Similar materials, new contexts, new meanings

The rising triad of the Gradual Viderunt Omnes is similar to the motif at the start of a song by Jacobus Clemens non Papa (literally, Jacob-Clemens-the-one-who-is-not-the-Pope) entitled Entre Vous Filles. Clemens non Papa was a Netherlandish composer who lived from about 1510 to about 1555. This piece was one of about 100 secular pieces that he wrote, designed for people to sing at home. The risqué text portrays young women gathering around a fountain. The later Franco-Flemish composer Orlande de Lassus (1532-1594) wrote several masses based on secular French-language chansons, including the main melody of Entre Vous Filles. In this mass the freshness of the rising and falling motif seems balanced by the safe renaissance five part cadences required by the Latin text of the mass. The return of the motif at the start of each section of the mass may be either a joke or a provocation for those who recognise it. But from a purely musical perspective it enlivens the textures of this relatively syllabic and conservative text setting. Are sacred and secular melodies rather more fundamentally entwined than we might ordinarily suppose?