El Grillo (song)

El Grillo (The Cricket) is a frottola by Josquin des Prez. Possibly written in the late 15th to early 16th century, it is regarded as one of Josquin's most popular works.

El Grillo
Frottola by Josquin des Prez
English	The Cricket
Written	c. 1490s
Language	Italian
Published	1505
Scoring	Four voices

History

Published in the early sixteenth century,^[1] El Grillo is attributed to an "Iosquin Dascanio", traditionally identified as Franco-Flemish composer Josquin des Prez. Several scholars have posited that Josquin wrote the song to either honour or make fun of his colleague at the House of Sforza, an Italian court singer named Carlo Grillo.^[2] This would have to have been no earlier than the 1490s.^[3] The Frottole libro tertio, published by Ottaviano Petrucci in 1505, is the only contemporaneous source of El Grillo. It received considerably little attention from modern musicologists until 1931, when it was included in Geschichte der Musik in Beispielen by Arnold Schering.^[4]

Analysis

The song is scored for four voices.^[5] Written from a third-person perspective,^[6] El Grillo concerns the cricket.^[7] The opening section is about the cricket's lengthy song, while the second one compares crickets and songbirds. The song concludes by suggesting that crickets may be better singers than songbirds, particularly because they sing all the time.^[7] At the hottest part of the day, when even the birds are silent, only the cricket continues to sing, for love. And this makes him the better singer, for in matters of love, perseverance is worth more than fancy talking. ^[8]

The song contains both homophony and onomatopoeia,^[9] with its rhythm mimicking a cricket's mannerisms.^[10] Notice that in popular Italian, the word 'grillo' has a second meaning : the male sexual organ in erection.^[8] Since the cigala's -those big crickets which live in trees- seem to be referred to (see below for further details), it will be easy to also imagine the more 'piquant' meaning of the song.

Uncharacteristically for a frottola, the ripresa of the poetic lines mostly have seven syllables, whereas the piedi and volta have eight.^[11] According to musicologist Jaap van Benthem, the number of notes in the ripresa (88) spells "Des Prez" in gematria, while the 99 notes in the volta spell "Josquin".^[12]

Legacy

El Grillo is considered one of Josquin's most popular works.^[5][13][14] Willem Elders calls it "one of the most brilliant songs of the late fifteenth century",^[15] while Richard Sherr describes it as a "delightful jokey little piece."^[16] Henry Vyverberg writes that it "represents the frottola at its most attractive."^[17]

Lyrics

The following text is from the original Petrucci edition.

Renaissance Italian (original)	Modern Italian translation	English translation
El grillo è buon cantore Che tiene longo verso Dalle beve, grillo canta Ma non fa come gli altri uccelli Come li han cantato un poco Van de fatto in altro loco Sempre el grillo sta pur saldo Quando la maggior el caldo Alhor canta sol per amore	Il grillo è un bravo cantante Che tiene un lungo verso Beve e poi canta, il grillo Ma non fa come gli altri uccelli Che dopo aver cantato un po' Vanno via in un altro posto Il grillo invece rimane fermo Quando fa più caldo Allora canta solo per amore	The cricket is a good singer Who can hold long notes After drinking, the cricket sings But he doesn't do like the other birds Once they've sung a little bit They go somewhere else The cricket instead stands firm When it's very hot out He sings only for the love of it

Hund ^[18] argues that this translation is based on a major editorial mistake in Petrucci's unique edition of the song, which considerably affects the understanding of the poem. The word 'beve' (drink) does not make any sense: crickets generally do not drink: they quench their thirst by sucking the juices out of plant material.^[7] It is more likely that the word 'breve' was intended. Petrucci's typesetter probably forgot to insert the common abbreviation-sign of the letter r.^[7] Understood as breve, the song talks about de contrast between the endless 'song' of the cricket and the short notes he sings it with. This is also shown in the music. First, in the Superius and Bassus: a dotted Longa followed by a Longa-with fermata, then in all voices a series of short notes, starting at the breves. ^[7]

El grillo è buon cantore                  The cricket is a good singer

Che tiene longo verso                    He holds his song the time of the Longa

Dalle breve grillo canta                  (But) sings it from the Breves

A full translation of this version of the poem is given in Hund’s edition on www.cpdl.org Its score is based on the New Josquin Edition, vol. 28,12.

The lyrics notably refer to the cricket as a "bird", while it is actually an insect. This can be explained by different factors, including the poetic liberty of the artist, emphasizing the melodious and captivating nature of the cricket, or limitations of the time, such as a lack of scientific knowledge or a colloquial understanding in which the word "bird" was used more broadly to describe creatures that sang or produced musical sounds, such as crickets.

According to Hund a different explanation is possible: the poet probably had in mind these big, noisy crickets, the cigala's, which live in the Mediterranean regions. Like birds they house in trees, but contrary to them don't move an inch all day (sta pur saldo). They 'sing' on and on to allure a female to mate. The joyous ternary rhythm of this section symbolises the contrast between the cricket's monotonous scraping and the melodious birdsong. There is another serious editorial mistake in this part of Petrucci's original -one semibreve too many in all four voices-, resulting in an awkward and unsatisfactory transition from binary to ternary rhythm. If taken out, the transition will be smooth and regular, which is more in line with the simple structure of the Frottola.^[18]