Textures in Sacred and Secular Genres in the Renaissance
In this class, we will examine how texture is used in both sacred and secular genres in the Renaissance. In Lecture 4, we will discuss the Renaissance Mass setting. But here, we will revisit some other genres from the Medieval period, including the motet and chanson, to see how Renaissance composers approached these genres. In addition, we will learn about a new secular genre, the frottola. In each of these, the relationship of texture to words is paramount for expressing meaning and emotion in Renaissance music.
Motet
We have already encountered the motet genre in the Medieval period in lecture 2 and section 2a. In that period, it could often come across as an obscure intellectual exercise with isorhythms and multiple texts which created dense polyphonic textures. However, in the Renaissance period, changes in texture filtered into the motet. Greater use of homophony (a texture with one melody where all other parts sing in harmony with the melody, aligning more or less exactly in terms of rhythm but singing different pitches) as well as imitative polyphony (a kind of polyphony where the voices imitate each other, alternating singing the same melody at different times) made for much clearer textures and intelligibility of words. Gone is the polytextual motet; instead, one single text is sung by all voices so that it can be clearly understood. Our example is by the Flemish composer Josquin des Prez (ca. 1450/55–1521).
Much of Josquin’s biography is opaque and musicologists have spent decades attempting to sort it out, with details being constantly revised as new evidence comes to light. But we do know that Josquin became quite well-known during his lifetime and was the first composer whose influence remained in a significant way after his death. Partly, this is due to the invention of the moveable type printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440. This began a flurry of music printing into the 16th century. Many of Josquin’s works were published by the Italian printer Ottaviano Petrucci. In fact, Josquin’s fame was so great that many works were published under his name that he did not actually compose, since they would likely be more well received and sell more publications that way. This has made sifting through the works attributed to him difficult, as there are many which have traditionally been attributed to him but which he likely did not compose.
Josquin’s motet “Ave Maria…Virgo serena” (1485) is an example of a Marian motet, or a work dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It became one of the most popular motets in the 16th century, partly due to its inclusion as the first piece in the first printed and published volume of motets. Like the “Agnus Dei” example from Josquin’s Pange lingua Mass we will discuss in lecture 4, there is extensive use of imitation creating a texture of imitative polyphony. Listen especially for the imitation in the opening of this motet (although it can be found throughout), as each of the four voices enters in succession on the same melody (though starting on different pitches). These imitated melodies are called points of imitation.
In addition, Josquin also alternates here between polyphony and homophony. As in his mass settings, Josquin here chooses to highlight certain parts of the text with homophony, while otherwise using imitative polyphony throughout. As you listen, see if you can find the moments of homophony where all the voices come together in rhythmic alignment even as they sing in harmony on different pitches.
Follow along with the text and translation below as you listen. There are seven stanzas to the text and the music is organized according to these stanzas, frequently with a cadence at the end of each. In addition, at the beginning of stanza 5, there is a change in meter from duple to triple, which reverts to the original meter at the end of that stanza. So Josquin is using not only texture but meter to highlight certain parts of the text.
Josquin des Prez, “Ave Maria … Virgo serena” (Marian motet), 1485
Recording performed by Stile Antico. [Listen on YouTube]
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Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, Virgo serena. |
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, serene Virgin. |
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Ave cujus conceptio, Solemni plena gaudio, Coelestia, terrestria Nova replet laetitia. |
Hail thou whose conception, full of solemn joy, fills heaven and earth with new happiness. |
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Ave cujus nativitas, Nostra fuit solemnitas, Ut Lucifer lux oriens, Verum solem praeveniens. |
Hail thou whose birth was our solemn celebration, like Lucifer the Eastern light [or star] foretelling the rising of the true Sun. |
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Ave pia humilitas, Sine viro foecunditas, Cujus annuntiatio Nostra fuit salvatio. |
Hail blessed humility, fruitful without man, thou whose annunciation has been our salvation. |
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Ave vera virginitas, Immaculata castitas, Cujus purificatio Nostra fuit purgatio. |
Hail true virginity, immaculate chastity, whose purification has been our cleansing. |
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Ave praeclara omnibus Angelicis virtutibus, Cujus fuit assumptio, Nostra glorificatio. |
Hail thou most glorious among all angelic virtues, she whose assumption has been our glorification. |
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O Mater Dei, Memento Mei. Amen. |
O Mother of God, remember me. Amen. |
Chanson
The polyphonic chanson continued to be a popular secular genre into the 15th and 16th centuries. Like the motet, the chanson also changed according to the changing use of textures in the Renaissance. Furthermore, it gained a closer connection between music and text—as did many genres in the Renaissance—than it had in the chansons of Machaut, for instance. Finally, the formes fixes began to erode and become much less fixes and in some cases not used at all. One of the most prominent composers of chansons (more than 250) in the Renaissance was Clément Janequin (c. 1485–1558).
Along with Claudin de Sermisy, Janequin developed the Parisian chanson (based in but not exclusive to Paris), which was often programmatic, meaning it expressed in the music a representation of something outside the music. For instance, Janequin’s chanson La bataille is a musical representation of the sounds of battle. As with Josquin, his fame was partly due to the increase in music printing in this period. Many of his works were published by the Parisian printer Pierre Attaingnant. Unusually for the time, Janequin never held a permanent position at a major church or court. Rather, he moved frequently through many jobs in both areas throughout his life. While he spent time in multiple French cities, the majority was spent in Paris, which is the setting for the chanson example below.
Among Janequin’s programmatic chansons, “Les Cris de Paris” is one of the most entertaining, if not his most popular. It functions as a musical representation of daily life in the bustling city of 15th century Paris. While still using the same kinds of alternating homophonic and polyphonic textures as Josquin’s motet, this chanson also includes musical representations of street vendors including a wine merchant, a turnip seller, and a duo who sell pears, spinach, and sorrel. The piece begins with the full ensemble asking the listener Voulez ouyr les cris de Paris, (“Would you like to hear the cries of Paris?”). At the end, after presenting many of these cries, the ensemble sings Si vous en voulez plus ouyr, allez les donc querre (“If you wish to hear more, go and fetch them.”).
Beyond the humor and wit in the text and its musical representation, the Parisian chanson features a clear-cut, primarily homophonic texture (with polyphony in this case reserved mostly for the cries). When in homophony, the typically lyrical melody is generally in the top voice (the superius). Follow along with the text and translation below and listen for the “cris de Paris”.
Clément Janequin, “Les Cris de Paris” (programmatic chanson), c. 1530
Recording performed by Ensemble Clément Janequin, directed by Dominique Visse. [Listen on YouTube]
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Voulez ouyr les cris de Paris? Où sont ilz ces petitz pions? Pastez tres tous chaulx, qui l’ara? Je les donne, je les vends pour un petit blanc. Vin blanc vin clairet vin vermeil a six deniers et est à l’enseigne du Berceau qui est en la rue de la Harpe. Tartelettes friandes a la belle gaufre. Casse-museaux tous chauds. Ça à boire ça. Vinaigre. Hareng blanc, hareng de la nuit. Faut-il point de sauce vert? Moutarde fine. Cotrets secs. Souliers vieux. Choux gelés. Ardre bûche. Haut et bas ramonez les caminades. Qui veut du lait? C’est moi, je meurs de froid. Pois verts. Mes belles laitues, mes beaux cibots. Guigne douce. Verres jolis. Lie, lie. Fault il point de sablon? Argent m’y faut, argent m’y duit. Gaigne petit. Allumette. Houseaux vieux. Fèves de Maretz. Pruneaux de Saint Julien. Je fais le coucou, moi. Ma belle poirée, mon beau persil, ma belle oseille, mes beaux épinards. Pêches de Corbeil, orange, pignes vides. Charlotte m’amie a petit naveau, appétit nouveau. Amendez vous dames, amendez. Amandes nouvelles, Allemandes nouvelles. Navets. Mes beaux balais. Rave douce. Feurre. Brie. À un tournoi le chapelet. Chervis. Marrons de Lyon. À mes beaux poissons. Allumettes seches. Vin nouveau. Fault il point de grais? Choux, petit choux, tous chauds. Et qui l’aura, le moule de gros bois? Échaudés chauds. Seiche bourée, Serceau, beau serteau. Ardre chandelle. Falourde. À Paris sur Petit-Pont, gelines de feurres. Si vous en voulez plus ouir allez les donc quérir. |
Do you want to hear the cries of Paris? Where are they, these small tokens? Very hot dumplings; who wants ’em? I’m giving them away; I’m selling them for next to nothing. White wine, pink wine, ruby wine at six deniers from at the sign of Aquarius, which is in Rue de la Harpe. Waffles. Snout cakes, all hot. It’s for drinking, this. Vinegar. White herring, night-caught herring. Who needs green liquor? Fine mustard. Dried firewood. Old shoes. Wintered cabbages. Warming woodchips. Sweep your chimblies top to bottom. Who wants milk? I do, I’m dying of cold. Green peas. Lovely lettuces, onion sets. Sweet cherries. Pretty glasses. Lees of wine. Who needs some sand? I need money; that’s what I want. On a small margin. Tinder. Vintage gaiters. Broad beans from Moretz, prunes from Saint Julien, I’m going cuckoo, I am. My choice amaranth, my choice parsley, my choice sorrel, my choice spinach. Peaches from Corbeil, oranges, empty pinecones. My girlfriend Charlotte’s got a small navel, and a new appetite. New almonds; new almains [a dance]. Turmuts. My lovely besoms. Sweet beets. Straw. Brie. A rosary for a tourney. Skirret. Lyon chestnuts. My lovely fishes. Dry spills. Vin nouveau. Who wants grease? Sprouts or small buns, sweetheart, all hot; and who will have this bundle of logs? Hot pastries. Stuffed squid. Handsome hoops and what a nice pear! Bright candles. Plump meatballs. Dunghill hens at Petit-Pont in Paris. If you want to hear any more, go there and seek them out. |
Frottola
While French composers of secular polyphony like the chanson were abandoning the formes fixes, Italian composers in the 15th century were reviving secular polyphony in the Italian language with a return to fixed forms of their own. The frottola genre appears in the 1490s primarily in the aristocratic courts of Northern Italy (e.g., Mantua, Ferrara, and Urbino). Although this secular polyphony was clearly a court genre with all the formality and ritual that came with that association, it also had connections to ideas of rural, rustic, and lower-class aesthetics. In a way, it was the aristocracy taking a (sometimes condescending) interest in the culture of the common people. Often, the frottola has humorous texts and even sexual double entendres. Yet the textures present are quite similar to Janequin’s chanson: mostly homophonic, with polyphony used in particular places.
Like many other Franco-Flemish composers in the 15th century, Josquin spent some time in Italy and composed music in Italian. Our example of the frottola is his piece “El Grillo” (The Cricket). It was composed likely sometime in the 1490s, and published in 1505 by Petrucci. Josquin may have intended it to poke fun at his colleague at the court in Milan, the singer Carlo Grillo. Like Janequin’s chanson, there are onomatopoetic parts that musically mimic other sounds. In addition, it contains thinly veiled double entendres when the text says “He can sing very long, he sings all the time,” or “When the heat is very fierce, then he sings only for love.” Perhaps Carlo Grillo was both a good singer as well as an enthusiastic lover.
Here is an image of a 16th-century publication of this piece, from a partbook (a book where each part is notated separately, but there is no full score of all the parts together). The first page shows the superius (the highest part) and the tenor part, the second page shows altus (alto) and basius (bass).
The form of this frottola is broadly ABA, but there are parts repeated within each section. The most notable elements musically are 1) the nearly universal homophony, 2) often fast notes on the same pitch, perhaps representing the sound of a cricket, and 3) the bouncing rhythms that give it both an energy as well as a humorous quality. Follow along with the text and translation below as you listen:
Josquin des Prez, “El Grillo” (frottola), c. 1490s
Recording performed by The Hilliard Ensemble, directed by Paul Hillier. [Listen on YouTube]
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El grillo è buon cantore Che tiene longo verso. Dalle beve grillo canta. El grillo è buon cantore. |
The cricket is a good singer He can sing very long. He sings all the time. The cricket is a good singer. |
A |
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Ma non fa come gli altri uccelli Come li han cantato un poco, Van de fatto in altro loco Sempre el grillo sta pur saldo, Quando la maggior el caldo Alhor canta sol per amore. |
But he isn’t like the birds. If they’ve sung a little bit, They go somewhere else. The cricket remains where he is, When the heat is very fierce, Then he sings only for love. |
B |
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El grillo è buon cantore Che tiene longo verso. Dalle beve grillo canta. El grillo è buon cantore. |
The cricket is a good singer He can sing very long. He sings all the time. The cricket is a good singer. |
A |
Discussion Questions
- What is the primary texture in these Renaissance pieces? How do these composers use texture for expressive purposes?
- How do these Renaissance pieces differ from the Medieval works we looked at in terms of the relationship of text and music? Is there a greater connection between them?
- What similarities are there between sacred and secular polyphony in the Renaissance? How are they different?
