'Music, why do you weep?' A lament for Alexander Agricola (d.1506)

Abstract

Alexander Agricola died in Spain in 1506 in the service of Philip the Fair, King of Castile. Somebody composed for him a short, four-voice lament, Musica, quid defles?, which has been preserved uniquely in a much later collection of motets, Georg Rhau's Symphoniae jucundae of 1538. This article explores the idea that the lament might have been composed by a Spanish composer such as Juan de Anchieta who had served alongside Agricola in the last year of his life. The musical structure and idiom suggest this possibility, and the text may also have been penned by a member of the Castilian court, whether the composer himself or a figure such as Diego Ramirez de Villaescusa, head chaplain to Juana ‘the Mad‘, who published a set of four dialogues on the death of Juana's brother Juan in 1497. This Latin epitaph in dialogue form would certainly not be out of place in the tradition established in the Spanish kingdoms for elegies and other funerary and commemorative pieces, in both Latin and the vernacular, written—and sung—for important figures in the late 15th century. A musical setting of such a piece in Latin by a Spanish composer would appear to have been more unusual at this period; possibly Anchieta, if indeed the piece was by him, was thus contributing a special homage to his colleague in the Burgundian chapel.