Virgo prudentissima is a six-voice motet (SSAATB), dedicated to the Virgin Mary and composed by Heinrich Isaac in 1507. The motet describes the Assumption of Mary, calling on her and the nine orders of angels to protect Emperor Maximilian I and the Holy Roman Empire. The lyricist was Georg von Slatkonia.
History
The motet was composed by Isaac in 1507 while he was in Constance for the imperial Reichstag of that year, which was organized to prepare for the coronation (which would happen in 1508 in Trento) of Maximilian I as Holy Roman Emperor. According to Franz Körndle, the motet was performed at the memorial services for Philip the Fair, son of Maximilian, some weeks after the Diet in Constance.
The motet was first published in 1520 in Ludwig Senfl's Liber selectarum cantionum. Later, around 1537–1538, Virgo prudentissima was rewritten by to be rededicated to Christ as Christus filius Dei (all Marian references were replaced) and Maximilian was replaced with his grandson Charles V, then the reigning emperor.
The lyrics are based on the antiphon that also serves as the model for Virgo prudentissas closely related mass Missa Virgo prudentissima. Both were published in the Choralis Constantinus long after the deaths of Isaac and his pupil Senfl, together with the masses proper Isaac cultivated for Maximilian. Rothenberg opines that they are works, which remain incomplete, produced under the direction of Maximilian's “imperial ideology” and “bold artistic vision”.
Structure
Having Guillaume Du Fay's Ave regina caelorum (1464) as the precedent, the motet is composed of two sections with a single cursus of the tenor. Influence might also have come from five-voice motets composed by Jehan le Roy, or Johannes Regis (circa 1425–96). Planchart notes, "Unlike Josquin in his Benedicta es caelorum regina, which involved an elaborate scaffolding of polyphonic textures and a canonic cantus firmus between the cantus and the tenor accompanied by four elaborately figural voices, Isaac aims for a sharp contrast, particularly in the prima pars between the rhythmically elaborate duets and the full six-voice sections. These full sections evoke the massive sonorities of his German Mass Ordinaries set in alternation with plainsong or organ. To achieve such effects, he sets the cantus firmus largely in perfect breves, following a German tradition observable, for example, in the prose settings of Trent 91. Further, in the passages for six voices, particularly in the prima pars, the bassus 2, which is quite active rhythmically in the duets, also shifts largely to motion in perfect breves".