The Josquin Companion (review)

The Josquin Companion. Edited by Richard Sherr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000 [xxix, 691 p. + 1 CD. ISBN 0-19-816335-5. $150.]

Our understanding of Josquin Desprez—both his life and his works—has undergone such tremendous upheavals in recent years that no aspect of Josquin scholarship can escape the impact of these massive paradigm shifts. With the preparation of the New Josquin Edition (Utrecht: Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1987-) has come a meticulous campaign of source criticism and stylistic analysis that has called into question the authenticity of some of the most beloved compositions ascribed to the master. Moreover, only within the last eight years or so have we discovered or confirmed basic facts about his life, including: his complete name (Josquin LeBloitte dit Desprez); where he was employed ca. 1475-81 (the court of René d'Anjou); and where he was not employed ca. 1459-80 (Milan) and ca. 1484-89 (the Papal Chapel). The identification of a doppelgänger by the name of Judocus de Francia (alias Joschino di Picardia), a singer at both the Milanese Cathedral and the Sforza court, has invited us to revise our composer's assumed date of birth, now widely accepted as ca. 1450 rather than ca. 1440.

In this rapidly changing state of research any project involving Josquin or his music —particularly a long-term and comprehensive one bearing the auctoritas of Oxford University Press—poses daunting challenges. It is precisely under these circumstances that Richard Sherr assembled an impressive roster of scholars to reassess the output of Josquin Desprez. Of the thirteen contributors to The Josquin Companion, few would consider themselves "Josquin scholars." Rather, their research interests address broader questions concerning genre studies, compositional process, cultural trends, and institutional practices. With this, they bring widely ranging experiences and rich musical contexts to the interpretation of Josquin's output.

The Josquin Companion begins with a chronology of Josquin's life and career, first stated in brief and then restated in detail with reference to the specific documents and studies in which they were first revealed or reinterpreted. The final subsection of this chapter, starkly titled "Not Josquin des Prez," lists documents concerning other musicians named Josquin who had previously been confused with our composer. The terseness of this chronology belies the painstaking research leading to these discoveries, and offers no hint of the monumental impact the revised biography will undoubtedly have on Josquin scholarship in the near future.

The lion's share of the book—eleven chapters—consists of descriptive analyses of his output, with each contributor taking one slice of the repertory. Mirroring the taxonomy of the New Josquin Edition, chapters are organized by genre; masses are further sorted according to source material and compositional process, while motets and chansons are each divided according to number of voices. In several "'small mopping up' chapters" (p. v), Sherr addresses compositions that fall between these large generic boundaries: individual mass movements, hymns and Magnificats, Italian-texted works, and secular motets.

These chapters focus primarily on "the music itself." For each composition, contributors offer a comprehensive review of secondary literature ranging from biographical studies, assessments of chronology, debates over authenticity, stylistic analyses, and aesthetic observations, to seemingly tangential studies regarding Josquin's predecessors and contemporaries, regional and institutional practices, cultural contexts, and sources. Although this sometimes results in a bewildering array of lengthy footnotes laden with details, and summaries of often contradictory findings, it bespeaks the deliberate and Herculean effort to gather such scholarship (or citations to it) in one convenient source. Especially helpful are digests of studies that have long provided the foundation for any Josquin research, including Helmuth Osthoff's Josquin Desprez (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1965-67) and numerous other writings that may not be easily accessible. Moreover, although each chapter is a stand-alone entity, all citations reappear in a cumulative bibliography prepared by Peter Urquhart. This is an excellent resource for anyone researching music from the age of Du Fay through the mid-sixteenth century.

Discussions of compositional features are...