1. Jasmine Edison
Music 2207
Man or Myth? : Josquin des Prez and the History of History
Generally speaking, historians and laypeople look back in time and annotate, analyze,
and ultimately corrupt history. In an article on the problem of Popular Culture, Peter Burke
explains, “although new approaches to history are normally designed to solve problems, they
often raise problems of their own”1. I believe that this applies especially to musical figures like
Josquin, for whom little information can be found that does not come from biased or temporally
distant sources. Even in viewing the historical Josquin from the postmodern era, the historian is
already corrupted by bias. As a ‘postmodern’ person, she does not understand the subject
position of a 15th century male citizen of the Holy Roman Empire; she is also unable to parse the
subtle linguistic nuances of Josquin’s vernacular, even if she is a native speaker of modern
French, because the French spoken in the 15th century is vastly different from that of the present
day, even if the two languages share common characteristics; Her sources may be biased as well,
as Wegman stated in his article, “Who Was Josquin?” we are left at the mercy of Josquin’s
admiring contemporaries, who may not have painted an accurate portrait of the composer. It is
for this reason that I cannot bring myself to believe that Mille regretz is one of his works.
THE HISTORIAN—AN UNRELIABLE NARRATOR?
According to Heartz, “The past lives on through our imaginative attempts to meet it on its
own terms. Were we to do any less, future ages would blame our negligence”2. This quote
illustrates the generational relevance necessary for the preservation of history. Heartz asserts that
we must grapple with the difficulties of the study of history from our own perspective, even if
that perspective is biased, and damaging to the integrity of the historical subject at hand. We
must study and apprehend our subject “on our own terms” because, quite frankly, we have no
other way to do so. We cannot change our place in history to better interpret our subjects; we can
merely try to imagine what their lives might have been like. This is where Heartz’s use of the
word, ‘imagination’ comes into play. At first glance, it appears as though he implies that
historians incorporate fictitious elements into their work, which would be anathema to any self-
respecting historian, but there is something to the idea of imagination. As in the case of Josquin’s
native tongue, which modern French scholars refer to as Middle French: we have no idea how
the words were pronounced. There was no technology during that time that could preserve the
various phonemes of Middle French, and as such, we must extrapolate the pronunciation from
various texts, poems, and other written works. Even with all of those sources, the pronunciation
may still be wrong, but if we do not take some license with these unknowable pronunciations,
‘imagining’, as it were, how some of the words may have been said, we remain at a standstill and
no real progress can be made. Better to have an imperfect understanding of history than to aim
for absolute perfection, and in failing to reach our goal, have no understanding at all.
1
Peter Burke, Popular Culture (Detroit:Charles Scribner's Sons, 2001), 3.
2
Heartz, The Josquin Companion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 193.

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While a certain amount of imagination is necessary to generate an interesting historical
narrative, it may have gone too far in the case of Josquin. The few details we know of his life are
sketchy at best and even those can be called into question. Fallows, the author of Josquin,
encountered this problem when looking at historical documents in which even Josquin’s name
was ambiguous. He states, “That means that yet again in the story of Josquin’s life there is a lack
of clarity, a document that could refer to one of several musicians named Josquin. The trick is to
resist building too much on it…”3. One wonders exactly what trick he used to “not build on it”.
Does ‘it’ refer to the glaring lack of clarity as to the identity of this particular Josquin? If so, why
would Fallows feel the need to fudge historical accuracy in the name of continuity? This
statement gives one the feeling that Fallows is uncomfortable with the idea of not knowing
exactly who Josquin was, and after seeing just how little information there is about him, he
resists the temptation to discover why that is so. He does this again when discussing the end of
Josquin’s life, specifically whether or not he met with Charles the V, the Holy Roman Emperor,
shortly before his coronation. While there is no real evidence that points to an actual meeting
between the two, he would prefer that there was, because the coronation was a major historical
event, and because “it would please [him] to think that the two…met”4. In that respect, the
aforementioned modern historians are not that different from Josquin’s contemporaries, who
“told and retold anecdotes about [Josquin] that are demonstrably untrue in every verifiable
detail…Unless more evidence of a matter-of-fact nature were to come to light, we might never
be able to disentangle truth from fiction entirely”5. Both Fallows and Wegman assert that
Josquin’s contemporaries cannot be fully counted on to provide accurate depictions of the man,
but in some respects, they perpetuate the myth that surrounds him.
JOSQUIN THE GENIUS…OR NOT.
The chanson, Mille regretz, does bear several marks of genius. Whether or not that
manifestation of genius came from the mind of Josquin remains dubious. Firstly, there is a
motivic idea inherent in the piece, the descending five-note scale, from A to D. This is ‘Josquin’s’
calling card. This is why he is called “the Beethoven of the Renaissance”, because of his
proclivity for motivic writing. ‘His’ tetrachord motif opens the chanson, stating it’s “thousand
regrets” in the topmost melodic line6. It appears again as a descending hexachord in the same
line, on the phrase, et deslonger vostre fache amoureuse, but the line feels incomplete without
the D, which does not return in the topmost line until the last phrase, qu’on me verra brief mes
jours definer, and even then, the second half restates the opening motif, which descends from A
to E, not D. The lack of resolution does double duty as an expression of the lack of resolution to
the singer’s inner conflict, the abandonment of his beloved, as well as a way to emphasize the
Phrygian mode of the chanson. The Phrygian mode was the mode of lamentation, which may
3
Fallows, Josquin (Ann Arbor: Brepols, 2009) 341.
4
ibid, 342.
5
Wegman, Who is Josquin? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 22.
6
J. Peter Burkholder and Claude V. Palisca. Norton Anthology of Wester Music Volume I: Ancient to Baroque (New York: W.W.
Norton and Company, 2010), 227.

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have been the beginnings of our association of E minor sonorities with grief. Furthermore, I
believe the almost obsessive repetition of the descending melodic line could be the beginning of
the association of the descending line and death. In later years, this descending line becomes
chromatic, as in Purcell’s When I am laid in earth, but the idea is the same. The repetition is
rhetorical in nature, going through the grief over and over until there is no strength left. The
Beethovenian sense of The Inevitable is also present in this music—the melodic lines never go
up and remain there, they always come back down eventually, because they must.
In spite all of the stylistic indications that this piece could in fact be by Josquin, there is
one particularly damning quote that irrevocably nullifies the truth-value of the above stylistic
assessment. Wegman says of Josquin’s contemporaries:
“They appropriated his music enthusiastically,made it their own…they reinterpreted his compositions,
omitting or adding voice-parts, changing rhythmic or melodic details, re-texting, rearranging, and revising
them. They copied and printed alarming numbers of other works under his name, and many of his under
those of others,or no name at all” (Wegman, 21).
With that information, there is virtually no way to authenticate any ‘Josquin’ piece, short
of a signed manuscript in the composer’s own hand. Any stylistic evidence of a proper
attribution to Josquin is completely undermined by rampant edits, omissions, and improper
attributions. In short, the cloud of misinformation sheds too much doubt on what little
information we have, weakening the case for Josquin’s authorship. Any support there may have
been is immediately called into question by the very real possibility that even if Mille regretz
were in Josquin’s own hand, it may have been edited, re-voiced, and re-texted beyond
recognition. It may have even begun as one of “his” less inspired pieces, peppered with
“harmonic crudities, lack or clarity and consistency, crudities of part-writing and dissonance
treatment” and “lack of structure”7.
In addition to a crumbling body of musical evidence, there are the anecdotes from the
Italian court to consider. Apocryphal or not, they demonstrate a disturbing truth of the day, that
the force of opinion was powerful enough to suppress the truth. Truth in this particular case
would be Josquin’s authorship of Mille regretz, or lack thereof8. This makes one less inclined
than ever to believe that Mille regretz was in fact “by Josquin”. It could be by anyone, and
considering the general response to the revelation that a piece was not by Josquin—nothing short
of a denunciation of the composer, it would make sense that some highly skilled nobody wrote a
piece that was indistinguishable from Josquin’s and simply kept mum about its true origins in
order to retain favor. This theory is further solidified when one considers the case of Verbonnet,
who sent along a piece that was allegedly one of Josquin’s, which would ensure a good reception
at the court of the Duke Ercole d’Este9. Wegman’s theoretical extension of Verbonnet’s tactic to
less aboveboard musicians is not a stretch, especially given the mercurial tastes of courtiers
7
Wegman, Who is Josquin?, 33
8
ibid, 25
9
ibid, 26

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coupled with the assurance that the mention of Josquin’s name would withstand their fickle
musical opinions, in spite of the quality of the music in and of itself.
THE EFFECT OF ANONYMITY ON THE 21ST-CENTURY LISTENER
I am not entire sure if my perception of the piece would be very different if it were
anonymous. I do not know enough about Josquin to expect greatness whenever I hear someone
introduce a song as being “by Josquin”. I merely recognize that he was a famous composer, that I
have heard a few of “his” pieces before, and that they were decent. I do not believe that my
reaction would be quite as extreme as those of the Italian courtiers. I do believe, however, that
the piece would not be as memorable if it were anonymously written. Since I know that it is “by
Josquin”, I am more likely to remember the piece, or at least the title, because I have associated a
sound with a name. Were it anonymous, I may have considered it for a time and soon forgotten it.
A GLIMMER OF HOPE: AVE MARIA…VIRGO SERENA
As skeptical as I am about Mille regretz, listening to Ave Maria and following along with
the score gives me a better idea of why others argue that Josquin composed both of these pieces.
Ave Maria…virgo serena is filled with motivic repetition. The first line is repeated in every part,
with the exact same rhythms, note-for note. The rest of the piece is also highly imitative, but
higher priority is given to common pitches than rhythmic motifs. Looking at the chanson and the
motet with a comparative lens, I can see stylistic maturity from Ave Maria, to Mille regretz.
Josquin’s calling cards are still there—the motifs are apparent, the imitation is easy to follow, but
the melodic interplay between voices is much more complex in Mille regretz. This could also be
because it is not a sacred piece. In Ave Maria, Josquin wanted to invoke feelings of reverence for
the divine, and so he kept the complicated polyphony to a minimum. Were I to accept that
Josquin wrote Mille regretz, I would say that his style has matured by the time it was written. I
still stand by my assertion that it is not actually “by Josquin”, but I will concede that a
comparison to Ave Maria allows for some plausible comparisons to be made.