I’ve begun teaching Josquin Desprez’s best-known motet, “Ave Maria … virgo serena” to the smaller choir for Lessons and Carols. While making an edition, I started wondering what the historically informed pronunciation of the piece was, especially considering how strangely the text is accentuated in the pitch lengths and contours. Because we so rarely sing Josquin, I hadn’t really investigated what his version of Latin might have sounded like, though I have done similar investigations for all kinds of historical places and times. Sometimes it is helpful to hear Poulenc’s Latin, for instance, as French-accentuated rather than “incorrectly set,” which is what I often hear of his Gloria or Dialogues of the Carmelites.

The above is the edition I made for the choir, which allows four beats per measure and ties off each grouping of notes into those beats of a quarter note in length. I was surprised not to find a particularly easy-to-read edition of this piece with a piano reduction, so I also arranged one of those to speed rehearsal along.

Once that edition was sorted, I began investigating the Latin that this early motet (apparently dated to around 1485) would have been written with in mind.

Harold Copeman’s 1990 out-of-print sourcebook Singing in Latin features some good information on this kind of Latin, which is Franco-Flemish, specifically Picard. This is about as north as Latin naturally traveled in Europe and was heavily influenced by Dutch, as Latin languages go.

Here’s the text:

Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum, virgo serena. Ave cujus conceptio, solemni plena gaudio, cœlestia, terrestria, nova replet lætitia. Ave, cujus nativitas, nostra fuit solemnitas, ut lucifer lux oriens, verum solem præveniens. Ave, pia humilitas, sine viro fecunditas, cuius annunciatio, nostra fuit salvatio. Ave, vera virginitas, immaculata castitas, cuius purificatio nostra fuit purgatio. Ave præclara omnibus, angelicis virtutibus, cujus fuit assumptio nostra glorificatio. O Mater Dei, memento mei. Amen.

Using information in that Copeman book, I put this IPA transcription together:

ɑveː mɑriɑː ɡrɑt͡ʃiɑ plenɑː
dominʏç tekʏ̃m virɡo t͡serenɑː
ɑveː kʏʒʏs kõŋkjɛpzioː t͡sɔlɛ̃mni plenɑː ɡɔdioː
kjelɛçtiaː terɛçtriɑː novɑː rɛpleː letit͡ʃiɑ
ɑveː kʏʒʏs nɑtivitɑːs noçtrɑː fʏit t͡solɛ̃mnitɑːs
ʏ lʏkjifar lʏz oriɛ̃ns verʏ̃m t͡sɔlɛ̃m preveniɛ̃ns
ɑveː piɑː hʏmilitɑːs t͡sineː viroː fekʏ̃nditɑːs
kʏʒʏs ɑ̃nʏ̃nt͡ʃiɑzioː nɔçtrɑː fʏit t͡sɑlvɑzioː
ɑveː verɑː virʒinitɑːs ĩmakʏlɑtɑ kaçtitɑːs 
kʏʒʏs pʏrifikɑzioː noçtrɑː fʏit pʏrɡazioː
ɑveː preklɑrɑː ɔ̃mnibʏs ɑnʒelikjis virtʏtibʏs
kʏʒʏs fʏit əsʏ̃mpzioː noçtrɑː ɡlorifikazioː
o mɑtar deiː memɛ̃ntoː meiː amɛ̃n

Here’s my attempt at the above.

This might be the strangest form of Latin I’ve run into. I haven’t found anyone giving this kind of Latin a go with this piece, but I’m all ears if anyone else has!

This definitely helps me hear why Josquin gently emphasizes the second syllable of “Ave” in the opening, and the other final syllables in the triple section.

Don’t worry; I’ll plan to use Italian Latin with the students. It’s just good to know a bit about his text setting mentality. In all of this, I do want people to think of Josquin not as some abstraction that musicologists secretly discovered at some point, but rather a living, breathing man who lived a long and famous life, becoming the favorite composer of the real living Martin Luther. When we hear his music in his accent, I feel like he comes alive a bit more; it isn’t a museum piece any more, but a real northern French man’s clever putting together of a real text for real people. The Franco-Flemish composers like him and even Dufay, Binchois, Ockeghem, and the rest, formed an influential fad, just like choral music from Latvia and Estonia are becoming more in vogue these days from real people with real choirs.