What Other Josquin

Abstract

This essay is a response to Rob Wegman's ‘The Other Josquin’, which was published in 2008 in the Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis. In his article, Wegman tried to demonstrate that certain works, such as the six-voice motet Inter natos mulierum, have unjustly been banned from Josquin's list of works and that an underlying methodological problem continues to distort our view of Josquin's oeuvre. In order to remedy the problem of ‘authorship as a truth-claim to be proved or disproved’, Wegman introduces the image of an ‘other’ Josquin. Even though authenticity continues to be a recurring issue in Josquin studies, Wegman's article did not lead to much of a response. The present article retraces Wegman's discussion of the authorship of Inter natos mulierum and takes a closer look at his arguments in an effort to determine if the introduction of ‘another’ Josquin could be to the benefit of present-day Josquin research, and what the results of adopting such an image might be.