4 - The Masses of 1608

Summary

MISSA AVE VIRGO SANCTISSIMA

ESQUIVEL OPENS HIS FIRST BOOK OF MASSES with a polyphonic setting of the antiphon Asperges me. Liturgically, this antiphon precedes the Kyrie of the Ordinary; by printing a polyphonic setting of this item at the head of his volume the composer is emphasising the completeness of his publication. Perhaps he had seen a copy of Morales's volume of masses published by Moderne at Lyons in 1551, or Nicolas du Chemin's miscellaneous collection Missarum musicalium (Paris, 1568), both of which open with a polyphonic setting of the same antiphon.

The setting is a paraphrase of the ancient mixolydian chant melody, itself a Spanish variant of the Asperges chant found on page 11 of the Liber usualis. The chant appears in the superius with the accompanying voices imitating it frequently in the conventional manner. The setting is competent and unremarkable; only one particular feature deserves comment.

At the setting of the phrase ‘misericordiam tuam’, just before the final chord at the end of the second section, Esquivel approaches the cadence with part-writing that, when analysed vertically, produces a 6/4–5/3 chord progression, as Ex. 4.1 a demonstrates.

The progression arises naturally out of the contrapuntal movement of the partwriting, but it is not common in the works of Esquivel's contemporaries and could have been avoided by using one of the standard cadential cliches more typical of this period, as at Ex. 4.1b and c.

Other examples of the 6/4–5/3 progression are encountered elsewhere in Esquivel's work.

Although his style and technique are in general conservative, he seems aware of some of the new trends that would emerge more openly in the works of composers of the next generation. We shall encounter many examples in the following chapters. Here, we must note the number of obligatory accidentals that appear at the cadences. Stevenson draws attention to this when comparing Esquivel's Asperges setting with those of Morales and du Chemin. The growing specification of accidentals at cadence points was, of course, a stylistic feature of music, sacred and secular, throughout the sixteenth century, and in suggesting the raised leadingnote Esquivel is doing nothing that is unusual.