Ave festiva ferculis and Josquin's Spanish Reputation

Abstract

Tarazona 2/3, a cathedral manuscript preserving mostly the music of Peñalosa and his Spanish contemporaries, contains one motet, with the text ‘Ave festiva ferculis’, attributed to ‘Jusquin’. It is a strange piece of music, clearly not the work of Josquin des Prez, but also very unusual within the manuscript, and its misattribution suggests that Josquin's actual music was not a familiar icon in Spain c.1530. This impression is supported by the sources, which reveal a real Spanish Josquin craze beginning in the 1540s, but a much spottier picture, emphasizing the early sacred music, in the decades before. Josquin's strong influence on Spanish music came late.