MUSICAL LAMENTS FOR KING PHILIP OF CASTILE AND HIS MUSICIAN ALEXANDER AGRICOLA

Abstract

The subjects of this paper are two anonymous musical laments on the deaths in Spain of the young Philip I of Castile and of his chapel musician Alexander Agricola, deaths that occurred within weeks of each other in the late summer of 1506, a little over a year after their departure from Flanders and arrival in Spain on a state visit. Both laments, preserved in single sources dating from much later than the events they commemorate, have attracted attention primarily to their texts, which are of considerable biographical significance, but anomalies in their musical settings have discouraged study of the music. It is to the problems these raise that I wish to direct attention in the present paper. When Queen Isabella died in 1504, the crown of Castile passed to her daughter, Juana, and the latter's consort, Philip the Fair, son of the emperor Maximilian. In January 1505, in order to secure recognition of their succession by King Ferdinand and the Castilian nobility, the royal couple set forth from Flanders for Spain with their courts, including the entire Burgundian-Netherlands court chapel, numbering some twenty singers, among them such luminaries as Alexander Agricola, Antoine Divitis, Marbriano de Orto, Pierre de la Rue, and the organist Henry Bredemers. By then Juana had begun to display the emotional instability that would cause her to be known to posterity as ?Juana la Loca? (Juana the Mad), and fate would soon prove unkind not only to her but to the entire royal party. Shortly after embarkation the flotilla encountered a fierce storm off the Cornish coast, forcing it to take refuge in England. Landfall was accomplished with difficulty; two ships were lost and two of the singers