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• Agricola, Alexander: 3 Motets

Agricola, Alexander: 3 Motets

(includes Si dedero) for 3 voices or instruments.

These three-part motets by Alexander Agricola (c. 1445-1506), based on plainsong canti fermi are written in a distinctive, rhythmically elaborate style often found in three-part music of Agricola´s time, whether sacred or profane. Si dedero was one of the most widely-known pieces of its kind, surviving in over twenty different polyphonic sources (mostly without text underlay), together with several lute and keyboard arrangements. The sources disagree considerably on the question of accidentals: some include B flats (e.g. tenor part, bar 26), which then require E flats in other parts. The most ambiguous passage is bar 16-17, where the lute version in the Capirola lute book has B flats from the end of 16, and E flat in the bassus; however, the keyboard settings in Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, MS F. X. 22 and the tablature of Fridolin Sicher (St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek) do not have these. Another debatable passage is the ascending sequence from 34: the two above-mentioned keyboard tablatures avoid the tritone by writing an F sharp at the beginning of 35. I have taken the view that too much flattening weakens the modal character of the piece, though it is obvious that some musicians of Agricola´s day preferred things this way.
The antiphon Da pacem was used by many composers as a basis for more or less elaborate settings: the smooth contours of the opening allowed the easy use of many of the standard rhythmic and melodic figures of the day: canonic settings are also quite common (for instance, two double canons in Andrea Antico´s 1520 collection of such pieces).
All three pieces are printed here after Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS fonds. fr. 1597, where they appear anonymously. The composer attribution for no. 1 is given in Bologna MS Q17, Florence, Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale MSS Panciatichi 27, BR229 and Magl. XIX 178, also Petrucci´s Odhecaton (Venice, 1501), among other sources; in Formschneider´s Trium vocum carmina of 1538 it is wrongly attributed to Obrecht, and in St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek MS 463 to Verbonet (Chiselin). Florence Panciatichi 27 and Petrucci´s Motetti A (Venice, 1502) give the composer for no. 2; for no. 3 the attribution comes from London, British Library, MS Add. 35087.
In this edition the original note values have been halved: this gives a fairly “white” note picture, but allows the cross-rhythms to be relatively free of beams. Performers should probably think in terms of a slow semibreve (whole note) beat rather than a brisk minim (half note) one.