YEARBOOK OF THE ALAMIRE FOUNDATION

32 JULIE E. CUMMING
The Mass is a large composition for which the texts Kyrie, Et in terra, Patrem,
Sanctus, and Agnus, and sometimes other parts, are set for singing by several
voices. It is called the office by some.
In the eighth rule of the Liber de arte contrapuncti he associates the use of varietas
with the genre hierarchy: 19
nec tot nec tales varietates uni cantilenae congruunt quot et quales uni
moteti nec tot et tales uni moteti quot et quales uni missae. Omnis itaque
resfacta pro qualitate et quantitate ejus diversificanda est.
… There is not as much variety in a chanson as in a motet, nor is there as
much variety in a motet as in a Mass. Every resfacta, therefore, must be
made diverse according to its quality and quantity.
nor do so many and such varieties enter into one chanson as so many and such in a
motet, nor so many and such in one motet as so many and such in one mass. Every
composed work, therefore, must be diverse in its quality and quantity.
The lowest genre in Tinctoris’s hierarchy is the chanson; it therefore has the least
varietas – and the most repetition. Something very like Josquin-style pervasive imitation
occurs in the chanson before it occurs in sacred music. The chanson is a setting
of a rhyming, scanning poem in a ‘forme fixe’. Each line of text receives a phrase
of music. Imitation at the beginning of a phrase serves to clarify presentation of the
poetic text: it introduces a new line of text, or articulates major sectional divisions.
The music of a chanson in a ‘forme fixe’, especially a rondeau, is also repeated multiple
times in a complete performance. 20 Many chansons of mid-century are imitative
– Ockeghem routinely uses imitation in his chansons (e.g. Ma bouche rit) even
though he avoids or conceals it in his sacred music. 21 The imitation found in the mid-
19 TINCTORIS, Liber de arte contrapuncti, Book 3, ch. 8, p. 155; my translation is followed by Seay’s
more literal translation (TINCTORIS, The Art of Counterpoint, p. 139). The tripartite division of genres
found here and in the dictionary recalls the Rota virgiliana, the medieval division of literature into
Virgil’s three genres, Eclogue or Bucolic (humilis stilus), Georgic (mediocris stilus) and Epic (gravis
stilus). See T. LAWLER ed., The Parisiana Poetria of John of Garland, with introd., transl. and notes,
(Yale Studies in English, 182), New Haven, 1974, figure 3, pp. 40–41 and 86–89. The threefold
hierarchy also recalls the rhetorical division into three styles: grave, mediocre, and adtenuatum. See
GALLAGHER, Models of Varietas, p. 64.
20 This point was brought to my attention by David Fallows.
21 J. OCKEGHEM, Collected Works, 3: Motets and Chansons, ed. R. WEXLER with D. PLAMENAC,
Boston, 1992. Ma bouche rit is on p. 73. Other chansons in the same volume that use imitation, often
after the medial cadence if not at the opening, include Baisiés moy (p. 60), D’un autre amer (p. 61),
Fors seulement l’actente (pp. 62–63), L’autre d’antan (p. 71), and S’elle m’amera/Petite camusete (pp.
88–89).