El Grillo (song)

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El Grillo
Frottola
EnglishThe Cricket
Writtenc.1490s
Language Italian
Published1505
ScoringFour voices

El Grillo (The Cricket) is a frottola attributed to "Iosquin Dascanio," who is almost certainly not to be identified with Josquin des Prez.

Contents

History

The sole surviving sources of [1] El Grillo are the Frottole libro tertio published by Ottaviano Petrucci in 1505 and its 1507 reprint. The piece received considerably little attention from modern musicologists until 1931, when it was included in Geschichte der Musik in Beispielen by Arnold Schering. [2] .

Analysis

The song is scored for four voices. [3] Written from a third-person perspective, [4] El Grillo concerns the cricket. [5] 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. [5] 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. [6]

The song contains both homophony and onomatopoeia, [7] with its rhythm mimicking a cricket's mannerisms. [8] Notice that in popular Italian, the word "grillo" has a second meaning: the male sexual organ in erection. [6] Since the cigala's—those big crickets that 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. [9]

Legacy

Willem Elders calls El Grillo "one of the most brilliant songs of the late fifteenth century", [10] while Richard Sherr describes it as a "delightful jokey little piece." [11] Henry Vyverberg writes that it "represents the frottola at its most attractive." [12] . The work's modern fame must owe in part to its attribution to Josquin, which is now thought to be erroneous.

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

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 cigalas, 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. [13]

References

Citations

Works cited

  • Elders, Willem (2021). Josquin Des Prez and His Musical Legacy: An Introductory Guide. Leuven University Press. ISBN   9789462702851.
  • Fallows, David (2003). "What Happened to "El grillo"". Early Music. 31 (3): 390–399. doi:10.1093/earlyj/XXXI.3.390. JSTOR   3138101.
  • Hund, Marianne (2006). "Fresh Light on Josquin Dascanio's Enigmatic "El Grillo"". Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis. 56 (1): 5–16. JSTOR   20203933.
  • McDonald, Grantley (2009). "Josquin's Musical Cricket: El grillo as Humanist Parody". Acta Musicologica. 81 (1): 39–53. JSTOR   27793371.
  • Macey, Patrick; Noble, Jeremy; Dean, Jeffrey; Reese, Gustave (2011) [2001]. "Josquin (Lebloitte dit) des Prez" . Grove Music Online . Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.14497. ISBN   978-1-56159-263-0.(subscription, Wikilibrary access, or UK public library membership required)
  • Sherr, Richard (2000). "Three Settings of Italian Texts and Two Secular Motets". The Josquin Companion. Oxford University Press. pp. 423–484. ISBN   9780198163350.
  • Trutty-Coohill, Patricia (2013). "Leonardo's Enchantress". In Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka; M. Kronegger (eds.). The Aesthetics of Enchantment in the Fine Arts. Springer. pp. 85–100. ISBN   9789401732345.
  • Vyverberg, Henry (1988). The Living Tradition: Art, Music, and Ideas in the Western World. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN   9780155511194.