Playing And Mourning Part 4

There are two memorials which stand side by side: Josquin's for Ockeghem and Byrd's for Tallis. Both invoke a pagan's view of death, that in Nature's eagerness to claim her prized singers, she leaves us stranded. Both mention the dead by name, their accomplishments, how their loss means that we are so much less than in their absence. For Byrd: "Tallis is dead, and music dies."



For Josquin: "Put on your mourning garments, Josquin, Brumel, Pierchon, Compère, and weep great tears from your eyes: you have lost your good father." When Josquin mentions Ockeghem by name, we do not hear it. It stays hidden in the dense counterpoint, lost to us in the throng of death overtaking life. But when he mentions his own name and those of his colleagues, it stands in a stark homophonic landscape. The ones who live on can no longer hide in the shadow of he who is lost to us.