‘Music, why do you weep?’ A lament for Alexander Agricola (d.1506)
Tess Knighton has been editor of Early music since 1992; she is also the Series Editor for The Boydell Press's Medieval and Renaissance Music series. A Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, she has published widely on various aspects of music and culture in early modern Spain and Portugal and is currently working on a study of music and ceremony at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella. twk1000{at}cam.ac.uk
Alexander Agricola died in Spain in 1506 in the service of Philip the Fair, King of Castile. Somebody composed for him a short, four-voice lament, Musica, quid defles?, which has been preserved uniquely in a much later collection of motets, Georg Rhau's Symphoniae jucundae of 1538. This article explores the idea that the lament might have been composed by a Spanish composer such as Juan de Anchieta who had served alongside Agricola in the last year of his life. The musical structure and idiom suggest this possibility, and the text may also have been penned by a member of the Castilian court, whether the composer himself or a figure such as Diego Ramírez de Villaescusa, head chaplain to Juana ‘the Mad‘, who published a set of four dialogues on the death of Juana's brother Juan in 1497. This Latin epitaph in dialogue form would certainly not be out of place in the tradition established in the Spanish kingdoms for elegies and other funerary and commemorative pieces, in both Latin and the vernacular, written—and sung—for important figures in the late 15th century. A musical setting of such a piece in Latin by a Spanish composer would appear to have been more unusual at this period; possibly Anchieta, if indeed the piece was by him, was thus contributing a special homage to his colleague in the Burgundian chapel.
Key Words: Alexander Agricola • Juan de Anchieta • Georg Rhau • Symphoniae jucundae • Diego Ramírez de Villaescusa • Dialogi quatuor • Juana ‘the Mad’ • Philip the Fair • prince Juan • musical elegies