A Review of Motets et Chansons by the Hilliard Ensemble

Motets et Chansons, is devoted entirely to works by Josquin Des Prez, an iconic Renaissance composer who composed over eighteen complete polyphonic Masses, over fifty motets, and over seventy-five secular works. Josquin was made famous by works such as Ave Maria, Gratia Plena, for his ability to compose music that captured the emotional expressivity of words. During Josquin’s lifetime his compositions were known internationally and were considered musical perfections, even by Martin Luther, who hailed Josquin as “…master of notes” for his ability to effortlessly compose beautiful melodies colored by organic harmonies (Wegman 25, 33).

Though little is known about his early life, Josquin spent a significant portion of his life in Italy, running the cathedral choir in Milan and working at the Sistine Chapel in Rome. In his later years, Josquin was appointed provost at the church of Notre Dame where he presided over the prestigious music program and other divisions in the church (Macey 22). To top off the magnificent achievements in Josquin’s life, renowned printer Ottaviano Petrucci preserved many of Josquin’s works by printing three volumes of his compositions. This was a huge honor for Josquin since most composers received one volume from Petrucci at most. They also allowed musicians and scholars to perform and study Josquin's works from Renaissance times down to the present.

When compared to late Medieval and early Renaissance composers, Josquin’s style is unique since it preserves the Church’s tradition of textual clarity while emphasizing varied vocal texture and human emotion. The first piece on the album, Ave Maria, Gratia Plena, is a motet that encompasses these characteristics and others that make up Josquin’s style. Josquin begins Ave Maria, Gratia Plena using all four voices to declare the text by beginning with the soprano and using points of imitation to slowly move the text through the other voices. By using imitation, Josquin emphasizes the text through repetition and creates seamless polyphony, a compositional technique that creates fluid vocal movement from resulting harmonies. Because Josquin’s use of imitation is very effective, he does not over use this technique, but instead chooses to vary the vocal textures in the piece by using a mixture of polyphony and homophony, and at certain moments, opting to leave out a voice. It is clear through Josquin’s compositional techniques that his intentions are to use a variety of textures to above all, support the text. Though these are technical examples of Josquin’s style in Ave Maria, Gratia Plena, the listener experiences nothing of the sort. Josquin artfully blends his techniques so his music does not sound technical, but captures the listener through beautiful colors and varied textures.

Though the title of the album suggests the recording contains exclusively motets and chansons, the Hilliard Ensemble chose to surprise the listener by including a Josquin frottola, El Grillo. The frottola was an Italian song style typically composed using four, treble-dominated voices set homophonically. The texts in frottola were also set syllabically and were distinguishable by a rhyme scheme of short and long syllables (short, short, long, short, long, short, long, long).

Contrasting the somber character of Ave Maria, Gratia Plena, the song, El Grillo is a playful tune about a cricket. In this song, Josquin depicts the characteristics of a cricket, using a high vocal range to imitate cricket chirps and rhythmic complexity to portray the springy nature of a cricket. Since El Grillo is largely homophonic, there are frequent cadence points that give the piece a forward motion that depicts the constant, yet intermittent character of a cricket (Sherr 428). After listening to the more serious works on Motets et Chansons, El Grillo almost seemed out of place. Though it was different than the other works on the album, El Grillo was a humorous change of pace that demonstrated Josquin’s versatile compositional abilities.

Listening to the Hilliard Ensemble’s album, Motets et Chansons, was an enlightening experience as I have not listened to much vocal music during my life as a musician. The talents of the Hilliard Ensemble performed Josquin’s music with a passion and energy that was evident during slowest and darkest of songs. The fluidity and vocal perfection in each song showed the listener the careful thought the Hilliard Ensemble put in placing each note and coloring each texture. Experiencing the virtuosity of Josquin Des Prez in combination with the amazing talents of the Hilliard Ensemble has positively changed my attitude towards vocal music, and has redefined my view of voice, labeling it as one of the most beautiful instruments.

Bibliography

Macey, Patrick, et al. "Josquin des Prez." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.mnl.umkc.edu/subscriber/article/gro ve/music/14497 (accessed October 22, 2009).

Sherr, Richard. “Three Settings of Italian Texts and Two Secular Motets.” In The Josquin Companion. Oxford University Press: New York, 2000.

Wegman, Rob C. “Who Was Josquin?” In The Josquin Companion. Oxford University Press: New York, 2000.