Josquin des Prez: Missa La sol fa re mi [score/audio - part 2 of 4]

Credo in unum Deo, part 2 of 4.

3rd Part: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5o_s40HpYk

(cont.) "There has been much speculation as to the identity of this person, and whether the original phrase was indeed French, for there exists an Italian barzelletta with the refrain 'Lassa far a mi' that might equally well have suggested the subject. Through the connection with Serafino (to whom the poem is sometimes attributed by modern authors), Josquin's companion in the service of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, the 'magnate' has long been identified with the Cardinal, though there is no real basis for doing so. Intriguing is the initial in the copy of this mass in Vatican CS 41 in which a turbaned man holds a banderole with the words 'Lesse faire a mi' in one hand; his waist is encircled with coins that have been identified as French. As James Haar points out, the turban need not indicate a Turk; in the 1490s, when the mass was copied, there was a vogue for things Turkish (Josquin himself wears a turban in the late woodcut). Nevertheless, there was a very prominent Turk in Rome at this time (1489-95), Prince Djem (Cem Sultan), half-brother of the sultan Bayezit II, who spent seven years in France before transferring to Rome, where Innocent VIII and then Alexander VI kept him in luxurious custody, paid for by his distrustful half-brother. Perhaps Cem, who made extravagant promises in his attempt to enlist the support of kings and popes to overthrow his brother, is the butt of the mass.

Glareanus was certainly right that the mass is exceedingly elegant. It is a marvel of ingenuity, in which a minimum of material is worked into an imposing edifice. The five notes of the cantus firums, in their multiple permutations, so saturate the entire texture that listening straight through the mass (a modern habit, however) can leave one fairly dizzy. If Glareanus' story is true, the magnate could not have failed to respond, if only to throw up his hands and cry 'Enough!'."

Category:

Music

Tags:

• josquin
• des
• prez
• la
• sol
• fa
• re
• mi
• franco-flemish
• dufay
• ockeghem
• tallis
• scholars

[LeaLiyah]

This is boring.

[flammesombres]

@LeaLiyah

Go fuck yourself. 

[macrox5]

i can feel this inside of me. thank you.