comments below posted by: micrologus2
July 16, 2009
Alexander Agricola (1446-1506) was one of the leading
composers of the Josquin generation. The illegitimate son of a wealthy Ghent
businesswoman, his career led him to most of the countries of Western
Europe. Alexander's surname was apparently Ackerman, but he is called
Agricola in most sources. Despite ample documentary evidence of his mother's
activities, the first concrete reference to Alexander as a musician is from
Cambrai in 1476. He must have found employment later at the French royal
court, since the next concrete reference is to him leaving there without
permission to go to Italy in 1491. He returned to France the next year, and
was subsequently presented with an employment opportunity at Naples for half
again as much salary as Josquin demanded of Ferrara. That appointment
disappeared with the death of Ferrante I (1494), but Agricola went to Italy
anyway. By 1500, he returned to his native Burgundy, and accepted a court
appointment there. He traveled to Spain twice with Philip the Fair, and died
in Valladolid of a fever in 1506. An epitaph states that he was 60 at the
time, but there is reason to believe that he may have been as much as 10
years younger.
Agricola's music was first transmitted in quantity in the
1490s. His most characteristic works are his songs and secular instrumental
pieces, with over 80 surviving. They are overwhelmingly in three parts, and
frequently quote songs by other composers, often in oblique fashion.
Agricola's series of instrumental variations on De tous biens plaine is a
particularly conspicuous example of his flair for variety and ornamental
figuration. Most of Agricola's motets, of which he wrote over two dozen, are
in a compact and straightforward style. The succinct three-voice Si dedero
was the most-copied work of its generation, as well as a popular model for
other settings.
Agricola's stature was consummated with Petrucci's publication of a
dedicated volume of his masses in 1504, and it is in his eight mass cycles
that Agricola's unusual sense for counterpoint shows most clearly. His Missa
In minen sin is one of the largest cycles of the era, a virtual encyclopedia
of motivic variation. Agricola did not show the concern for text championed
by Josquin, nor the feel for open textures pioneered by Obrecht. His
counterpoint is extremely dense, with a fantastical feeling developing upon
the "irrationality" of Ockeghem's designs. Agricola's larger settings are
consequently some of the most intricate and inventive of the era, combining
an abundance of contrapuntal ideas with a seemingly intentional
arbitrariness into a web of shifting musical connections.
avemariasongs.org
