The notable and long-lived popularity of the ostinato technique among Spanish composers of the Golden Age may itself be traced to the influence of Josquin, and most importantly perhaps to Josquin’s five-voice setting of the Marian antiphon Salve regina. The fame of this work in sixteenth-century Spain is exemplified by its being given pride of place in a book of music for the Marian ‘Salve’ services at Seville Cathedral compiled in 1550, preceding settings by such composers as Morales and Guerrero. Josquin’s motet is a tour de force of skilful imitative counterpoint, while also incorporating the famous ‘Salve regina’ chant in two distinct ways: the whole chant melody is presented in decorated form in the topmost voice, and its opening four-note motive (setting the first word, ‘Salve’) appears as an ostinato in the second voice from the top, alternating between two pitch-levels. It hence serves—as the ‘gaudeamus’ motto does in Morales’s Jubilate Deo and Victoria’s Missa Gaudeamus—as a powerful unifying element. But rather than simply ensuring unity through the device, Josquin tellingly manipulates its relationships to the free voices, so that it sometimes functions as a subtle background force steering the harmony or leading the music to cadence points, while at other moments it is spotlighted for expressive effect, as for example at the beginning of the final part of the motet, ‘Et Jesum benedictum’.

from notes by Owen Rees © 2020