''El Grillo'' (''The Cricket'') is a

frottola The frottola (; plural frottole) was the predominant type of Italian popular secular song of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. It was the most important and widespread predecessor to the madrigal. The peak of activity in compositio ...

by Josquin des Prez. Possibly written in the early 16th century, it is regarded as one of Josquin's most popular works.

History

Published in the early sixteenth century, ''El Grillo'' is attributed to an "Iosquin Dascanio", traditionally identified as French composer Josquin des Prez. Several scholars have posited that Josquin wrote the song to either honour or make fun of his colleague at the House of Sforza, an Italian court singer named Carlo Grillo. This would have to have been no earlier than the 1490s. The ''Frottole libro tertio'', published by

Ottaviano Petrucci Ottaviano Petrucci (born in Fossombrone on 18 June 1466 – died on 7 May 1539 in Venice) was an Italian printer. His '' Harmonice Musices Odhecaton'', a collection of chansons printed in 1501, is commonly misidentified as the first book of sheet ...

in 1505, is the only contemporaneous source of ''El Grillo''. It received considerably little attention from modern musicologists until 1931, when it was included in ''Geschichte der Musik in Beispielen'' by

Arnold Schering Arnold Schering (2 April 1877 in Breslau, German Empire – 7 March 1941 in Berlin) was a German musicologist. He grew up in Dresden as the son of an art publisher. He learned violin at the from which he graduated in 1896. Thereafter he studied ...

Analysis

The song is scored for four voices. Written from a third-person perspective, ''El Grillo'' concerns the

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

. The opening section is about the cricket's lengthy song, while the second one compares crickets and

songbird A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 5000 ...

s. The song concludes by suggesting that crickets may be better singers than songbirds, particularly because they sing all the time, rain or shine. The song contains both

homophony In music, homophony (;, Greek: ὁμόφωνος, ''homóphōnos'', from ὁμός, ''homós'', "same" and φωνή, ''phōnē'', "sound, tone") is a texture in which a primary part is supported by one or more additional strands that flesh ...

and

onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', '' ...

, with its rhythm mimicking a cricket's mannerisms. Uncharacteristically for a

, the '' ripresa'' of the poetic lines mostly have seven syllables, whereas the ''piedi'' and '' volta'' have eight. According to musicologist Jaap van Benthem, the number of notes in the ''ripresa'' (88) spells "Des Prez" in

gematria Gematria (; he, גמטריא or gimatria , plural or , ''gimatriot'') is the practice of assigning a numerical value to a name, word or phrase according to an alphanumerical cipher. A single word can yield several values depending on the cipher ...

, while the 99 notes in the ''volta'' spell "Josquin".

Legacy

''El Grillo'' is considered one of Josquin's most popular works. Willem Elders calls it "one of the most brilliant songs of the late fifteenth century", while Richard Sherr describes it as a "delightful jokey little piece." Henry Vyverberg writes that it "represents the frottola at its most attractive."

References

Citations

Works cited

* * * * * * * * {{Josquin des Prez Renaissance music Compositions by Josquin des Prez 16th-century compositions