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• Desprez, Josquin: 2 Italian Songs

Desprez, Josquin: 2 Italian Songs

(El grillo, In te domine speravi) for 4 voices or instruments.

Although Josquin des Prés (c. 1440-1521) worked in Italy for over thirty years, only three Italian songs of his have survived, the two printed here and his Scaramella (which can be found in LPM AN6). With In te domine speravi there is even a small element of doubt about the authorship, as the main source give the composer as “Josquin d´Ascanio". However, Josquin was closely associated with Cardinal Ascanio Sforza of Milan, and indeed the poet Serafino d´Aquila, who was in the service of the same patron, wrote Josquin a sonnet, referring to the composer as “Giusquino suo compagno musico d´Ascani”, so it is logical that he should have been known by this name in a north Italian publication.
EI Grillo, which we print after Petrucci, Frottole Libro Tertio (Venice, 1504) is somewhat ahead of its time, with its comic antiphony and fast diction, anticipating the “programme” chansons of Clément Janequin. A story has been passed down over generations of commentators that the text, with its reference to singing for love (i. e. rather than money), was designed to extract money owed to Josquin by Ascanio Sforza, but this may well be apochryphal.
In te domine is more of a conventional frottola, formally very similar to numerous pieces of that kind by Tromboncino, Cara. and others. However, it seems to have had an interesting history in Germany and Poland; it appears with a sacred text in Georg Rhaw´s Symphonia iucundae atque adeo breves quator vocum of 1538, and was also turned into a dance, with three settings in the Jan of Lublin keyboard tablature, and a couple of 5-part settings in the Hessen dance books of 1555.
The original note values have been halved throughout. Editorial accidentals are printed small above the stave, applying to the one note only; for the sake of simplicity the original accidentals are taken as applying to the whole bar. I am grateful to Alan Robson for translating the texts of these songs.