Josquin, Missa Pange lingua (Kyrie)
How did we go so long in this series without something by Josquin Desprez (c. 1440 – 1521), universally acknowledged as one of the masters of the Renaissance? If you could listen to only one composer of sacred polyphonic music in the Renaissance, you would do well to choose Josquin.
Presumably born in northern France, there are no records of Josquin’s life prior his being listed as an adult singer at Milan Cathedral from 1459 to 1472. After this, Josquin apparently returned to France for some before securing a post in the northern Italian city of Ferrara. He left Ferrara in 1503, perhaps because of an outbreak of the plague. He was succeeded in that post by Jacob Obrecht who died of plague in 1505. Josquin apparently spent his remaining years in northern France with his final post at Condé-sur-l’Escaut.
When music in the church moved from single-voice chant to polyphony (music in multiple voices) in the Middle Ages, the common practice involved adding an ornamental melodic line to an existing chant melody. While this practice developed into various styles and techniques, the fundamental principle of building a musical work on a chant melody (the cantus firmus or “fixed voice”) was the same. The technique continued into the Renaissance and has survived well beyond that time.
Josquin based this mass on the Thomas Aquinas hymn Pange lingua (“Sing, O my tongue, of the mystery of the divine body”). It typically appears in the liturgy for Maundy Thursday and is sung as the Blessed Sacrament is carried out of the church. If you don’t already know the tune of Pange lingua, you might want get familiar with it, especially the opening motive, before hearing how Josquin used it.
You could also return to Performance Pick 164, which focused on Pange lingua.
Josquin does not follow the common technique of having one voice sing the cantus firmus while others sing elaborations. Instead, he weaves the chant tune into all the voices. Each voice is given equal prominence as they all sing essentially the same material in tightly constructed imitation.
