El Grillo

Lovely to see you all for our first session back!  Our apologies to those of you that found parking difficult.  We were unprepared for there being another meeting at the church on the same night, one much larger than ours.  This is very unlikely to be a problem in general as we think that this was an unusual occurrence.  Still, we’re very sorry for those of you that were inconvenienced.

The piece we began work on, El Grillo by Josquin des Prez is a frottola, a precursor to the madrigal.  For those interested, you can read about frottole here.  A bit of interesting info I found on the web about El Grillo:

Josquin’s musical setting is often illustrative, as in the instance in which two voices literally “hold a long note” as suggested by the text. (Other works in Ottaviano Petrucci’s printed collection of frottole, in which El Grillo appears, imitate the cat, the swan, and the crane.) Pairs of voices playfully alternate their calls for the Cricket to “laugh, sing, and drink.” The verses of the poem, set primarily chordally, are richly endowed with double entendres that describe the Cricket’s erotic prowess. ~ Timothy Dickey, Rovi

And a lovely performance of it on YouTube here by Profeti della Quinta.  This is in the original 4-part (SATB) arrangement.  I’ve rearranged it for 3 parts (SAB) for our uses.

Here is an English translation of the text:

The cricket is a good singer
He can sing very long -
He sings all the time.

But he doesn't act like the birds.
If they've sung a little bit
They go somewhere else
The cricket remains where he is...

When the month of May is warm
Because he sings out of love.

Since this piece is quite easy to read I’m not going to post individual part files of the notes.  However, I will post individual audio files within the next couple of days so you can listen to your part in isolation.

And, as promised, here are the audio parts.  Had to use piano, I’m afraid, as my voice didn’t want to sing the soprano part. 😉
El Grillo – Soprano
El Grillo – Alto
El Grillo – Baritone
El Grillo – 3 Parts together

3-Parts