That instability is confirmed (to put things a bit paradoxically) at the other end of the motet. The final
cadence is made, unexpectedly, on G, retrospectively coloring the motet Dorian, possibly because the last
word of the text—amaritudine, “bitterness”—called for a dark harmonization, or possibly because the
composer, for all his harmonic daring, remained a bit squeamish about ending the motet somewhere other
than on one of the four traditional finals. He was not squeamish, however, about ending on a full triad. By
the middle of the century, as Zarlino would report, such endings were standard; indeed, the presence of
the third in the final chord was routinely dramatized, as it is here, by suspensions and lower neighbors.
The other branch of Clemens’s sacred output is at the opposite stylistic extreme from the loftily
expressive motet just sampled. His four volumes of Souterliedekens (“Little psalter songs”), published in
1556–1557, contain three-voice polyphonic settings of all 150 Psalms in what was then a recent
translation (or rather, a paraphrase) into Dutch verse. The translation and publication of “metrical
psalms,” as they are generally called, in vernacular languages became a virtual craze in the wake of the
Reformation, even in countries that did not immediately participate in the rise of Protestantism. They were
meant both for public worship in the form of congregational singing and for home use, and were a bonanza
for publishers.
The psalm translations Clemens set (on commission from his publisher, the enterprising Susato) had
first been issued in 1540 by an Antwerp printer named Simon Cock. It was the first complete set of
metrical psalms to appear anywhere in Europe. To make it even more useful and marketable, Cock’s book
provided popular or folk tunes—love songs, ballads, drinking songs, and familiar hymns—to which each
of the metrical paraphrases could be sung. One of these tunes was printed above each psalm. They were
in fact the first music ever printed in the Low Countries from movable type. But the whole purpose of
their inclusion was that they were widely known by heart.
This kind of appropriation from oral tradition is known in the scholarly literature as “contrafactum”
(literally, a “makeover” or counterfeit). Latin terminology makes anything sound arcane, but this is one
practice everybody knows. It is what we informally call “parody,” and it is familiar to anyone who has
attended a revival meeting, learned a school or camp song (which rarely have their own tunes), or
participated in a convivial “roast.” The practice obliquely acknowledges the fact that verbal literacy is
far more widespread than musical literacy in most societies, including our own. The idea is to get
everyone singing together as quickly as possible, without wasting any time on frills. Familiar tunes,
whatever their origin, can be sung by everyone immediately, without any special instructions.
Accordingly, Clemens did not just set the texts published by Cock. Presumably on orders from Susato,
he incorporated the familiar tunes as well, either in the tenor, following tradition, or in the superius where
it would be all the more conspicuous. As published by Susato, then, the psalms became musically
semiliterate, so to speak: still available for unison singing as contrafacta but also available in an elegant
harmonization for the literate. The one selected for inclusion here (Ex. 15-4) is a setting of Psalm 71, “In
Thee, O Lord, have I placed my hope” (or In te, Domine, speravi, as it was traditionally sung in church).
Clemens’s superius voice incorporates an old Dutch love song, O Venus bant, which begins “O shackles
of Venus, O burning fire! How that lovely gracious girl has overwhelmed my heart!” Again, there was no
question of incongruity between the nature of the original text and the utilitarian purpose to which its tune
was being adapted. Togetherness in prayer was the objective—indeed it was the vision that motivated the
whole religious reform—and anything that facilitated togetherness in prayer was meet and righteous.
EX. 15-4 Jacobus Clemens, Souterliedekens, Psalm 71 (In te, Domine, speravi)