Renaissance Journal Response to Vince’s Hilliard Ensemble: Motets et Chansons

Lindsay Lozito

351 WI

Dr. Granade

November 3, 2009

Journal Response to Vince’s Hilliard Ensemble: Motets et Chansons

Josquin Des Perz is one of the most prolific composers of the Renaissance period. His works inspired many people and are well known internationally because of the printed books containing many of his popular pieces. I thought it would be interesting to compare my thoughts about Josquin’s Ave Maria…virgo serena to that of Vince’s since we chose the same composer. I agree with Vince that the publication about Josquin’s works was a huge honor. He was one of the first composers to have his works printed by Ottaviano Petrucci. Because Josquin’s works were so popular, there was a high demand for them. These works were, as Vince mentions, performed widely throughout the Renaissance and still are to this day.

One of my favorite aspects of Josquin’s writing is the clarity of his text. The text is quite evident in the piece that I studied, Ave Maria…virgo serena and it is also clear in both the pieces Vince studied, the Ave Maria, Gratia Plena and El Grillo. As in the Ave Maria…virgo serena, Josquin continues to use imitation to add character in the Ave Maria, Gratia Plena. Josquin builds from one voice to four voices creating unique harmonies. This is another aspect of Josquin’s writing I thoroughly enjoy. I agree with Vince that Josquin’s use of imitation is very effective in emphasizing the written text, but is careful not to overdo this technique. By emphasizing the writing text through imitation, he creates seamless polyphony that creates fluid vocal movement from resulting harmonies as Vince states in his journal.

In my opinion, Josquin composes his music to sound simple and easy on the ears. What is happening musically helps define the text making it easy to understand. I really enjoyed listening to Josquin’s El Grillo. This frottola’s homophonic rhythms and syllabic text make this piece fun to listen to. After reading Vince’s description of the piece, you could hear the characteristics that he pointed out, such as the “springy nature of the cricket” and the imitation of a cricket’s chirps. This piece is enjoyable and lively to listen to. I tend to agree with Vince, that out of Josquin’s works, El Grillo seems out of place because of the characteristics of the piece. While most of Josquin’s works are serious, containing intricate harmonic structures, El Grillo is light and humorous. This depicts Josquin’s flexible capabilities in musical compositions.

Vince did a great job in explaining Josquin’s works and how the style of each piece contains it’s own unique characteristic. The descriptions of the Ave Maria, Gratia Plena and El Grillo intrigued me into learning more about these pieces. Having studied one of Josquin’s works, I was interested to read more about his other works Vince referred to in his music journal. Vince did an excellent job in describing the imitation style of the Ave Maria, Gratia Plena. This captured my attention just as it did in the Ave Maria…virgo serena. I love how Josquin interplays all the voices in such a fascinating way that draws the listener in. I would have enjoyed reading more about Vince’s opinion about the works. He mentions little about what he thought. I believe he could have elaborated more. Overall, Vince did a great job of analyzing the details of both pieces.