# El Grillo (song)

El Grillo (The Cricket) is a frottola by Josquin des Prez. Possibly written in the late 15th to early 16th century, it is regarded as one of Josquin's most popular works.

## History

Published in the early sixteenth century, El Grillo is attributed to an "Iosquin Dascanio", traditionally identified as Franco-Flemish composer Josquin des Prez. Several scholars have posited that Josquin wrote the song to either honour or make fun of his colleague at the House of Sforza, an Italian court singer named Carlo Grillo. This would have to have been no earlier than the 1490s. The Frottole libro tertio, published by Ottaviano Petrucci in 1505, is the only contemporaneous source of El Grillo. It received considerably little attention from modern musicologists until 1931, when it was included in Geschichte der Musik in Beispielen by Arnold Schering.

## Analysis

The song is scored for four voices. Written from a third-person perspective, El Grillo concerns the cricket. The opening section is about the cricket's lengthy song, while the second one compares crickets and songbirds. The song concludes by suggesting that crickets may be better singers than songbirds, particularly because they sing all the time, rain or shine. The song contains both homophony and onomatopoeia, with its rhythm mimicking a cricket's mannerisms. Uncharacteristically for a frottola, the ripresa of the poetic lines mostly have seven syllables, whereas the piedi and volta have eight. According to musicologist Jaap van Benthem, the number of notes in the ripresa (88) spells "Des Prez" in gematria, while the 99 notes in the volta spell "Josquin".

## Legacy

El Grillo is considered one of Josquin's most popular works. Willem Elders calls it "one of the most brilliant songs of the late fifteenth century", while Richard Sherr describes it as a "delightful jokey little piece." Henry Vyverberg writes that it "represents the frottola at its most attractive."

## Lyrics

There are different versions of the lyrics. The following is one of the most common versions.
| Renaissance Italian (original) | Modern Italian translation | English translation |
| El grillo è buon cantore Che tiene longo verso Dalle beve, grillo canta Ma non fa come gli altri uccelli Come li han cantato un poco Van de fatto in altro loco Sempre el grillo sta pur saldo Quando la maggior el caldo Alhor canta sol per amore | Il grillo è un bravo cantante Che tiene un lungo verso Beve e poi canta, il grillo Ma non fa come gli altri uccelli Che dopo aver cantato un po' Vanno via in un altro posto Il grillo invece rimane fermo Quando fa più caldo Allora canta solo per amore | The cricket is a good singer Who can hold long notes After drinking, the cricket sings But he doesn't do like the other birds Once they've sung a little bit They go somewhere else The cricket instead stands firm When it's very hot out He sings only for the love of it |
The lyrics notably refer to the cricket as a "bird", while it is actually an insect. This can be explained by different factors, including the poetic liberty of the artist, emphasizing the melodious and captivating nature of the cricket, or limitations of the time, such as a lack of scientific knowledge or a colloquial understanding in which the word "bird" was used more broadly to describe creatures that sang or produced musical sounds, such as crickets.