JOSQ^UIN. 



ting, who vvas not only charmed with the mufic, but felt printing. And thefe very curious compofitions muft have 



the force of the words fo etreftually, that he foon after been ftudied, and frequently rehearfcd, before their perform- 



granted his petition, by conferring on him the promifed pre- ance ; for though no rapidity of execution is required, yet, 



ferment : for which aCt of ju!liceand niunilicence, Jofquin, as there are no bars, and t!ie value of the notes is freejutntly 



with equal fehcity, comrofcd, as a hymn of gratitude, an- changed by pofition, as well as by the modal iigns, upon very 



part of the fame Pfalm: "Bonitatcm feciiti cum fervo fliort notice, this, joined to the difficult iolution of the 



slh, 



tuo, Dominc," '« Oh Lord, thou liall dealt gracioufly with canons, muft have made it impoffible for them to have been 

 thyfervant." fung at fight, even by thofe who were accuilomed to the 



Jofquin feems to have been pofleiTed of a certain vein of notation. 

 Avit and liumour, as well as mulical genius ; of which Gla- Specimens of thefe compofitions in fcore may be feen in 

 reanus has given his readers feveral inllances, bcfides thofe Burney's Hiilory of Mufic, vol. ii., and whoever examines 

 jult related. In confequence of the long procrailination of tliem will find that no notes have had admiffion by chance, 

 the performance of Lewis Xllthspromife relative to the be- or for the fake oi rempllfage, but that, like the prints of 

 nefice, Jofquin applied to a nobleman, in high favour at Hogarth, every thing not only contributes to the principal 

 court, to ufe his intcreft with this prince in his behiilf, who, defign and harmony of the whole, but has a fpccific ciiarac- 

 encouraging his hopes witli proteftations of zeal for his fer- ter of its own. 



vice, conftantly ended with faying, " I ihall take care of this But Jofqr.in's mafTes, though more frt quently cited and 

 bufinefs, hi me alone''' — Lmjfc faire moi {laijfer met faire), celebrated by mufical writers than thofe of any other author, 

 when, at length, Jofquin, tired of this vain and fruitlefs af- and indeed than any of his other works^ feem inferior 

 furance, turned it into folmifation, and compofed an entire to his motets in every refpeCf ; for thefe are not only com- 

 mafs on thefe fyllables of the hexachords La fol fa re mi ; pofed on fubjefts of his own invention, or in fragm'ciits of 

 which mafs is among the produftions of our author in the the moft beautiful and ioleinn chants of the church, but in 

 Britifh Muleum, and is an admirable compofition. a flyle n.ore clear and pleafiiig. 



The following circumilancc, which likewife happened In the third and fourth colleftion of motets publifhed 

 during Jofquin's refidence at the court of France, has been at the beginning of the fixteenth century, under the title of 

 recorded both by Glareanus and Merfennus. Thefe writers " Motteti della Corona," there arc many by Jofquin, which 

 inform us, that Lewis, though mufic afforded him great are truly admirable, particularly a miferere for five voices, 

 pleafure, had fo weak and intlesible a voice, that he never which, as it confifts of three movements, is too long to ba 

 was able to fing a tune, and that he defied his maeRro di cap- infcrted in a work of this kind, but appears to u» a model 

 peila to compofe a piece of mufic in which it was pofTlble of choral compofition, without iiillrumpnts ; as the fubjefts 

 for him to bear a part. However the mulician accepted the of fugue and imitation are fimple, and free from fecular le- 

 challenge, and compofed a canon for two voices, to which vity ; the llyle is grave and reverential ; the harmony pure ;. 

 he added two other parts, one of which had nothing more to the imitations are ingenious, and all conllruded upon a frag- 

 do than to fullain a fingle found, and the other only the key ment of canto fermo, to wliich the fecond tenor is whoky 

 note, and its fifth, to be fung alternately. Jofquin gave his confined : repeating it, in the firft part, a note lower every 

 majefty the choice of thefe two parts, and beginning with time, beginnmg at the fifth of the key, and defcending to 

 the long note, after fome time, his royal fcholar was enabled its odave ; in the fecond part, afccnding in the fame manner ; 

 to continue it, as a drone to the canon, in defpite of nature, in the third part, beginning at the fifth, and defcending to 

 which had never intended him for a finger. the key note. 



Rabelais, in his prologue to the third book of Pantagrucl, This fpecies of laboured compofition has been frequent- 

 places Jofquin desPrez at the head of all the fifty-nine >/o)ru/x ly ccnfured, and ftigmatized by the name of pedantry 



and Gothic bnrbarifm, which, perhaps, it would now de- 

 ferve, out of the church ; but in the time of Joiquin, whei» 

 there was little melody, and no grace in the arrangement, or 

 meafure of fingle notes ; the fcience of harmony, or inge- 

 nuity of contrivance in the combination of fimultancous 

 founds, or mufic in parts, as it was the chief employment of 

 the iludcnt, and ambition of the compo!er, fo the merit of 



Mujidnes whom he had formerly heard. Jofquin, among mu- 

 ficians, was the giant of his time, and feems to have arrived 

 at univerfal monarchy and dominion over the affeftions and 

 paffions of the mufical part of mankind. Indeed his compo- 

 fitions feem to have been as well known and as much prac- 

 tifed throughout Europe, at the beginning of the l6th cen- 

 tury, as Handel's were in England lixty years ago. 



In the mufic book of prince Henry, afterwards Henry both, and the degree of regard bellowed upon them by pof- 



VIII., which is preferved in the Pepys' coUcrtion, at teritv, fiiould be proportioned to their fuccefs, in what was 



Cambridge, there are feveral of his compofitions, and we are their chief object, and not in what had no exilltnce at the 



told that Anne of Boleyn, during her refidence in France, time in which thefe muficians hved. 



had coUefted and learned a great number of them. In a With refpeft to fome of Jofquin's contrivances, fuch as 



very beautiful MS. m the Britilh Mufeum, confining of augmentations, diminutions, and inverfions of the melody, ex - 



French fongs of the ijth century, in three and four parts, preflcd by the barbarous Latin verb cancrhare, from tho 



there are hkewife many of Jofquin's compofitions. But the retrograde motion of the rr«i, they were certainly purfued 



moft capital collection of his works, and of contemporary to an exccfs ; but to fubJue difficulties has ever been etlcem- 



contrapuntiils which we believe is now fubfifting, is in the ed a merit of a certain kind, in all the arts, and ti-eate<! with 



Britilh Mufeum, confuting of the firft and third fet of the refpect by artills. Michael Angelo, in delineating the dif- 



mafies of Jofquin, compofed forthe pope's chapel, during the ficult attitudes into which he chofe to throw many figures in 



pontificate of Sixtus IV., who reigned froi.i 1471 to 1484; his works, and which other artills had not courage, or per- 



witlVnialfcs by Pierre de la Rue, Ant. Fevin, John Moreton, haps abilities to attempt, procured himfelf a great name 



<cc. among the judges of corredt drawing, and bold defign ; 



All thefe were printed by Ottavio Petruccio da Foffom- though a great part of the fpedtator's pleafure in viewing 



brone, under a patent from Leo X. fignedby cardinal Bern- them muft arife from refieiSing on the difSciilty of the under- 



bo, his Iccretary. Thefe mafTes were the firft mufical pro- taking. There are different roads to the temple of Fame 111 



tuitions that iffucd from the prcfs after the invention of every art ; and that which was followed by Jofquin, and hia 



3 D 2 emulatoit, 



