Missa Pange Lingua, by Josquin de Prez

Missa Pange Lingua is Josquin's greatest achievement in the art of paraphrase in polyphonic music. Set in the ridged structure of a Catholic Mass, Josquin uses the numerous short passages to highlight his variation on a folk theme. This piece took polyphonic music to its limits, and harmony soon evolved among his countrymen as the only option to continue western music's evolution.

Josquin was born in the Netherlands. He received early musical training in the Church, and as soon as it was possible headed for Italy. There he was singer, teacher and composer until his death. Though his music must have been influenced by the culture of Italy, "Josquin, the greatest of the singer-composers of the Milanese register of 1474aCulturally and in every other sense that really matters, he was a Frenchman."

The early 16th century marked the end of the Early Renaissance and the transition into the late Renaissance. Josquin was considered the master of the polyphonic form in which a melody is sung against that same melody four scale steps above or below the original. Polyphonic music was also transitioning into the melody and harmony which we are most familiar with today. The "Netherlands School", which was comprised of Josquin and his cultural countrymen who worked in Italy, were a critical force in this transition.

Missa Pange Lingua is an ordinary Mass of the Roman Catholic Church. The Mass is the central form of worship for C

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as there are cantus-firmus Masses that point in the direction of the parody Mass, there are others in which the cantus-firmus technique leads into highly developed paraphrase writing. In these works the permeation of the polyphonic complex by the cantus firmus is so considerable that, if one did not examine the tenor, one might believe the technique employed to be that of the paraphrase Mass pure and simple. Analysis reveals, however, that, in such works as the Masses Ave maris stella , Gaudeamus , and Da pacem , and in parts of the Missa de Beata Virgine , it is only in the tenor (or its canonic comes) that the pre-existent melody is present in complete form. These four works, by virtue of their style, seem to point the way to the genuine paraphrase Mass that is one of Josquin's greatest masterpieces, the Missa Pange Lingua . Polyphonic music predates our modern system of music notation. Gregorian chant, the oldest known type of music for the Mass, is chanted entirely in unison. Therefore it is important to know the pitch of the note and its relative length and rhythm as compared to the notes around it. However, the exact duration of the note and the meter in which the music is structured is not required and is gene
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Approximate Word count = 1402
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)