridge, 2019). I'd spent quite a bit of time with Ockeghem over the years, but Johannes Regis was mostly new to me: Fallows's "The Life of Johannes Regis, ca. 1425 to 1496," Revue belge de musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap 43 (1989), pp. 143-72, sorts out the biography, and Sean Gallagher's notes to the superb Clerks' Group recording of Regis's complete extant works (Musique en Wallonie, 2010) fleshes out the picture. I also became bewitched by the often deliciously bizarre work of Alexander Agricola; Fitch's "Agricola and the Rhizome: An Aesthetic of the Late Cantus Firmus Mass," Revue belge de musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap 59 (2005), pp. 65-92, is a bracing overview. As I mention in the piece, Emily Zazulia's Where Sight Meets Sound: The Poetics of Late-Medieval Music Writing is about to appear from Oxford; it's a fascinating examination of the notation of polyphonic works, showing how seemingly recondite formulas serve musical purposes.
Hundreds of scholarly articles address Josquin and related matters. The "cult of Josquin," the construction of his posthumous legend, has itself been addressed in various studies: Jessie Ann Owens's "How Josquin Became Josquin: Reflections on Historiography and Reception," in Music in Renaissance Cities and Courts: Studies in Honor of Lewis Lockwood, ed. Jessie Ann Owens and Anthony Cummings (Harmonie Park Press, 1997), pp. 271-80; Andrew Kirkman's "From Humanism to Englightenment: Reinventing Josquin," Journal of Musicology 17:4 (1999), pp. 441–58; Paula Higgins's "The Apotheosis of Josquin des Prez and Other Mythologies of Musical Genius," Journal of the American Musicological Society 57:3 (2004), pp. 443- 510; and four important articles by Rob Wegman: "From Maker to Composer: Improvisation and Musical Authorship in the Low Countries, 1450-1500," Journal of the American Musicological Society 49:3 (1996), pp. 409-79; "And Josquin Laughed...": Josquin and the Composer's Anecdote in the Sixteenth Century," Journal of Musicology 17:3 (1999), pp. 319-57; "Who Was Josquin?" in The Josquin Companion (pp. 21-50); and "The Other Josquin," Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 58:1 (2008), pp. 33-68. For a measured response to the critique of Josquin-focused studies, see Rodin's "Josquin and Epistemology" in the Cambridge History of Fifteenth-Century Music (pp. 119-36).
Joshua Rifkin adheres to a more traditional conception of Josquin's stature, though he avoids the overblown rhetoric of past generations. He has yet to issue a volume on Josquin, though a hefty one could easily be assembled from his many articles and papers. Two of the most significant are "Munich, Milan, and a Marian Motet: Dating Josquin's Ave Maria ... virgo serena," Journal of the American Musicological Society 56:2 (2003), pp. 239-350; and "Milan, Motet Cycles, Josquin: Further Thoughts on a Familiar Topic," in Motet Cycles between Devotion and Liturgy, ed. Daniele V. Filippi and Agnese Pavanello (Schwabe, 2019), pp. 221-338. Other articles of note are "Compere, 'Des Pres,' and the Choirmasters of Cambrai: Omnium bonorum plena Reconsidered," Acta Musicologica 81:1 (2009), pp. 55-73; "Musste Josquin Josquin werden? Zum Problem des Frühwerks," Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 74:3. (2017), pp. 162-84; and "A Black Hole? Problems in the Motet around 1500," in The Motet around 1500: On the Relationship between Imitation and Text Treatment, ed. Thomas Schmidt-Beste (Brepols, 2012), pp. 21-82.
I have a feeling that only attendees of the Josquin seminars are still reading (at best), but I'd like to mention other articles I consulted: Jaap van Benthem's "A Waif, a Wedding and a Worshipped Child: Josquin's 'Ut phebi radiis' and the Order of the Golden Fleece," Tijdschrift van de Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 37 (1987), pp. 64-81 (source of the scandalous source of the probably-by-Josquin L'Ami Baudichon Mass); Bonnie J. Blackburn's "Josquin's Chansons: Ignored and Lost Sources," Journal of the American Musicological Society 29:1 (1976), pp. 30-76; Clare Bokulich's "Contextualizing Josquin’s Ave Maria ... virgo serena," Journal of Musicology 34:2 (2017), pp. 182-240; Theodor Dumitrescu's "Reconstructing and Repositioning Regis's 'Ave Maria... virgo serena,'" Early Music 37:1 (2009), pp. 73-88; Carlo Fiore's "Josquin Before 1919: Sources for a Reception History," in Josquin and the Sublime: Proceedings of the International Josquin Symposium at Roosevelt Academy Middelburg, 12-15 July 2009, ed. Albert Clement and Eric Jas (Brepols, 2011), pp. 215-40; Wolfgang Fuhrmann's "Josquins Hommage à Brumel? Zu Symbolik und Funktion der Missa Mater patris," in Polyphone Messen im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert: Funktion, Kontext, Symbol, ed. Andrea Ammendola, Daniel Glowotz, and Jürgen Heidrich (V&R, 2011), pp. 101-144 (the source of the Fuhrmann quotation in my piece); Eric Jas's "What Other Josquin?," Early Music History 33 (2014), pp. 109-142; Herbert Kellman's immortally titled "Dad and Granddad Were Cops: Josquin's Ancestry," in Uno gentile et subtile ingenio: Studies in Renaissance Music in Honour of Bonnie J. Blackburn, ed. M. Jennifer Bloxam and Gioia Filocamo (Brepols, 2009), pp. 183-200; Patrick Macey's Josquin's Miserere mei Deus: Context, Structure, and Influence (PhD. diss., University of California, 1985); Lora Matthews and Paul Merkley's chronology-exploding "Iudochus de Picardia and Jossequin Lebloitte dit Desprez: The Names of the Singer(s)," Journal of Musicology 16:2 (1998), pp. 200-226; John Milsom's "Sense and Sound in Richafort's Requiem," Early Music 30:3 (2002), pp. 447-63; Jesse Rodin's "Taking the Measure of Josquin" and "The Josquin Canon at 500" (both forthcoming); Pamela Starr's “Josquin, Rome, and a Case of Mistaken Identity,” Journal of Musicology 15 (1997), 43-65; Alanna Rophock Tierno's "The Lutheran Identity of Josquin's Missa Pange lingua: Renaissance of a Renaissance Mass," Early Music History 36 (2017), pp. 193-249; and Peter Urquhart's "Ad Fugam, de Orto, and a Defense of the 'Early Josquin,'" Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 62:1/2 (2012), pp. 3-27. For a staggeringly trivial contribution on the matter of "O virgo virginum" and the R 142 source, see "The Many Names of Josquin in Bologna."
At the end of the piece, I ponder the question of anonymity in Renaissance polyphony. What do we do with pieces that are no longer securely attributed to Josquin? Laurie Stras's remarkable work on sixteenth-century convent music and the possible hidden authorship of female composers gives a sense of the worlds we don't know: see her "Voci pari Motets and Convent Polyphony in the 1540s: The Materna Lingua Complex," Journal of the American Musicological Society 70:3 (2017), pp. 617-96; her Women and Music in Sixteenth-Century Ferrara (Cambridge, 2018); and her notes to the Musica Secreta recording Lucrezia Borgia's Daughter (Obsidian, 2017), which Stras co-directed with Deborah Roberts. You can hear Stras in conversation with Will Robin on the podcast Sound Expertise. Will has also featured Jesse Rodin on his invaluable show.
