Death and Music: Funeral Motets from Dufay to Josquin

Abstract

The study examines a number of motets created between 1464–65 (the presumed date of the creation of the motet “Ave regina caelorum III” by G. Dufay) and 1521 (the death of J. Desprez). The compositions are united by a mourning theme and were written in memory of people who have passed away: rulers, composers, and musicians. The material is analyzed from the point of view of textual and musical components. When analyzing Latin symbolism is presented. Musical analysis includes several parameters: work with borrowed primary sources, mode, and texture. It allows us to identify the commonality of the considered compositions: the use of varieties of cantus firmus technique, characteristic ways of organizing musical texture (fauхbourdon, sound-pictorialism), as well as certain modal scales. On this basis, a conclusion is made about the formed genre type — the mourning motet.

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