YEARBOOK OF THE ALAMIRE FOUNDATION

156 PETER BERGQUIST
Example 1. Orlando di Lasso, Dixit Joseph undecim fratribus suis, mm. 42–53 (upper text as in
Thesaurus musicus, 1564; lower text as emended by Lechner in Selectissimae cantiones,
1579; ties with dashed lines appear where Lechner combined two notes into
one).
unnecessary repetition of possit that followed. In altus 1, measures 48–49, Lechner
turned a semibreve and minim into a dotted semibreve and moved the last syllable
of vivere into a better position. Bassus 1 has a similar situation in the measures 45–48,
where Lechner made a dotted minim out of two separate notes and achieved a more
graceful underlay that avoids the awkward extension of the melisma on pos(sit).
The question may arise, was Lechner responsible for all the emendations in the
1579 edition or did he take them from other printed sources that appeared between
1568 and 1579? It is most probable that they are his own work or that he received
them directly from Lasso. With few exceptions, reprints of these thirty-seven motets
within those years appeared mainly in France, and since these publications may not
have circulated widely in Germany, it is unlikely that Lechner saw them. It is true
that Dixit Joseph in Le Roy and Ballard’s 1573 motet book for six, seven, and twelve
voices (RISM 1573b) has essentially the same corrections as in Lechner’s edition. If
Lechner did not in fact have access to RISM 1573b, it would appear either that Lasso’s
friend Adrian Le Roy and Lechner both knew Lasso’s music well enough to arrive
at the same corrections independently, or that Lasso communicated the same corrections
to each of them.