27u8nYgqM

Chapter 1 11
which the composer was free to deviate from one mode to another, shifting to
unusual modulations following the content of the text 48 Furthermore, Taisnier
rejected his contemporaries' notational practices that favoured the adoption of
notes of small value (such as semiminims) in passages of counterpoint or
embellishment, 49 and, regarding metrical arrangement, he denounced the shift
from triple to duple metre and back. Taisnier was also against the use of figures
such as the fugue (ad fugam) and all sorts of imitation employed to depict the
meaning of the text. 50 Additionally, he repudiated the mixture of imitative with
chordal passages (e. g. faux bourdon)51 that broke the flow of the texture, and
objected to sudden metrical and tempo changes, particularly those involving
declamatory-style sections of motets. 52
The theoretical basis of Renaissance text-painting can be first identified in
the musical writings of the generation of Josquin, by which time the works of
Cicero and Quintilian had already been published. A good example is Josquin's
motet with the title Ave Maria, virgo serena, in which rhythms and melodic
phrases are subordinate to the affective setting of the words. 53 Josquin represented
"[... ] a classical moment in the music of the sixteenth century [... ]", 54 and his
influential role regarding the interactions between words and notes was
acknowledged by later theorists such as Coclico, Glarean, and Finck. Glarean in
particular, in his Dodekachordon (1547), praised Josquin for his ability to fit
verba to res and stressed that
[... ] where his matter requires it, [he] now advances with impetuous
and precipitate notes, now intones his subject in long-drawn tones,
and, [... ] has brought forth nothing that was not delightful to the ear
and approved as ingenious by the learned, nothing, in short, that was
a8 Palisca, 'A Clarification of "Musica Reservata"', p. 141.
49 Palisca, ' Ut Oratoria Musica', p. 39.
so The sense of chase or flee which is actually implied by the literal meaning of the word fuga
comprehends all types of imitation: metalepsis, hypallage, apocope (for the definition offuga, see
Bartel, pp. 277-90).
s1 Faux bourdon, or catachresis, or simul procedentia, a figure defined by Bartel as "a musical
passage characterized by successive sixth-chord progressions" (Bartel, p. 271).
2" See Palisca (`A Clarification of "Musica Reservata"", pp. 142-43), who cites a musical example
by Lasso.
S3 Wilson, Buelow, and Hoyt, p. 261.
sa Palisca, 'Ut Oratoria Musica', p. 41.