The ''Missa L'homme armé super voces musicales'' is the first of two settings of the

Ordinary of the Mass The ordinary, in Roman Catholic and other Western Christian liturgies, refers to the part of the Mass or of the canonical hours that is reasonably constant without regard to the date on which the service is performed. It is contrasted to the ''pr ...

Josquin des Prez Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez ( – 27 August 1521) was a composer of High Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he was a central figure of the ...

using the famous '' L'homme armé'' tune as their

cantus firmus In music, a ''cantus firmus'' ("fixed melody") is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition. The plural of this Latin term is , although the corrupt form ''canti firmi'' (resulting from the grammatically incorrect tr ...

source material (for the other, presumed later, setting see Missa ''L'homme armé'' sexti toni). The setting is for four voices. It was the most famous mass Josquin composed, surviving in numerous manuscripts and print editions. The earliest printed collection of music devoted to a single composer, the ''Misse Josquin'' 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 mu ...

in 1502, begins with this famous work.

Background

Dating of the mass has been controversial, with some scholars proposing a mid-career date, for example during Josquin's Roman period (roughly 1489 to 1495), and other scholars, such as

Gustave Reese Gustave Reese ( ; 29 November 1899 – 7 September 1977) was an American musicologist and teacher. Reese is known mainly for his work on medieval and Renaissance music, particularly with his two publications ''Music in the Middle Ages'' (1940) ...

, arguing for an earlier date, claiming that the contrapuntal complexity the mass shows is more typical of Josquin's early style, and that he simplified his method as he aged. The earliest source containing the mass is the Vatican manuscript CS 197 (c. 1492–1495) In his 1547 ''Dodekachordon'',

Heinrich Glarean Heinrich Glarean also styled Glareanus (born as Heinrich Loriti on 28 February or 3 June 1488 – 28 March 1563) was a Swiss music theorist, poet and humanist. He was born in Mollis (in the canton of Glarus, hence his name) and died in Freiburg im ...

wrote that Josquin "composed the two L'homme armé masses to show off his skill."

Music

While usually classified as a

cantus firmus mass In music, a ''cantus firmus'' ("fixed melody") is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition. The plural of this Latin term is , although the corrupt form ''canti firmi'' (resulting from the grammatically incorrect tre ...

, the use of snatches of the tune in other voices foreshadows the

paraphrase A paraphrase () is a restatement of the meaning of a text or passage using other words. The term itself is derived via Latin ', . The act of paraphrasing is also called ''paraphrasis''. History Although paraphrases likely abounded in oral tra ...

technique which Josquin was to use extensively later in works such as the '' Missa Pange lingua'', and which was to become one of the standard methods of writing

cyclic mass In Renaissance music, the cyclic mass was a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass, in which each of the movements – Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei – shared a common musical theme, commonly a cantus ...

es in the 16th century. Like most settings of the mass, it is in five sections: #

Kyrie Kyrie, a transliteration of Greek , vocative case of (''Kyrios''), is a common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, also called the Kyrie eleison ( ; ). In the Bible The prayer, "Kyrie, eleison," "Lord, have mercy" derives f ...

# Gloria #

Credo In Christian liturgy, the credo (; Latin for "I believe") is the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed – or its shorter version, the Apostles' Creed – in the Mass, either as a prayer, a spoken text, or sung as Gregorian chant or other musical setti ...

Sanctus The Sanctus ( la, Sanctus, "Holy") is a hymn in Christian liturgy. It may also be called the ''epinikios hymnos'' ( el, ἐπινίκιος ὕμνος, "Hymn of Victory") when referring to the Greek rendition. In Western Christianity, the ...

and

Benedictus Benedictus may refer to: Music * Benedictus (Song of Zechariah), ''Benedictus'' (''Song of Zechariah''), the canticle sung at Lauds, also called the Canticle of Zachary * The second part of the Sanctus, part of the Eucharistic prayer * Benedictus ...

Agnus Dei is the Latin name under which the " Lamb of God" is honoured within the Catholic Mass and other Christian liturgies descending from the Latin liturgical tradition. It is the name given to a specific prayer that occurs in these liturgies, and ...

(in three sections: I, II, III) Showing off his contrapuntal virtuosity seems to be Josquin's aim,Blackburn, p. 59. and the mass is full of

mensuration canon In music, a prolation canon (also called a mensuration canon or proportional canon) is a type of canon, a musical composition wherein the main melody is accompanied by one or more imitations of that melody in other voices. Not only do the voice ...

s, second only to Ockeghem's ''

Missa prolationum The ''Missa prolationum'' is a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass by Johannes Ockeghem, dating from the second half of the 15th century. Based on freely written material probably composed by Ockeghem himself, and consisting entirely of ...

'', which contains nothing ''but'' mensuration canons. In a mensuration canon, each voice sings the same notes, but the length of time each note is sung differs. The opening Kyrie of Josquin's mass contains consecutive mensuration canons based on each phrase of the L'homme armé tune, with the tenor leading each and the other voices entering in turn. The second of the three of Agnus Dei sections is another well-known

(see example); this particular canon was famous in the sixteenth century, and often mentioned in theoretical treatises.Blackburn, p. 56 The last of the three repetitions of the Agnus Dei, the section that closes the mass, is the longest, and is accompanied by a direction in the score: "Clama ne cesses" ("cry without ceasing", from Isaiah 58:1), which in this context means to sing the tune without any of the rests. The cantus firmus is pitched on A, the highest note of the hexachord, and is in double augmentation. The length, and the sustained notes of the cantus firmus, refer both to the "cry for mercy" aspect of the Agnus Dei text, which cries to the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world, and to the trumpet motif and text "On a fait partout crier" from the original ''L'homme armé tune'', calling the listeners to arms. In addition to the canonic complexities, Josquin adds variety by beginning the L'homme armé tune on a successively higher note in each section (and also in the third Agnus Dei), one for each of the six notes in the natural hexachord (thus the title, "voces musicales", or

solmization Solmization is a system of attributing a distinct syllable to each note of a musical scale. Various forms of solmization are in use and have been used throughout the world, but solfège is the most common convention in countries of Western cultur ...

syllables, ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la). The overall modality is Dorian, and all of the movements end on D.

References

* Blackburn, Bonnie. "Masses on Popular Songs and on Syllables". In ''The Josquin Companion'', ed. Richard Sherr, 51–87. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. * Brown, Howard Mayer. "Mass". ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed.

Stanley Sadie Stanley John Sadie (; 30 October 1930 – 21 March 2005) was an influential and prolific British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' (1980), which was publ ...

. 20 vols. London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980. * Gleason, Harold, and Warren Becker. ''Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance'' (Music Literature Outlines Series I). Bloomington, Indiana: Frangipani Press, 1986. * Noble, Jeremy. "Josquin des Prez", §12, Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed March 25, 2007)
(subscription access)
* Reese, Gustave. ''Music in the Renaissance''. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. * Reese, Gustave (biography), and Jeremy Noble (works). "Josquin Desprez", in ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vols. London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Missa L'homme Arme Super Voces Musicales Masses by Josquin des Prez Renaissance music