Finishing Josquin's “Unfinished” Mass: A Case of Stylistic Imitation in the Cappella Sistina

Abstract

ABSTRACT In all but one source for Josquin's Missa L'homme armé super voces musicales the Credo mysteriously lacks the text “Et in spiritum … ecclesiam.” A setting of the missing text is found only in a Vatican manuscript (VatS 154) compiled ca. 1550–55 by Johannes Parvus, where it appears in situ as a discrete mass section that incorporates a complete statement of the cantus firmus. Though preserved in a late source, the Et in spiritum is remarkably close in musical style to the remainder of Josquin's mass. An analysis of the Et in spiritum with respect to the rest of the mass indicates that it is probably not by Josquin. Given the close stylistic connections between the two pieces, however, this finding suggests that the Et in spiritum was a papal singer's self-conscious imitation of a mass composed some 60 years earlier. The new mass section is distinctly unlike most 16th-century “uses” of Josquin, which tend to adapt his music to a thoroughly contemporary aesthetic. By contrast, this “completion” of Josquin's mass, informed by a culture of traditionalism in the papal chapel, alerts us to a rare but significant kind of musical borrowing in mid-16th-century Rome.