off
with the answer, "_Lascia fare mi_." Weary of waiting, Josquin
composed a mass upon the subject la, sol, fa, re, mi, repeated over
and over in mimicry of the oft repeated answer. The king was so much
amused that he at once promised Josquin a position, but his memory not
having proved faithful, Josquin appealed to him with a motette:
"_Portio mea non est in terra viventium_" ("My portion is not in the
land of the living"); and "_Memor esto verbi tui_" ("Remember thy
words"). Another anecdote of similar readiness is that of the motette
which the king, who was a very bad singer, asked Josquin to write,
with a part in it for the royal voice. Josquin composed a very
elaborate motette, full of all sorts of canonic devices, and in the
center of the score one part with the same note repeated over and
over, the one good note of the king's voice--the inscription being
"_Vox regis_" ("voice of the king"). It will be too much to claim
Josquin as a composer of expressive music. The mere fact of his having
written motettes upon the genealogies in the first chapters of St.
Matthew and St. Luke sufficiently defines the importance he attached
to the words. Speaking of Josquin's treatment of effects, it is
recorded of him that a single word is sometimes scattered through a
whole page of notes, showing that he attached no importance to the
words whatever. One of the most beautiful of his pieces was a dirge
written upon the death of Okeghem. Owing to the good fortune of the
invention of music printing from movable types, in 1498, when Josquin
was at the height of his powers, a large number of his works have come
down to modern times.

In the corresponding period of the Dutch school the name of Jacob
Arkadelt is to be remembered, who, although not a composer of the
first order, was nevertheless a man of decided power, and is known to
us through a number of his works still existing in considerable
freshness. Arkadelt was a singing master to the boys in St. Peter's in
Rome in 1539, and was admitted to the college of papal singers in
1540. About 1555 he entered the service of Cardinal Charles of
Lorraine, duke of Guise, and went to Paris, where probably he died.
Besides a large number of motettes and masses, he was one of the most
famous of the Venetian school of madrigal writers, a form of
composition of which it will be in order to speak later. One of the
most pleasing of Arkadelt's compositions is an _Ave Maria_ which is
often played