Merely an abstraction? or Three into Two Won’t Go: The ‘tres breves negros’ of Josquin and Morales in Iberian Treatises and Further Symbolism

The only time Lusitano references a composer in his Introduttione facilissima (1553) occurs in the section ‘battuta’ (tactus) where he cites the nine black breves in the tiple of the ‘qui cum patre’ passage in the Credo of Josquin’s Beata virgine mass as an example of performing three black breves in imperfect time (i.e. sesquialtera proportion). Mention of this passage both here and in his (c. 1560?) MS contrapuntal treatise is presumably indicative of a far wider context in which such notational and indeed performance issues connected with it were familiarly discussed. This discourse later also embraced the “tres breves negros” in the “Christe” of Morales’s Mille regretz mass which, by the early seventeenth century, if not much earlier, had become a topic of debate and some dissension, especially among Iberian musicians and theorists apparently hazy about then obsolete notational values. This is particularly witnessed in the “Reposta sobre os tres breves negros de Christovaõ de Morales” included in João Álvares Frouvo’s Discursos (Lisbon, 1662), which includes curious scored-up mistaken interpretations of the “offending” passages in the Josquin and Morales. Intriguingly, because of a slightly ambiguous caption given with the Josquin example, Frouvo unwittingly further highlights musical links between them.
This paper looks at the perceived problem of the “three black breves” in the Josquin and Morales masses and at varying solutions offered for their interpretation from the sixteenth century onwards (including today). It also explores ideas relating to possible Trinitarian and Christological symbolism in the Josquin and Morales passages concerning —besides their symbolic use of black breves— thematic choices and links, imitative textures and contrapuntal manipulation.