Josquin des Près had many pupils, and among them were many who became famous. Clement Janequin, or Jannequin, is one of the best known from his music, and least known from the facts of his life. Most of his works are of a secular nature and are original and amusing, and so perfect that some people thought him as good as his popular teacher. He was one of the first serious composers to imitate the sounds of Nature in music!
One of his famous madrigals is the Chant des Oiseaux (Song of the Birds) in which he tries to represent the sounds of birds of all kinds. In the middle of the piece is heard the hoot of an owl; the birds get together and chase away the poor hated owl, calling him a traitor, then all is quiet again. Another of his pieces is named The Cackle of Women! Another famous one still frequently sung is the Battle of Marignan (1515), a lively piece in varied rhythm, which was one of the most popular army songs of the 16th century. The words and music imitate, first the tools of war, then the noise of the cannons and the crackling of the guns, the joy of victory for the French, and the retreat of the Swiss.
Another eminent pupil of Josquin des Près was Nicolas Gombert, of Bruges. Like Jannequin, he was a Nature lover, and many of his madrigals imitate its sounds. Secular music was now popular, and his works show that a composer was allowed to give expression to his feelings and ideas, for the prejudices of the earlier church music had disappeared.
Jean Mouton, a native of Metz, was in the chapel of Louis XII and of François I, King of France. His style was like his master’s and some of his works were supposed to have been composed by Josquin.
Willaert Founds the Venetian School
Willaert was a pupil of both Josquin and Mouton. He was chapel master at St. Mark’s in Venice, and was so famous as a teacher that he attracted many good musicians, and became the founder of the famous Venetian school of composers. He wrote many madrigals, some of them on verses of Petrarch, the Italian poet. This work was accomplished after he was sixty years old!
Willaert was the first organist to use two and sometimes three choirs, each singing in four parts. Sometimes they sang in combination and sometimes answered each other antiphonally. According to Clarence G. Hamilton in his book Outlines of Music History, the idea of these choirs was probably suggested to Willaert because there were in St. Mark’s two very fine organs. In this you see the influence instruments have on the growth of musical compositions.
Willaert made use too, of the idea that the different parts could be sounded together to form chords, instead of individual melodies as was the case in poly-melody (polyphony or in the contrapuntal style). This was a new idea, for up to this time the musicians had been writing horizontal music, the melodic line looking something like this:
Willaert’s idea, which probably came from folk-song and from some of the hymns that Luther created, was colonnade-like (see Chapter VII) or perpendicular music, which we might illustrate like this: