Jacob Arcadelt
Jacob Arcadelt (also “Jaques”) was a major composer of the generation after Josquin Desprez. It is possible he was a student of Josquin, being age 17 when the master died at Condé-sur-l’Escaut in 1521. Like so many of his countrymen, Arcadelt, headed for the Mediterranean as a young man and there are various clues that he was in Florence c. 1530. Despite our offering of sections from one of his three Masses, it was in secular music, both in the French chanson and the Italian madrigal, that this Franco-Flemish musician excelled. He, with Verdelot and Costanzo Festa, practically invented the madrigal. Beginning in 1539 beautiful examples of this new form appeared in Arcadelt’s printed collections until six books of them had been printed in Venice by 1544. More than 200 madrigals by Arcadelt have survived. During his Italian years Arcadelt was also gainfully employed as a singer in the Papal Chapel in Rome, for which he wrote motets, Lamentation sets and possibly the Mass featured here.
Arcadelt was born in Namur in 1507. His early life and training are not known. He is mentioned as a musician in Florence in the late 1520s, but his connection to the hereditary Medici dukes exhibited in “Deh! come trista” must have complicated any association with Verdelot, the Florentine independent. His association with the Papal music establishment began in 1538 and lasted until 1551. Apparently 20 years was enough to be away from his native country, Arcadelt left the Papal Chapel and in 1554 he was in the service of Charles de Guise, of Lorraine in France. He was also a member of the Chapel Royal, serving both Henry II and Charles IX before he retired c. 1562 and died in Paris in 1568.
Deh! come trista
A madrigal lamenting the death of a Florentine dignitary, probably Alessandro dei’ Medici, who, in 1532, became the first hereditary ruler of Florence after its brief existence as a republic in the 1520s. Alessandro was assassinated in 1537. “Deh! come trista” is printed in Arcadelt’s fifth and last book of madrigals of 1544.
Tempo is slow . . . not entirely inappropriate for the elegiac content . . . and it allows the wonderful dissonant harmonies to sound.
Arcadelt: Deh! come trista
Deh, come trista dei esser fiorenza meco;
Poscia ch’el tuo piu bel de gli altri dei
Lasso non e piu teco;
Ond’ io gridando giorno et notte.
Doloroso men vo, fin ch’al ciel piace
Rendermi col mio deo lusata pace.
Missa Noe noe – Kyrie
Arcadelt: Missa Noe noe - Kyrie
Missa Noe noe – Gloria
Arcadelt: Missa Noe noe - Gloria
Missa Noe noe – Sanctus
The ‘Missa Noe noe’ a6 is one of Arcadelt’s three mass settings printed in ‘Missa tres’ (Paris, 1557). It is a parody mass on the Christmas motet, “Noe, noe, psallite”, by Jean Mouton, who was the master of the French Royal Chapel forty years earlier. A modern edition is found in Albert Seay ‘J. Arcadeldt: Opera omnia’ 1965-71.
Arcadelt: Missa Noe noe - Sanctus
Missa Noe noe – Agnus
Arcadelt sets only two section of the Agnus Dei.
Arcadelt: Missa Noe noe - Agnus
Text:
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
dona nobis pacem.
Translation:
Lamb of God, that takest away the sins
of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, that takest away the sins
of the world, grant us Thy peace.
O felic’ occhi
This madrigal a4 is found in the 1539 print of Arcadelt’s madrigals.
Jacob Arcadelt "O felice occhi"
Text:
O felic’ occhi miei, felici voi, che sete car’ al mio sol perche sembianz’ havete de gli occhi che gli fusi dolc’ e rei, voi ben voi sete voi, voi felic’ et io et io, io no, che per quetar vostro desio, corr’ amirar l’onde mi struggo poi.
Eyes, you are lucky—lucky that she holds you dear because you’re like those eyes that were so loving and so cruel. You are lucky, but I am not—to satisfy your desire, you run and look at her; but I dissolve.
- Translation by Nicholas Jones