El Grillo (song)

El Grillo
Frottola by Josquin des Prez
EnglishThe Cricket
Writtenc. 1490s
LanguageItalian
Published1505
ScoringFour voices

El Grillo (The Cricket) is a frottola by Josquin des Prez. Possibly written in the early 16th century, it is regarded as one of Josquin's most popular works.

History[edit]

Published in the early sixteenth century,[1] El Grillo is attributed to an "Iosquin Dascanio", traditionally identified as French composer Josquin des Prez. Several scholars have posited that Josquin wrote the song to either honour or make fun of his colleague at the House of Sforza, an Italian court singer named Carlo Grillo.[2] This would have to have been no earlier than the 1490s.[3] The Frottole libro tertio, published by Ottaviano Petrucci in 1505, is the only contemporaneous source of El Grillo. It received considerably little attention from modern musicologists until 1931, when it was included in Geschichte der Musik in Beispielen by Arnold Schering.[4]

Analysis[edit]

The song is scored for four voices.[5] Written from a third-person perspective,[6] El Grillo concerns the cricket.[7] The opening section is about the cricket's lengthy song, while the second one compares crickets and songbirds. The song concludes by suggesting that crickets may be better singers than songbirds, particularly because they sing all the time, rain or shine.[7] The song contains both homophony and onomatopoeia,[8] with its rhythm mimicking a cricket's mannerisms.[9] Uncharacteristically for a frottola, the ripresa of the poetic lines mostly have seven syllables, whereas the piedi and volta have eight.[10] According to musicologist Jaap van Benthem, the number of notes in the ripresa (88) spells "Des Prez" in gematria, while the 99 notes in the volta spell "Josquin".[11]

Legacy[edit]

El Grillo is considered one of Josquin's most popular works.[5][12][13] Willem Elders calls it "one of the most brilliant songs of the late fifteenth century",[14] while Richard Sherr describes it as a "delightful jokey little piece."[15] Henry Vyverberg writes that it "represents the frottola at its most attractive."[16]

Lyrics[edit]

There are different versions of the lyrics. The following is one of the most common versions.

Renaissance Italian
(original) 		Modern Italian
translation 		English
translation
El grillo è buon cantore
Che tiene longo verso
Dalle beve, grillo canta
Ma non fa come gli altri uccelli
Come li han cantato un poco
Van de fatto in altro loco
Sempre el grillo sta pur saldo
Quando la maggior el caldo
Alhor canta sol per amore
Il grillo è un bravo cantante
Che tiene un lungo verso
Beve e poi canta, il grillo
Ma non fa come gli altri uccelli
Che dopo aver cantato un po'
Vanno via in un altro posto
Il grillo invece rimane fermo
Quando fa più caldo
Allora canta solo per amore
The cricket is a good singer
Who can hold long notes
After drinking, the cricket sings
But he doesn't do like the other birds
Once they've sung a little bit
They go somewhere else
The cricket instead stands firm
When it's very hot out
He sings only for the love of it

The lyrics notably refer to the cricket as a "bird", while it is actually an insect. This can be explained by different factors, including the poetic liberty of the artist, emphasizing the melodious and captivating nature of the cricket, or limitations of the time, such as a lack of scientific knowledge or a colloquial understanding in which the word "bird" was used more broadly to describe creatures that sang or produced musical sounds, such as crickets.

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ McDonald 2009, p. 52.
  2. ^ McDonald 2009, pp. 39–40.
  3. ^ Macey et al. 2011, §5 "France and Italy (1494–1503)".
  4. ^ Fallows 2003, p. 391.
  5. ^ a b Elders 2021, p. 201.
  6. ^ Hund 2006, p. 9.
  7. ^ a b Hund 2006, p. 10.
  8. ^ McDonald 2009, p. 39.
  9. ^ Trutty-Coohill 2013, p. 88.
  10. ^ Fallows 2003, p. 396.
  11. ^ Fallows 2003, p. 398.
  12. ^ Fallows 2003, p. 390.
  13. ^ Hund 2006, p. 5.
  14. ^ Elders 2021, p. 62.
  15. ^ Sherr 2000, p. 428.
  16. ^ Vyverberg 1988, p. 254.

Works cited[edit]

  • Elders, Willem (2021). Josquin Des Prez and His Musical Legacy: An Introductory Guide. Leuven University Press. ISBN 9789462702851.
  • Fallows, David (2003). "What Happened to "El grillo"". Early Music. 31 (3): 390–399. doi:10.1093/earlyj/XXXI.3.390. JSTOR 3138101.
  • Hund, Marianne (2006). "Fresh Light on Josquin Dascanio's Enigmatic "El Grillo"". Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis. 56 (1): 5–16. JSTOR 20203933.
  • McDonald, Grantley (2009). "Josquin's Musical Cricket: El grillo as Humanist Parody". Acta Musicologica. 81 (1): 39–53. JSTOR 27793371.
  • Macey, Patrick; Noble, Jeremy; Dean, Jeffrey; Reese, Gustave (2011) [2001]. "Josquin (Lebloitte dit) des Prez". Grove Music Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.14497. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membership required)
  • Sherr, Richard (2000). "Three Settings of Italian Texts and Two Secular Motets". The Josquin Companion. Oxford University Press. pp. 423–484. ISBN 9780198163350.
  • Trutty-Coohill, Patricia (2013). "Leonardo's Enchantress". In Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka; M. Kronegger (eds.). The Aesthetics of Enchantment in the Fine Arts. Springer. pp. 85–100. ISBN 9789401732345.
  • Vyverberg, Henry (1988). The Living Tradition: Art, Music, and Ideas in the Western World. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN 9780155511194.
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