Editing Josquin des Prez (section)

=== Motets ===
[[File:Ave Maria... Virgo serena.png|thumb|upright=2.2|The opening passage from Josquin's motet ''[[Ave Maria ... Virgo serena]]'', showing imitative counterpoint between the four voices]]

Josquin's motets are his most celebrated and influential works.{{sfn|Milsom|2011|loc=§ para. 5}} Their style varies considerably, but can generally be divided into [[Homophony|homophonic]] settings with [[block chord]]s and syllabic text declamation; ornate—and often imitative—contrapuntal fantasias in which the text is overshadowed by music; and [[psalm]] settings which combined these extremes with the addition of rhetorical figures and [[Word painting|text-painting]] that foreshadowed the later development of the [[madrigal]].{{sfn|Milsom|2011|loc=§ para. 5}}{{sfn|Finscher|2000|p=251}} He wrote most of them for four voices, which had become the compositional norm by the mid-15th century, and descended from the four-part writing of [[Guillaume de Machaut]] and [[John Dunstaple]] in the late Middle Ages.{{sfn|Finscher|2000|p=249}} Josquin was also a considerable innovator in writing motets for five and six voices.{{sfn|Milsom|2000|p=282}}

Many of the motets use compositional constraint on the process;{{sfn|Milsom|2000|p=284}} others are freely composed.{{sfn|Macey|Noble|Dean|Reese|2011|loc=§11 "Motets"}} Some use a ''cantus firmus'' as a unifying device, some are canonic, others use a motto which repeats throughout, and some use several of these methods. In some motets which use canon, it is designed to be heard and appreciated as such; in others a canon is present, but difficult to hear.{{sfn|Milsom|2000|p=290}} Josquin frequently used imitation in writing his motets, with sections akin to [[Fugue|fugal]] [[Exposition (music)|expositions]] occurring on successive lines of the text he was setting.{{sfn|Macey|Noble|Dean|Reese|2011|loc=§11 "Motets"}} This is prominent in his motet ''Ave Maria ... Virgo serena'', an early work where each voice enters by restating the line sung before it.{{sfn|Macey|Noble|Dean|Reese|2011|loc=§11 "Motets"}}{{refn|name=Ave|group=n}} Other early works such as a ''Alma Redemptoris mater/Ave regina caelorum'' show prominent imitation,{{sfn|Macey|Noble|Dean|Reese|2011|loc=§11 "Motets"}} as do later ones such as his setting of ''Dominus regnavit'' ([[Psalm 93]]) for four voices.{{sfn|Reese|1954|p=249}} Josquin favored the technique throughout his career.{{sfn|Macey|Noble|Dean|Reese|2011|loc=§11 "Motets"}}

Few composers before Josquin had written polyphonic psalm settings,{{sfn|Reese|1954|p=246}} and these form a large proportion of his later motets.{{sfn|Macey|Noble|Dean|Reese|2011|loc=§11 "Motets"}} Josquin's settings include the famous ''Miserere'' ([[Psalm 51]]); ''Memor esto verbi tui'', based on [[Psalm 119]]; and two settings of ''De profundis'' ([[Psalm 130]]), which are often considered to be among his most significant accomplishments.{{sfn|Reese|1954|p=249}}{{sfn|Milsom|2000|p=305}} Josquin wrote several examples of a new type of piece developed in Milan, the [[motet-chanson]].{{sfn|Litterick|2000|p=336}} Though similar to 15th-century works based on the ''formes fixes'' mold which were completely secular, Josquin's motet-chansons contained a [[Gregorian chant|chant]]-derived Latin ''cantus firmus'' in the lowest of the three voices.{{sfn|Litterick|2000|p=336}} The other voices sang a secular French text, which had either a symbolic relationship to the sacred Latin text, or commented on it.{{sfn|Litterick|2000|p=336}} Josquin's three known motet-chansons are ''Que vous madame/In pace'', ''A la mort/Monstra te esse matrem'' and ''Fortune destrange plummaige/Pauper sum ego''.{{sfn|Litterick|2000|p=336}}