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Josquin des Prez

January 10, 2023

"Josquin" redirects here. For other uses, see Josquin (disambiguation).

Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez (c. 1450–1455 – 27 August 1521) was a composer of High Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he was a central figure of the Franco-Flemish School and had a profound influence on the music of 16th-century Europe. Building on the work of his predecessors Guillaume Du Fay and Johannes Ockeghem, he developed a complex style of expressive—and often imitative—movement between independent voices (polyphony) which informs much of his work. He further emphasized the relationship between text and music, and departed from the early Renaissance tendency towards lengthy melismatic lines on a single syllable, preferring to use shorter, repeated motifs between voices. Josquin was a singer, and his compositions are mainly vocal. They include masses, motets and secular chansons.

A 1611 woodcut of Josquin des Prez, possibly copied from a now-lost oil painting made during his lifetime.[1] There have been doubts concerning whether this depiction is an accurate likeness,[2] see § Portraits.

Josquin's biography has been continually revised by modern scholarship, and remains highly uncertain. Little is known of his early years; he was born in the French-speaking area of Flanders, and he may have been an altar boy and have been educated at the Cambrai Cathedral, or taught by Ockeghem. By 1477 he was in the choir of René of Anjou and then probably served under Louis XI of France. Now a wealthy man, in the 1480s Josquin traveled Italy with the Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, may have worked in Hungary for king Matthias Corvinus, and wrote the motet Ave Maria ... Virgo serena, and the popular chansons Adieu mes amours and Que vous ma dame. He served Pope Innocent VIII and Pope Alexander VI in Rome, Louis XII in France, and Ercole I d'Este in Ferrara. Many of his works were published by Ottaviano Petrucci in the early 16th century, including the Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae. In his final years in Condé, Josquin produced some of his most admired works, including the masses Missa de Beata Virgine and Missa Pange lingua; the motets Benedicta es, Inviolata, Pater noster–Ave Maria and Praeter rerum seriem; and the chansons Mille regretz, Nimphes, nappés and Plus nulz regretz.

Influential both during and after his lifetime, Josquin has been described as the first Western composer to retain posthumous fame. His music was widely performed and imitated in 16th-century Europe, and was highly praised by Martin Luther and the music theorists Heinrich Glarean and Gioseffo Zarlino. In the Baroque era, Josquin's reputation became overshadowed by the Italian composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, though he was still studied by some theorists and music historians. During the 20th-century early music revival, publications by August Wilhelm Ambros, Albert Smijers, Helmuth Osthoff and Edward Lowinsky, and a successful academic conference, caused his reevaluation as a central figure in Renaissance music. This has led to controversy over whether he has been unrealistically elevated over his contemporaries, particularly in light of over a hundred attributions now considered dubious. He continues to draw interest in the 21st century and his music is frequently recorded, central in the repertoire of early music vocal ensembles, and the subject of continuing scholarship. He was celebrated worldwide on the 500th anniversary of his death in 2021.

Name

Josquin's full name, Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez, became known in the late 20th century[3] from a pair of 1483 documents found in Condé-sur-l'Escaut, where he is referred to as the nephew of Gille Lebloitte dit des Prez and the son of Gossard Lebloitte dit des Prez.[4] His first name Josquin is a diminutive form of Josse, the French form of the name of a Judoc, a Breton saint of the 7th century.[5] Josquin was a common name in Flanders and Northern France in the 15th and 16th centuries.[6] Other documents indicate that the surname des Prez had been used by the family for at least two generations, perhaps to distinguish them from other branches of the Lebloitte family.[7] At the time, the name Lebloitte was rare and the reason that Josquin's family took up the more common surname des Prez as their dit name remains uncertain.[8]

His name has many spellings in contemporary records: his first name is spelled as Gosse, Gossequin, Jodocus, Joskin, Josquinus, Josse, Jossequin, Judocus and Juschino; and his surname is given as a Prato, de Prato, Pratensis, de Prés, Desprez, des Prés and des Près.[6] In his motet Illibata Dei virgo nutrix, he includes an acrostic of his name, where it is spelled IOSQVIN Des PREZ.[9] Documents from Condé, where he lived for the last years of his life, refer to him as "Maistre Josse Desprez". These include a letter written by the chapter of Notre-Dame of Condé to Margaret of Austria where he is named as "Josquin Desprez".[10] Scholarly opinion differs on whether his surname should be written as one word (Desprez) or two (des Prez), with publications from continental Europe preferring the former and English-language publications the latter.[11] Modern scholarship typically refers to him as Josquin.[12]

Life

Early life

Birth and background

 
Hainault and the surrounding area in the time of Josquin[13]

Little is known about Josquin's early years.[14] The specifics of his biography have been debated for centuries. The musicologist William Elders noted that "it could be called a twist of fate that neither the year, nor the place of birth of the greatest composer of the Renaissance is known".[3] A now-outdated theory is that he was born around 1440, based on a mistaken association with Jushinus de Kessalia, recorded in documents as "Judocus de Picardia".[11] A reevaluation of his later career, name and family background has discredited this claim.[14] He is now thought to have been born around 1450, and at the latest 1455, making him a "a close contemporary" of Loyset Compère and Heinrich Isaac, and slightly older than Jacob Obrecht.[14]

Josquin's father was a policeman in the castellany of Ath, who was accused of numerous offenses, including complaints of undue force, and disappears from the records after 1448.[n 1] Nothing is known of Josquin's mother, who is absent from surviving documents, suggesting that she was either not considered Josquin's legitimate mother, or that she died soon after, or during, his birth. Around 1466, perhaps on the death of his father, Josquin was named by his uncle and aunt, Gille Lebloitte dit des Prez and Jacque Banestonne, as their heir.[16][17]

Josquin was born in the French-speaking area of Flanders, in modern-day northeastern France or Belgium.[18][n 2] Despite his association with Condé in his later years, Josquin's own testimony indicates that he was not born there.[11][14] The only firm evidence for his birthplace is a later legal document in which Josquin described being born beyond Noir Eauwe, meaning 'Black Water'.[11][14] This description has puzzled scholars, and there are various theories on which body of water is being referred to.[14] L'Eau Noire river in the Ardennes has been proposed, and there was a village named Prez there,[14] though the musicologist David Fallows contends that the complications surrounding Josquin's name make a surname connection irrelevant, and that the river is too small and too far from Condé to be a candidate.[24] Fallows proposes a birthplace near the converging Escaut and Haine rivers at Condé, preferring the latter since it was known for transporting coal, perhaps fitting the "Black Water" description.[25][n 3] Other theories include a birth near Saint-Quentin, Aisne, due to his early association with the Collegiate Church of Saint-Quentin, or in the small village of Beaurevoir, which is near the Escaut, a river that may be referred to in an acrostic in his later motet Illibata Dei virgo nutrix.[14]

Youth

There is no documentary evidence covering Josquin's education or upbringing.[27] Fallows associates him with Goseequin de Condent, an altar boy at the collegiate church of Saint-Géry, Cambrai until mid-1466.[28] Other scholars such as Gustave Reese relay a 17th-century account from Cardinal Richelieu's friend Claude Hémeré, suggesting that Josquin became a choirboy with his friend Jean Mouton at the Collegiate Church of Saint-Quentin;[27] this account has been questioned.[14] The collegiate chapel there was an important center of royal patronage and music for the area. All records from Saint-Quentin were destroyed in 1669, and Josquin may have acquired his later connections with the French royal chapel through an early association with Saint-Quentin.[14] He may have studied under Johannes Ockeghem, a leading composer whom he greatly admired throughout his life. This is claimed by later writers such as Gioseffo Zarlino and Lodovico Zacconi; Josquin wrote a lamentation on the death of Ockeghem, Nymphes des bois.[14] There is no concrete evidence for this tutorship, and later commentators may only have meant that Josquin "learnt from the older composer's example".[14] Josquin musically quoted Ockeghem several times, most directly in his double motet Alma Redemptoris mater/Ave regina caelorum, which shares an opening line with Ockeghem's motet Alma Redemptoris mater.[14][29][n 4]

Josquin could have been associated with Cambrai Cathedral, as there is a "des Prez" among the cathedral's musicians listed in Omnium bonorum plena, a motet by Compère.[31] The motet was composed before 1474 and names many important musicians of the time, including Antoine Busnois, Johannes Tinctoris, Johannes Regis, Ockeghem and Guillaume Du Fay.[14] The motet may refer to the singer Pasquier Desprez, but Josquin is a likelier candidate.[14][32][n 5] Josquin was certainly influenced by Du Fay's music;[33] the musicologist Alejandro Planchart suggests that the impact was not particularly large.[34]

Early career

 
René of Anjou, Josquin's first known employer

The first firm record of Josquin's employment is from 19 April 1477 when he was a singer in the chapel of René of Anjou, in Aix-en-Provence.[35] Other evidence may place him in Aix as early as 1475.[36] Josquin remained there until at least 1478, after which his name disappears from historical records for five years.[35] He may have remained in René's service, joining his other singers to serve Louis XI, who sent them to the Sainte-Chapelle of Paris.[35] Josquin's connection to Louis XI could be furthered by his early motet Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo, which may be a musical tribute for the king, since it ends with the psalm verse "In te Domine speravi, non confundar in aeternum", the line Louis commissioned Jean Bourdichon to write on 50 scrolls in the Château de Plessis-lez-Tours.[35] A less accepted theory for Josquin's activities between 1478 and 1483 is that he had already entered the household of his future employer Ascanio Sforza in 1480.[37] In that case, Josquin would have been with Ascanio in Ferrara and might have written his Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae at this time for Ercole d'Este.[37] Around this period the Casanatense chansonnier was collected in Ferrara,[38] which includes six chansons by Josquin, Adieu mes amours, En l'ombre d'ung buissonet, Et trop penser, Ile fantazies de Joskin, Que vous ma dame and Une mousque de Biscaye.[35] Adieu mes amours and Que vous ma dame are thought to have been particularly popular, given their wide dissemination in later sources.[39]

In February 1483 Josquin returned to Condé to claim his inheritance from his aunt and uncle, who may have been killed when the army of Louis XI besieged the town in May 1478 and had the population locked and burned in a church.[35][40] In the same document, the collegiate church of Condé is reported to have given vin d'honneur (lit. 'wine of honor') to Josquin, because "as a musician who had already served two kings, he was now a distinguished visitor to the little town".[40] Josquin hired at least 15 procurators to deal with his inheritance, suggesting he was then wealthy.[41] This would explain how later in his life he was able to travel frequently and did not have to compose greatly demanded mass cycles like contemporaries Isaac and Ludwig Senfl.[41]

Italy and travels

Milan and elsewhere

Tentative outline of Josquin's life from 1483 to 1489[42]
Date Location Confidence
March 1483 Condé Certain
August 1483 Departure from Paris Possible
March 1484 Rome Possible
15 May 1484[37] Milan Certain
June–August 1484 Milan (with Ascanio) Certain
Up to July 1484 Rome (with Ascanio) Certain
July 1485 Plans to leave (with Ascanio) Certain
1485 – ? Hungary Possible
January–February 1489 Milan Certain
Early May 1489 Milan Probable
June 1489 Rome (in Sistine Chapel Choir) Certain

A surviving record indicates that Josquin was in Milan by 15 May 1484, perhaps just after his 1483 trip to Condé.[37] In March 1484 he may have visited Rome.[42] Fallows speculates that Josquin left Condé for Italy so quickly because his inheritance gave him more freedom and allowed him to avoid serving a king who he suspected had caused the deaths of his aunt and uncle.[40] By then, the sacred music of Milan Cathedral had a reputation for excellence.[43] Josquin was employed by the House of Sforza, and on 20 June 1484 came into the service of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza.[37] Josquin's renown as a composer, a strong recommendation from a patron of fellow musician, or the use of his wealth, might have helped him get this prestigious and long-term position.[44] While working for Ascanio, on 19 August Josquin successfully requested a previously rejected dispensation to be rector at the parish church Saint Aubin without having been ordained a priest.[45] Joshua Rifkin dates the well-known motet Ave Maria ... Virgo serena to this time, c. 1485.[35][46][n 6]

Josquin went to Rome with Ascanio in July 1484 for a year, and may have gone to Paris for a litigation suit involving the benefice in Saint Aubin during the later 1480s.[37] Around this time the poet Serafino dell'Aquila wrote his sonnet to Josquin, "Ad Jusquino suo compagno musico d'Ascanio" ("To Josquin, his fellow musician of Ascanio"), which asks him "not to be discouraged if his 'genius so sublime' seemed poorly remunerated".[37][48] Between 1485 and 1489 Josquin may have served under Matthias Corvinus in the Kingdom of Hungary;[49] an account by the Cardinal Girolamo Aleandro in 1539 recalls the archbishop of Esztergom Pal Varday [hu] stating that the court of Matthias included "excellent painters and musicians, among them even Josquin himself".[50][51] Some scholars suggest Aleandro was repeating a false rumor,[37] or that Varday confused Josquin des Prez for Josquin Dor or Johannes de Stokem.[52] Fallows contends that it is unlikely that Varday, who was well-educated and a musician, would have made such a mistake, but concedes that it is possible.[53] The court of Matthias had a high standard of music and employed numerous musicians, many of them from Italy.[37] Though Fallows asserts that Josquin's presence in Hungary is likely,[54] the evidence is circumstantial, and no original documents survive to confirm the claim.[37] Josquin was in Milan again in January 1489, probably until early May, and met the theorist and composer Franchinus Gaffurius there.[55]

Rome

 
Josquin's presumed signature (JOSQUINJ) on the Sistine Chapel's choir gallery wall

From June 1489 until at least April 1494, Josquin was a member of the papal choir in Rome, under Pope Innocent VIII then the Borgia pope Alexander VI.[56][n 7] Josquin may have arrived there due to an exchange of singers between Ludovico Sforza and Pope Innocent, where the latter sent Gaspar van Weerbeke to Milan, presumably in return for Josquin.[56] Josquin's arrival brought much-needed prestige to the choir, as the composers Gaspar and Stokem had left recently and the only other choristers known to be composers were Marbrianus de Orto and Bertrandus Vaqueras.[58] Two months after his arrival, Josquin laid claim to the first of various benefices on 18 August.[59] Holding three unrelated benefices at once, without having residency there or needing to speak that area's language, was a special privilege that Josquin's tenure and position offered;[60] many of his choir colleagues had also enjoyed such privileges.[56] His claims included a canonry at the Notre-Dame de Paris; Saint Omer, Cambrai; a parish in the gift of Saint-Ghislain Abbey; the Basse-Yttre parish church; two parishes near Frasnes, Hainaut; and Saint-Géry, Cambrai.[56] Surviving papal letters indicate that some of these claims were approved, but he does not appear to have taken up any of the canonries.[60] The Sistine Chapel's monthly payment records give the best record of Josquin's career, but all papal chapel records from April 1494 to November 1500 are lost, making it unknown when he left Rome.[57]

After restorations from 1997 to 1998, the name JOSQUINJ was found as a graffito on the wall of the Sistine Chapel's cantoria (choir gallery).[56][61] It is one of almost four hundred names inscribed in the chapel, around a hundred of which can be identified with singers of the papal choir.[62] They date from the 15th to 18th centuries, and the JOSQUINJ signature is in the style of the former.[63] There is some evidence suggesting the name refers to Josquin des Prez; it may be interpreted as either "Josquin" or "Josquinus", depending on whether the curved line on the far right is read as the abbreviation for "us".[62] Other choristers named Josquin tended to sign their name in full, whereas Josquin des Prez is known to have done so mononymously on occasion.[62] Andrea Adami da Bolsena notes in his 1711 Osservazioni per ben regolare il coro dei cantori della Cappella Pontificia that in his time Josquin's name was visibly 'sculpted' in the Sistine Chapel's choir room.[63] The musicologist Richard Sherr writes that "while this is not a true autograph signature, the possibility that Josquin des Prez actually produced it during his stay in the papal chapel is very high",[63] and Fallows says that "it hardly counts as an autograph, but it may be the closest we can get."[64]

France

 
Josquin probably served under Louis XII, who had captured the Sforzas, his previous employers.

Documents found since the late 20th century have shed some light on Josquin's life and works between 1494 and 1503; at some point he was ordained a priest.[65][66] In August 1494 he went to Cambrai, as attested by a vin d'honneur (lit. 'wine of honor') record, and he may have returned to Rome soon after.[67] From then to 1498 there is no firm evidence for his activities; Fallows suggests he stayed in Cambrai for these four years,[66][68] citing Johannes Manlius's 1562 book Locorum communium collectanea, which associates Josquin with Cambrai's musical establishment.[68] This assertion would fit with Josquin's possible youthful connections in Cambrai and later vin d'honneur there.[68] Manlius cites the reformer Philip Melanchthon as the source for many of his stories, strengthening the authenticity of his Josquin anecdotes; Melanchthon was close to musical figures of his time, including the publisher Georg Rhau and the composer Adrianus Petit Coclico.[68]

Two letters between members of the House of Gonzaga and Ascanio Sforza suggest that Josquin may have re-entered the service of the Sforza family in Milan around 1498; they refer to a servant Juschino who delivered the hunting dogs to the Gonzagas.[66][69] Circumstantial evidence suggests Juschino may have been Josquin des Prez, but he is not known to have been qualified for such a task, and it would be unusual to refer to him as a servant rather than a musician or singer.[70] Josquin probably did not stay in Milan long, since his former employers were captured during Louis XII's 1499 invasion.[66] Before he left, he most likely wrote two secular compositions, the well-known frottola El Grillo ("The Cricket"), and In te Domine speravi ("I have placed my hope in you, Lord"), based on Psalm 31.[66][71] The latter might be a veiled reference to the religious reformer Girolamo Savonarola, who had been burned at the stake in Florence in 1498, and for whom Josquin seems to have had a special reverence; the text was Savonarola's favorite psalm, a meditation on which he left unfinished in prison when he was executed.[71]

Josquin was probably in France during the early 16th century; documents found in 2008 indicate that he visited Troyes twice between 1499 and 1501.[72] The long doubted account from Hémeré that Josquin had a canonry at Saint-Quentin was confirmed by documentary evidence that he had exchanged it by 30 May 1503.[73] Canonries at Saint-Quentin were almost always gifts from the French king to royal household members, suggesting Josquin had been employed by Louis XII.[73] According to Glarean in the Dodecachordon of 1547, the motet Memor esto verbi tui servo tuo ("Remember thy promise unto thy servant") was composed as a gentle reminder to the king to keep his promise of a benefice to Josquin.[66] Glarean claimed that on receiving the benefice, Josquin wrote a motet on the text Bonitatem fecisti cum servo tuo, Domine ("Lord, thou hast dealt graciously with thy servant") to show his gratitude to the king, either Louis XI or Louis XII.[74][75] Although such a motet survives and is mentioned with Josquin's Memor esto in many sources, Bonitatem fecisti is now attributed to Carpentras.[74][75] Some of Josquin's other compositions have been tentatively dated to his French period, such as Vive le roy, and In exitu Israel, which resembles the style of other composers of the French court.[76] The five-voice De profundis, a setting of Psalm 130, seems to have been written for a royal funeral, perhaps that of Louis XII, Anne of Brittany or Philip I of Castile.[66]

Ferrara

 
Ercole I d'Este, an important patron of the arts, was Josquin's employer during 1503–1504.

Josquin arrived in Ferrara by 30 May 1503, to serve Ercole I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, an arts patron who had been trying for many years to replace the composer and choirmaster Johannes Martini, who had recently died.[77][78] No extant documents record Josquin as having worked in Ferrara before, though his earlier associations with Ercole suggest prior employment there;[79] he signed a deed indicating he did not intend to stay there for long.[80] Ercole is known to have met with Josquin's former employer Louis XII throughout 1499 to 1502, and these meetings may have led to his service for the Duke.[66] Two letters survive explaining the circumstances of his arrival, both from courtiers who scouted musical talent in the service of Ercole.[81] The first of these was from Girolamo da Sestola (nicknamed "Coglia") to Ercole, explaining: "My lord, I believe that there is neither lord nor king who will now have a better chapel than yours if your lordship sends for Josquin [...] and by having Josquin in our chapel I want to place a crown upon this chapel of ours" (14 August 1502).[66] The second letter, from the courtier Gian de Artiganova, criticized Josquin and suggested Heinrich Isaac instead:[82]

"To me [Isaac] seems well suited to serve your lordship, more so than Josquin, because he is more good-natured and companionable, and will compose new works more often. It is true that Josquin composes better, but he composes when he wants to and not when one wants him to, and he is asking 200 ducats in salary while Isaac will come for 120—but your lordship will decide."

— Gian de Artiganova to Ercole I d'Este, 2 September 1502[66]

Around three months later, Josquin was chosen; his salary of 200 ducats was the highest ever for a ducal chapel member.[83] The Artiganova letter is a unique source for Josquin's personality, and the musicologist Patrick Macey interprets it as meaning he was a "difficult colleague and that he took an independent attitude towards producing music for his patrons".[66] Edward Lowinsky connected his purportedly difficult behavior with musical talent, and used the letter as evidence that Josquin's contemporaries recognized his genius.[84][85] Musicologist Rob Wegman questions whether meaningful conclusions can be drawn from such an anecdote.[86] In a later publication, Wegman notes the largely unprecedented nature of such a position and warns "yet of course the letter could equally well be seen to reflect the attitudes and expectations of its recipient, Ercole d'Este".[87]

While in Ferrara, Josquin wrote some of his most famous compositions, including the austere, Savonarola-influenced Miserere mei, Deus,[88] which became one of the most widely distributed motets of the 16th century.[89] Also probably from this period was the virtuoso motet Virgo salutiferi, set to a poem by Ercole Strozzi, and O virgo prudentissima based on a poem by Poliziano.[90] Due to its stylistic resemblance to Miserere and Virgo salutiferi, the Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae is also attributed to this time; it was previously thought to have been written in the early 1480s.[91][92][n 8] Josquin did not stay in Ferrara long. An outbreak of the plague in 1503 prompted the evacuation of the Duke and his family, as well as two-thirds of the citizens, and Josquin left by April 1504. His replacement, Obrecht, died of the plague in mid-1505.[90]

Condé

 
A 1545 map of Condé-sur-l'Escaut by Jacob van Deventer

Josquin probably moved from Ferrara to his home region of Condé-sur-l'Escaut, and became provost of the collegiate church of Notre-Dame on 3 May 1504; he may have obtained the post from Philip I's sponsorship.[95] His role gave him political responsibility, and put him in charge of a workforce which included a dean, a treasurer, 25 canons, 18 chaplains, 16 vicars, 6 choir-boys and other priests.[96] This was an appealing place for his old age: it was near his birthplace, had a renowned choir and was the leading musical establishment in Hainaut, besides St. Vincent at Soignies and Cambrai Cathedral.[95] Very few records of his activity survive from this time; he bought a house in September 1504, and sold it (or a different one) in November 1508.[97][n 9] The Josquin mentioned may be the Joskin who traveled to present chansons to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in Brussels or Mechelen.[95]

In his later years Josquin composed many of his most admired works. They include the masses Missa de Beata Virgine and Missa Pange lingua; the motets Benedicta es, Inviolata, Pater noster–Ave Maria and Praeter rerum seriem; and the chansons Mille regretz, Nimphes, nappés and Plus nulz regretz.[39] The last of these, Plus nulz regretz, is set to a poem by Jean Lemaire de Belges that celebrates the future engagement between Charles V and Mary Tudor.[95] In his last years Josquin's music saw European-wide dissemination through publications by the printer Ottaviano Petrucci.[99] Josquin's compositions were given a prominent place by Petrucci, and were reissued numerous times.[95]

On his deathbed, Josquin left an endowment for the performance of his work, Pater noster, at all general processions when townsfolk passed his house, stopping to place a wafer on the marketplace altar to the Holy Virgin.[100] He died on 27 August 1521 and left his possessions to Condé's chapter of Notre Dame.[95] He was buried in front of the church's high altar,[101] but his tomb was destroyed, either during the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598) or in 1793 when the church was demolished amid the French Revolution.[95]

Music

See also: List of compositions by Josquin des Prez
 
Josquin's four-voice motet Domine, ne in furore was written c. 1480.[102] It includes one voice presenting a short motive, which is subsequently imitated by other voices.

After Du Fay died in 1474, Josquin and his contemporaries lived in a musical world of frequent stylistic change,[34] in part due to the movement of musicians between different regions of Europe.[103] A line of musicologists credits Josquin with three primary developments:

1) The gradual departure from extensive melismatic lines, and emphasis instead on smaller motifs.[104] These "motivic cells" were short, easily recognizable melodic fragments which passed from one voice to another in a contrapuntal texture, giving it an inner unity.[105]

2) The prominent use of imitative polyphony, equally between voices, which "combines a rational and homogeneous integration of the musical space with a self-renewing rhythmic impetus".[104]

3) A focus on the text, with the music serving to emphasize its meaning, an early form of word painting.[104]

The musicologist Jeremy Noble concludes that these innovations demonstrate the transition from the earlier music of Du Fay and Ockeghem, to Josquin's successors Adrian Willaert and Jacques Arcadelt, and eventually to the late Renaissance composers Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlande de Lassus.[104] Josquin was a professional singer throughout his life, and his compositions are almost exclusively vocal.[106] He wrote in primarily three genres: the mass, motet, and chanson (with French text).[106] In his 50-year career, Josquin's body of work is larger than that of any other composer of his period, besides perhaps Isaac and Obrecht.[107] Establishing a chronology of his compositions is difficult; the sources in which they were published offer little evidence, and historical and contextual connections are meager.[108] Few manuscripts of Josquin's music date from before the 16th century, due to, according to Noble, "time, war and enthusiasm (both religious and anti-religious)".[107] Identifying earlier works is particularly difficult, and later works only occasionally offer any more certainty.[107] The musicologist Richard Taruskin writes that modern scholarship is "still nowhere near a wholly reliable chronology and unlikely ever to reach it", and suggests that the current tentative models "tell us more about ourselves, and the way in which we come to know what we know, than they do about Josquin".[109]

Masses

 
Manuscript showing the opening Kyrie of the Missa de Beata Virgine, a late work. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Capp. Sist. 45, ff. 1v-2r.

The mass is the central rite of the Catholic Church, and polyphonic settings of the ordinary of the mass—the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei—increased in popularity in the 14th century. From the 15th century, composers treated it as a central genre in Western classical music in accordance with greater demand.[110] By Josquin's time, masses were generally standardized into substantial, polyphonic five-movement works, making it difficult for composers to satisfy both liturgical and musical demands. Previous examples in the genre by composers such as Du Fay and Ockeghem were widely admired and emulated.[110]

Josquin and Obrecht led an intensive development of the genre.[111][110] Josquin's masses are generally less progressive than his motets—though he is credited with numerous innovations in the genre.[110] His less radical approach may be explained by most of the masses being earlier works, or the structural and textual limitations of the genre.[110] Almost all are for four voices.[112]

The Josquin Companion categorizes the composer's masses into the following styles:[113]

  • Canonic masses, which contains one or more voices derived from another via strict imitation;
  • Cantus firmus masses, in which a pre-existing tune appears in one voice of the texture, with the other voices being more or less freely composed;
  • Paraphrase masses, based on a popular monophonic song which is used freely in all voices, and in many variations;[114]
  • Parody masses, based on a polyphonic song, which appears in whole or in part, with material from all voices in use, not just the tune;[115] and
  • Solmization masses, named soggetto cavato by Zarlino, in which the base tune is drawn from the syllables of a name or phrase.[116]

Josquin began his career at a time when composers started to find strict cantus firmus masses limiting.[117] He pioneered paraphrase and parody masses, which were not well established before the 16th century.[117] Many of his works combine the cantus firmus style with paraphrase and parody, making strict categorization problematic.[117] Reflecting on Josquin's masses, Noble notes that "In general his instinct, at least in his mature works, seems to be to extract as much variety as possible from his given musical material, sacred or secular, by any appropriate means."[117]

Canonic masses

 
Opening of Josquin's Missa sine nomine

Josquin's predecessors and contemporaries wrote masses based on canonic imitation. The canonic voices in these masses derive from pre-existing melodies such as the "L'homme armé" song (Faugues, Compère and Forestier), or chant (Fevin and La Rue's Missae de feria).[118] Josquin's two canonic masses are not based on existing tunes, and so stand apart from the mainstream. They are closer to the Missa prolationum written by Ockeghem, and Missa ad fugam by de Orto, both of which use original melodies in all the voices.[118]

Josquin's two canonic masses were published in Petrucci's third book of Josquin masses in 1514; the Missa ad fugam is the earlier of the two. It has a head-motif consisting of the whole first Kyrie which is repeated in the beginning of all five movements.[119] The canon is restricted to the highest voice, and the pitch interval between the voices is fixed while the temporal interval varies between only two values; the two free voices generally do not participate in the imitation.[120] The precise relationship of Josquin's mass to de Orto's is uncertain, as is Josquin's authorship of the mass.[121][122]

No questions of authenticity cloud the Missa sine nomine, written during Josquin's final years in Condé.[123] In contrast to the inflexibility of the canonic scheme in the Missa ad fugam, the temporal and pitch interval of the canon, along with the voices that participate in it, are varied throughout.[123] The free voices are more fully integrated into the texture, and frequently participate in imitation with the canonic voices, sometimes preemptively.[124]

Cantus firmus masses

Prior to Josquin's mature period, the most common technique for writing masses was the cantus firmus, a technique which had been in use for most of the 15th century. Josquin used the technique early in his career, with the Missa L'ami Baudichon considered to be one of his earliest masses.[117] This mass is based on a secular tune similar to "Three Blind Mice". Basing a mass on such a source was an accepted procedure, as evidenced by the existence of the mass in Sistine Chapel part-books copied during the papacy of Julius II (1503–1513).[125]

Josquin's most famous cantus firmus masses are the two based on the "L'homme armé" (lit. 'the armed man'), a popular tune for mass composition throughout the Renaissance.[126] Though both are relatively mature compositions, they are very different.[117] Missa L'homme armé super voces musicales, is a technical tour-de-force on the tune, containing numerous mensuration canons and contrapuntal display.[127] Throughout the work, the melody is presented on each note of the natural hexachord: C, D, E, F, G and A.[117] The later Missa L'homme armé sexti toni is a "fantasia on the theme of the armed man."[128] While based on a cantus firmus, it is also a paraphrase mass, for fragments of the tune appear in all voices; throughout the work the melody appears in a wide variety of tempos and rhythms.[117] Technically it is almost restrained, compared to the other L'homme armé mass, until the closing Agnus Dei, which contains a complex canonic structure including a rare retrograde canon, around which other voices are woven.[129]

Paraphrase masses

Paraphrase masses by Josquin[130]

Early works
Later works

The paraphrase mass differed from the cantus firmus technique in that the source material, though still monophonic, could be (by Josquin's time) highly embellished, often with ornaments.[115] As in the cantus firmus technique, the source tune may appear in many voices of the mass.[131] Several of Josquin's masses feature the paraphrase technique, such as the early Missa Gaudeamus, which also includes cantus firmus and canonic elements.[117] The Missa Ave maris stella, also probably an early work, paraphrases the Marian antiphon of the same name; it is one of his shortest masses.[132] The late Missa de Beata Virgine paraphrases plainchants in praise of the Virgin Mary. As a Lady Mass, it is a votive mass for Saturday performance, and was his most popular mass in the 16th century.[133][134]

The best known of Josquin's paraphrase masses, and one of the most famous mass settings of the Renaissance, is the Missa Pange lingua, based on a hymn by Thomas Aquinas for the Vespers of Corpus Christi. It was probably the last mass Josquin composed.[135] This mass is an extended fantasia on the tune, using the melody in all voices and all parts of the mass, in elaborate and ever-changing polyphony. One of the high points of the mass is the et incarnatus est section of the Credo, where the texture becomes homophonic, and the tune appears in the topmost voice. Here the portion which would normally set—"Sing, O my tongue, of the mystery of the divine body"—is instead given the words "And he became incarnate by the Holy Ghost from the Virgin Mary, and was made man."[136] Noble comments that "The vigour of the earlier masses can still be felt in the rhythms and the strong drive to cadences, perhaps more so than in the Missa de Beata Virgine, but essentially the two contrasting strains of Josquin's music—fantasy and intellectual control—are so blended and balanced in these two works that one can see in them the beginnings of a new style: one which reconciles the conflicting aims of the great 15th-century composers in a new synthesis that was in essence to remain valid for the whole of the 16th century."[117]

Parody masses

Parody masses by Josquin[137]

Du Fay was one of the first to write masses based on secular songs (a parody mass), and his Missa Se la face ay pale, dates to the decade of Josquin's birth.[138] By the turn of the 16th century, composers were moving from quoting single voice lines, to widen their reference to all voices in the piece.[138] This was part of the transition from the medieval cantus firmus mass, where the voice bearing the preexisting melody stood aloof from the others, to the Renaissance parody masses, where all the voices formed an integrated texture.[139] In such masses, the source material was not a single line, but motifs and points of imitation from all voices within a polyphonic work.[115] By the time Josquin died, these parody masses had become well established and Josquin's works demonstrate the variety of methods in musical borrowing during this transition period.[138]

Six works are generally attributed to Josquin which borrow from polyphonic pieces,[137] two of which also include canonic features.[117] One of these—the Missa Di dadi, which includes a canon in the "Benedictus"—is based on a chanson by Robert Morton and has the rhythmic augmentation of the borrowed tenor part indicated by dice faces, which are printed next to the staff.[117][140] Canon can also be found in the "Osanna" of the Missa Faisant regretz which is based on Walter Frye's Tout a par moy.[117] The Missa Fortuna desperata is based on the popular three-voice Italian song Fortuna desperata.[117][n 10] In this mass, Josquin used each of the Italian song's voices as cantus firmi, varying throughout the work.[117] A similar variation in the source material's voices is used in the Missa Malheur me bat, based on a chanson variously attributed to Martini or Abertijne Malcourt.[117] The dating of Missa Malheur me bat remains controversial, with some scholars calling it an early composition, and others a later one.[142] The Missa Mater Patris, based on a three-voice motet by Antoine Brumel, is probably the earliest true parody mass by any composer, as it no longer contains any hint of a cantus firmus.[143] Missa D'ung aultre amer is based on a popular chanson of the same name by Ockeghem, and is one of Josquin's shortest masses.[144][n 11]

Solmization mass

A solmization mass is a polyphonic mass which uses notes drawn from a word or phrase.[116] The style is first described by Zarlino in 1558, who called it soggetto cavato, from soggetto cavato dalle parole, meaning "carved out of the words".[116] The earliest known mass by any composer using solmization syllables is the Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae, which Josquin wrote for Ercole I.[92][133] It is based on a cantus firmus of musical syllables of the Duke's name, 'Ercole, Duke of Ferrara', which in Latin is 'Hercules Dux Ferrarie'.[145][109] Taking the solmization syllables with the same vowels gives: Re–Ut–Re–Ut–Re–Fa–Mi–Re, which is D–C–D–C–D–F–E–D in modern nomenclature.[117][146] The Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae remains the best known work to use this device and was published by Petrucci in 1505, relatively soon after its composition.[109][147] Taruskin notes that the use of Ercole's name is Josquin's method of memorialization for his patron, akin to a portrait painting.[109]

The other Josquin mass to prominently use this technique is the Missa La sol fa re mi, based on the musical syllables contained in 'laisse faire moy' ("let me take care of it").[99] Essentially the entire mass's content is related to this phrase, and the piece is thus something of an ostinato.[117] The traditional story, as told by Glarean in 1547, was that an unknown aristocrat used to order suitors away with this phrase, and Josquin immediately wrote an "exceedingly elegant" mass on it as a jab at him.[146] Scholars have proposed different origins for the piece; Lowinsky has connected it to the court of Ascanio Sforza, and the art historian Dawson Kiang connected it to the Turkish prince Cem Sultan's promise to the pope to overthrow his brother Bayezid II.[99]

Motets

 
The opening passage from Josquin's motet Ave Maria ... Virgo serena, showing imitative counterpoint between the four voices

Josquin's motets are his most celebrated and influential works.[106] Their style varies considerably, but can generally be divided into homophonic settings with block chords and syllabic text declamation; ornate—and often imitative—contrapuntal fantasias in which the text is overshadowed by music; and psalm settings which combined these extremes with the addition of rhetorical figures and text-painting that foreshadowed the later development of the madrigal.[106][148] He wrote most of them for four voices, which had become the compositional norm by the mid-15th century, and descended from the four-part writing of Guillaume de Machaut and John Dunstaple in the late Middle Ages.[149] Josquin was also a considerable innovator in writing motets for five and six voices.[150]

Many of the motets use compositional constraint on the process;[151] others are freely composed.[152] Some use a cantus firmus as a unifying device, some are canonic, others use a motto which repeats throughout, and some use several of these methods. In some motets which use canon, it is designed to be heard and appreciated as such; in others a canon is present, but difficult to hear.[153] Josquin frequently used imitation in writing his motets, with sections akin to fugal expositions occurring on successive lines of the text he was setting.[152] This is prominent in his motet Ave Maria ... Virgo serena, an early work where each voice enters by restating the line sung before it.[152][n 6] Other early works such as a Alma Redemptoris mater/Ave regina caelorum show prominent imitation,[152] as do later ones such as his setting of Dominus regnavit (Psalm 93) for four voices.[154] Josquin favored the technique throughout his career.[152]

Few composers before Josquin had written polyphonic psalm settings,[155] and these form a large proportion of his later motets.[152] Josquin's settings include the famous Miserere (Psalm 51); Memor esto verbi tui, based on Psalm 119; and two settings of De profundis (Psalm 130), which are often considered to be among his most significant accomplishments.[154][156] Josquin wrote several examples of a new type of piece developed in Milan, the motet-chanson.[157] Though similar to 15th-century works based on the formes fixes mold which were completely secular, Josquin's motet-chansons contained a chant-derived Latin cantus firmus in the lowest of the three voices.[157] The other voices sang a secular French text, which had either a symbolic relationship to the sacred Latin text, or commented on it.[157] Josquin's three known motet-chansons are Que vous madame/In pace, A la mort/Monstra te esse matrem and Fortune destrange plummaige/Pauper sum ego.[157]

Secular music

 
El grillo
Sung by the dwsChorale
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Josquin left numerous French chansons, for three to six voices, some of which were probably intended for instrumental performance as well.[158] In his chansons, he often used a cantus firmus, sometimes a popular song whose origin can no longer be traced, as in Si j'avoye Marion.[159] In other works he used a tune originally associated with a separate text, or freely composed an entire song, using no apparent external source material. Another technique Josquin used was to take a popular song and write it as a canon with itself, in two inner voices, and write new melodic material above and around it, to a new text: he did this in one of his most famous chansons, Faulte d'argent.[160]

Josquin's earliest chansons were probably composed in northern Europe, under the influence of composers such as Ockeghem and Busnois. Unlike them, he never adhered strictly to the conventions of the formes fixes—the rigid and complex repetition patterns of the rondeau, virelai, and ballade—instead he often wrote his early chansons in strict imitation, as with many of his sacred works.[133] He was one of the first to write chansons with all voices equal parts of the texture, and many contain points of imitation, similar to his motets. He also used melodic repetition, especially where the lines of text rhymed, and many of his chansons had a lighter texture and faster tempo than his motets.[133][160] Some of his chansons were almost certainly designed to be performed with instruments; Petrucci published many of them without text, and some of the pieces (for example, the fanfare-like Vive le roy) contain writing more idiomatic for instruments than voices.[160] Josquin's most famous chansons circulated widely in Europe; some of the better-known include his lament on the death of Ockeghem, Nymphes des bois/Requiem aeternam; Mille regretz, an uncertain attribution to Josquin;[n 12] Nimphes, nappés; and Plus nulz regretz.[39]

Josquin also wrote at least three pieces in the manner of the frottola, a popular Italian song form which he would have heard during his years in Milan. These songs include Scaramella, El grillo and In te domine speravi. They are even simpler in texture than his French chansons, being almost uniformly syllabic and homophonic, and they remain among his most frequently performed pieces.[133][160]

Portraits

 
 
(First) Early 16th-century painting attributed to Filippo Mazzola, with a man holding the canon by Josquin. It may depict Josquin or Nicolò Burzio [it].
(Second) The Portrait of a Musician by Leonardo da Vinci, mid 1480s, in which Josquin has been tentatively proposed as the sitter

A small woodcut portraying Josquin is the most reproduced image of any Renaissance composer.[161] Printed in Petrus Opmeer's 1611 Opus chronographicum orbis universi, the woodcut is the earliest known depiction of Josquin and presumably based on an oil painting which Opmeer says was kept in the collegiate church of St. Goedele.[162] Church documents discovered in the 1990s have corroborated Opmeer's statement about the painting's existence.[163] It may have been painted during Josquin's lifetime and was owned by Petrus Jacobi (d. 1568), a cantor and organist at St. Gudula, Brussels.[1][161] Following the will's instructions, the altarpiece was placed next to Jacobi's tomb, but it was destroyed in the late 16th century by Protestant iconoclasts.[1] Whether the woodcut is a realistic likeness of the oil painting remains uncertain;[2] Elders notes that comparisons between contemporaneous woodcuts based on original paintings that do survive often show incompetent realizations, putting the accuracy of the woodcut in question.[164]

The Portrait of a Musician, widely attributed to Leonardo da Vinci,[n 13] depicts a man holding sheet music, which has led many scholars to identify him as a musician.[167] The work is usually dated to the mid-1480s,[166] and numerous candidates have been proposed, including Franchinus Gaffurius and Atalante Migliorotti, though none have achieved wide approval.[168] In 1972, the Belgian musicologist Suzanne Clercx-Lejeune [fr] argued the subject is Josquin;[1] she interpreted the words on the sitter's sheet music as "Cont" (an abbreviation of "Contratenor"), "Cantuz" (Cantus) and "A Z" (an abbreviation of "Altuz"),[169] and she identified the music as Josquin's llibata Dei Virgo nutrix.[170] Several factors make this unlikely: the painting does not resemble the Opmeer portrait, the notation is largely illegible[171][172] and as a priest in his mid-thirties Josquin does not seem like the younger layperson in the portrait.[1] Fallows disagrees, noting that "a lot of new details point to Josquin, who was the right age, in the right place, had already served at least two kings, and was now rich enough to have his portrait painted by the best", but concludes that "we shall probably never know who Leonardo's musician was".[170]

A portrait from the early 16th century kept in the Galleria nazionale di Parma is often related to Josquin. It is usually attributed to Filippo Mazzola, and is thought to depict the Italian music theorist Nicolò Burzio [it], though neither the attribution nor sitter are certain.[173] The man in the painting is holding an altered version of Josquin's canon Guillaume se va chauffer.[174] Fallows notes that the subject has similar facial features to the portrait printed by Opmeer, but concludes that there is not enough evidence to conclude Josquin is the sitter.[175] Clercx-Lejeune also suggested Josquin was depicted in Jean Perréal's fresco of the liberal arts in Le Puy Cathedral, but this has not achieved acceptance from other scholars.[1] An 1811 painting by Charles-Gustave Housez [fr] depicts Josquin;[176] it was created long after the composer's death, but Clercx-Lejeune has contended that it is an older portrait which Housez restored and modified.[177]

Legacy

Influence

 
Imaginary Josquin portrait by Housez [fr], 1881[176]

Elders described Josquin as "the first composer in the history of Western music not to have been forgotten after his death",[178] while John Milsom called him "the towering composer of the Renaissance".[179] Fallows wrote that his influence on 16th century European music is comparable to that of Beethoven on the 19th and Igor Stravinsky on the 20th century.[180] Comparisons with Beethoven are particularly common, though Taruskin cautions that:[181]

"Drawing parallels between [Josquin and Beethoven] is easy; doing so has become traditional in music historiography. Unease with this tradition has occasionally been expressed by those who see in it a danger to an unprejudiced view of Josquin and his time [...] To think of Josquin merely as a fifteenth- or sixteenth-century Beethoven would be like placing him behind the nearer figure and thereby obscuring him from view."

His popularity led to imitation by fellow composers, and some publishers (especially in Germany) misattributed works to him after his death to meet the demand for new Josquin compositions.[99][182] This inspired a well-known remark that "now that Josquin is dead, he is producing more compositions than when he was still alive".[183][n 14] Fallows asserts that the issue was more complex than publishers attempting to increase their profits: similar names of composers and compositions caused confusion, as did works which quoted Josquin, or student works which imitated his style.[180] Josquin's pupils may have included Jean Lhéritier and Nicolas Gombert; Coclico claimed to be his student, though his statements are notoriously unreliable.[99]

Numerous composers wrote laments after his death, three of which were published by Tielman Susato in a 1545 edition of Josquin's music.[99][n 15] These included works by Benedictus Appenzeller, Gombert, Jacquet of Mantua and Jheronimus Vinders, as well as the anonymous Absolve, quaesumus, while Jean Richafort's requiem musically quoted him.[99] Josquin's compositions traveled widely after his death, more so than those of Du Fay, Ockeghem and Obrecht combined.[187] Surviving copies of his motets and masses in Spanish cathedrals date from the mid-16th century, and the Sistine Chapel is known to have performed his works regularly throughout the late 16th century and into the 17th.[99] Instrumental arrangements of his works were often published from the 1530s to the 1590s.[99] Josquin was described by Taruskin as the "master architect" of High Renaissance music,[188] and his compositions were parodied or quoted throughout Europe by almost every major composer of the later Renaissance, including Arcadelt, Brumel, Bartolomé de Escobedo, Antoine de Févin, Robert de Févin, George de La Hèle, Lupus Hellinck, Pierre Hesdin [ca], Lassus, Jacquet, Claudio Merulo, Philippe de Monte, Pierre Moulu, Philippe Rogier, Palestrina, Cipriano de Rore, Nicola Vicentino and Willaert.[99][189]

Reputation

Commendation, decline and reconsideration

 
Agnus Dei II, from Josquin's Missa L'homme armé super voces musicales, as reprinted in the Dodecachordon of Heinrich Glarean

There is little information on Josquin's reputation during his lifetime.[99] His composition of masses was commended by Paolo Cortese [it], and the poet Jean Molinet and the music theorists Gaffurius and Pietro Aron wrote about his works.[99] Josquin's popularity during his lifetime is also suggested by publications: Petrucci's Misse Josquin of 1502 was the first single-composer mass anthology, and Josquin was the only composer whose masses merited a second and a third volume.[190][99] Fallows asserts that Josquin gained European renown between 1494 and 1503, since the Petrucci publications and references by Gaffurius and Molinet occurred during this time.[190] After Josquin's death, humanists such as Cosimo Bartoli, Baldassare Castiglione and François Rabelais praised him, with Bartoli describing him as Michelangelo's equal in music.[99] Josquin was championed by the later theorists Heinrich Glarean and Gioseffo Zarlino,[191] and the theologian Martin Luther declared "he is the master of the notes. They must do as he wills; as for the other composers, they have to do as the notes will."[192]

Upon the emergence of Baroque music in the 17th century, Josquin's dominance began to lessen.[99] He was overshadowed by Palestrina, who dominated the pre-common practice period musical narrative, and whose compositions were considered the summit of polyphonic refinement.[193] Until the 20th century, discussion of Josquin's music was mainly limited to music scholars such as the theorists Angelo Berardi in the 1680s–1690s, and Johann Gottfried Walther in 1732.[99] The late 18th century saw a new interest in Netherlandish music: studies from Charles Burney, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, Raphael Georg Kiesewetter [de] and François-Joseph Fétis gave Josquin more prominence.[99][194] The music historian August Wilhelm Ambros described Josquin in the 1860s as "one of the towering figures of Western music history, not merely a forerunner of Palestrina but his equal",[99] and his research established the foundation for modern Josquin scholarship.[195] In the early 20th century, leading musicologists such as Alfred Einstein and Carl Dahlhaus largely dismissed Josquin.[196] Various publications then began to raise his status, beginning with a new edition of his complete works by Albert Smijers (1920s) and high evaluation by Friedrich Blume in the Das Chorwerk [de] series.[99] The early music revival raised Josquin's status, and brought the first major study on him by Helmuth Osthoff (Vol 1 1962/Vol 2 1965), an influential article by Lowinsky (1964),[197] and debates between the musicologist Joseph Kerman and Lowinsky (1965).[196] The 1971 International Josquin Festival-Conference firmly established Josquin in the center of Renaissance music, a position later cemented by Lowinsky's 1976 monograph.[99][196] The New Josquin Edition began publication in 1987.[99]

Skepticism and revision

External video
Ave Maria ... Virgo serena
  Performance by VOCES8
  Performance by Stile Antico

Reflecting on the sentiment that Josquin was "the greatest composer of his generation, and the most important, innovative, and influential composer of the late 15th and early 16th centuries", Sherr notes growing dissent from that position in the early 21st century.[18] Josquin's 2001 article in Grove Music Online lists less than 200 works attributed to him,[112] down from more than 370.[198] These revisions of Josquin's oeuvre have compromised some earlier scholarship which analyzed Josquin's style with works now not considered his.[199] Major revision has also occurred in Josquin's biography, with entire portions of it being rewritten due to Josquin having being confused with people with similar names.[200][n 16] Controversy has arisen about the extent of Josquin's influence; there is no doubt about his importance in Western music, but some scholars have contended that the extent of his reevaluation has unrealistically apotheosized him over his contemporaries.[199][201][202] Wegman asserts that Obrecht was more highly regarded in Josquin's time, to which Noble has noted that Josquin's prestigious positions, publications and employers "scarcely looks like the career of an unregarded composer".[199] Reflecting on the dispute, Sherr has concluded that Josquin's reputation is somewhat lessened, but on the basis of his most admired and firmly attributed works "he remains one of the towering figures in the history of music".[18][203]

Since the 1950s, Josquin's music has become central to the repertoire of many early music vocal ensembles and has been increasingly featured in recordings, with those by the Hilliard Ensemble, Orlando Consort, and A Sei Voci recommended by critics in the 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die (2017) survey.[204][n 17] The Tallis Scholars have recorded all of Josquin's masses, and won the Gramophone "record of the year" in 1987 for their recording of Missa Pange lingua, the only early music group to do so.[204][205] Josquin's presence in 21st-century scholarship remains strong; he was the subject of David Fallows's major monograph (2009), which is currently the standard biography for the composer, and he and Machaut were the only pre-Baroque composers to have entire chapters in Taruskin's Oxford History of Western Music (2005).[181][206] The 500th anniversary of Josquin's death in 2021 was widely commemorated.[207][208]

References

Notes

  1. ^ The younger Gossard, Josquin's father, had died by the time Josquin took up his inheritance in 1483. It remains uncertain when Josquin's father died, and whether the composer was an orphan for much of his youth.[15]
  2. ^ Modern scholarship differs in how it describes Josquin's nationality; his exact birthplace is unknown,[14] and determining nationalities for 15th-century composers is problematic in general.[19] He is known to have been born somewhere in French-speaking Flanders.[18] The musicologist Gustave Reese contends that "By far the greater number of [Josquin's] secular compositions have French texts. Culturally and legally Josquin was a Frenchman".[20] As such, sources such as Patrick Macey, Jeremy Noble, Jeffrey Dean and Reese in Grove Music Online call him a "French composer".[6] The musicologist Nanie Bridgman [fr] notes that Josquin succeeded Ockeghem in leading the 'Netherland[ish] Style', but also that Josquin and his contemporaries united that school with the "very different world of French music",[19] resulting in what scholars call the Franco-Flemish School.[21] Some sources refer to him as 'Franco-Flemish'.[22][23]
  3. ^ If the Haine theory from Fallows is correct, that would mean Josquin was born in the County of Hainaut, which would fit with a 1560 verse by the poet Pierre de Ronsard that describes him as such.[26]
  4. ^ The similarities between these two pieces are "often cited as a clear allusion";[30] Fallows expresses uncertainty on how meaningful the similarities between Josquin's Alma Redemptoris mater/Ave regina caelorum and Ockeghem's Alma Redemptoris mater are, see Fallows (2020, p. 37). See Finscher (2000, pp. 258–260) for analysis on how Josquin quickly departs from Ockeghem's style in this work. See this image for an example.
  5. ^ Due to chronological issues in his career Josquin was long dismissed as the "des Prez" of Compère's motet.[31] Modern research allows for the reexamination of this possibility. See Fallows (2020, pp. 25–29) for further information.
  6. ^ a b Ave Maria ... Virgo serena is among Josquin's most frequently analyzed and celebrated works.[47] See Dumitrescu (2009), Milsom (2015) and Rifkin (2003) for further information on the motet.
  7. ^ Until 1997 Josquin was thought to have joined the papal choir in 1486, as he was mistakenly identified with a 'Jo. de Pratis' in papal documents. It is now thought that this refers to the composer Johannes de Stokem instead, and thus the earliest record of Josquin's employment in the papal choir is from 1489.[57] See Starr (1997) for further information.
  8. ^ Fallows cites Lewis Lockwood, Joshua Rifkin, Jeremy Noble and Christopher Reynolds as supporting the later dating, against the "received view" that it was composed much earlier. Its structure has been used to date it to both the 1480s and the early 1500s, depending on whether the rigidity of the tenor was interpreted as a sign of immaturity or mastery. In the end, evidence of style, biography and transmission all point toward 1503/4 as the most likely composition date.[93][94][37]
  9. ^ The chapter at Bourges Cathedral asked him to become master of the choirboys there in 1508, but it is not known how he responded, and there is no record of him working there; most scholars presume he remained in Condé.[98]
  10. ^ a b The song survives anonymously in most sources. The attribution to Busnois, which exists in a single late source, is not generally accepted.[141]
  11. ^ Both the Missa Mater Patris and the Missa D'ung aultre amer may be spurious works; they were both rejected by Noble, but accepted by the editors of the New Josquin Edition.[112]
  12. ^ See Fallows (2001, pp. 214–252) and Litterick (2000, pp. 374–376) for information on the attribution issues surrounding Mille regretz
  13. ^ The Portrait of a Musician has a complex and controversial history of attribution (see §Attribution) but modern scholarship has secured at least a partial attribution to Leonardo.[165][166] Fallows noted in 2020 that "no scholar in the last thirty years has disputed Leonardo's authorship, at least for the main body of the general painting."[167]
  14. ^ The remark is variously attributed to the music publisher Georg Forster in 1540 by Elders (2013, p. 30), and to Martin Luther by Macey et al. (2011, §9 "Reputation").
  15. ^ Composers writing laments for fellow composers was a long-standing tradition in medieval and Renaissance music.[184][185] Earlier examples include F. Andrieu's Armes, amours/O flour des flours (1377) for Machaut, Ockeghem's Mort, tu as navré de ton dart (1460) for Binchois and Josquin's own Nymphes des bois (1497) for Ockeghem.[186] See Rice (1999, p. 31) for a complete list of extant medieval and Renaissance laments.
  16. ^ Sherr cited numerous articles as milestones in revising Josquin's biography, including Fallows (1996), Kellman (1976), Lockwood (1976), Matthews & Merkley (1998), Roth (2000) and Starr (1997)[200]
  17. ^ See Urquhart (2000, Appendix B (Discography)), and Charles (1983, p. 127), for comprehensive discographies

Citations

  1. ^ a b c d e f Macey et al. 2011, §8 "Portrait of Josquin".
  2. ^ a b Wegman 2000, p. 22.
  3. ^ a b Elders 2013, p. 17.
  4. ^ Matthews & Merkley 1998, pp. 208–215.
  5. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 9.
  6. ^ a b c Macey et al. 2011, § "Introduction".
  7. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 12.
  8. ^ Matthews & Merkley 1998, p. 214, footnote.
  9. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 52.
  10. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 306.
  11. ^ a b c d Fallows 2020, p. 18.
  12. ^ Higgins 2004, p. 448.
  13. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 8.
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Macey et al. 2011, §1 "Birth, family and early training (c1450–75)".
  15. ^ Kellman 2009, p. 199, note 57.
  16. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 11–13.
  17. ^ Kellman 2009, pp. 183–200.
  18. ^ a b c d Sherr 2017, § "Introduction".
  19. ^ a b Bridgman 1960, p. 241.
  20. ^ Reese 1984, p. 2.
  21. ^ Gleason & Becker 1988, pp. 106, 109.
  22. ^ Milsom 2011.
  23. ^ The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music 2013.
  24. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 19.
  25. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 19–20.
  26. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 20.
  27. ^ a b Reese 1984, p. 3.
  28. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 13, 35.
  29. ^ Finscher 2000, pp. 258–259.
  30. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 37.
  31. ^ a b Fallows 2020, p. 25.
  32. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 27.
  33. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 39.
  34. ^ a b Planchart 2004, §2 "Posthumous reputation".
  35. ^ a b c d e f g Macey et al. 2011, §2 "Aix-en-Provence, ?Paris, Condé-sur-l'Escaut (c1475–1483)".
  36. ^ Merkley & Merkley 1999, p. 428.
  37. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Macey et al. 2011, §3 "Milan and elsewhere (1484–9)".
  38. ^ Lockwood 2009, pp. 298–299.
  39. ^ a b c Fallows 2020, p. 351.
  40. ^ a b c Fallows 2020, p. 105.
  41. ^ a b Fallows 2020, p. 106.
  42. ^ a b Fallows 2020, p. 118.
  43. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 109.
  44. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 110.
  45. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 111.
  46. ^ Rifkin 2003, p. 305.
  47. ^ Sherr 2017, § "Ave Maria ... virgo serena".
  48. ^ Elders 2013, p. 34.
  49. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 114–115.
  50. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 112.
  51. ^ Király 1992, p. 145.
  52. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 112–113.
  53. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 113.
  54. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 115.
  55. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 117–118.
  56. ^ a b c d e Macey et al. 2011, §4 "The papal chapel (1489–1494)".
  57. ^ a b Fallows 2020, p. 139.
  58. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 141.
  59. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 139–140.
  60. ^ a b Fallows 2020, p. 171.
  61. ^ Pietschmann 1999, p. 204.
  62. ^ a b c Fallows 2020, p. 173.
  63. ^ a b c Sherr 2000, p. 2
  64. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 174.
  65. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 193, 195.
  66. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Macey et al. 2011, §5 "France and Italy (1494–1503)".
  67. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 191.
  68. ^ a b c d Fallows 2020, p. 194.
  69. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 203.
  70. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 204.
  71. ^ a b Macey 1998, p. 155.
  72. ^ Wegman 2008, pp. 210–212.
  73. ^ a b Fallows 2020, p. 196.
  74. ^ a b Fallows 2020, pp. 91–93.
  75. ^ a b Sherr 2011, pp. 449–455.
  76. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 231–233.
  77. ^ Merkley 2001, pp. 547–548.
  78. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 235.
  79. ^ Reese 1984, p. 9.
  80. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 238.
  81. ^ Reese 1984, p. 10.
  82. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 236–237.
  83. ^ Reese 1984, p. 11.
  84. ^ Lowinsky 1964, pp. 484–486.
  85. ^ Wegman 2000, pp. 36–37.
  86. ^ Wegman 1999, pp. 335–337.
  87. ^ Wegman 2000, p. 39.
  88. ^ Macey 1998, p. 184.
  89. ^ Milsom 2000, p. 307.
  90. ^ a b Macey et al. 2011, §6 "Ferrara (1503–4)".
  91. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 256–259.
  92. ^ a b Merkley 2001, pp. 578–579.
  93. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 259.
  94. ^ Reynolds 2004.
  95. ^ a b c d e f g Macey et al. 2011, §7 "Condé-sur-l'Escaut (1504–21)".
  96. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 276–277.
  97. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 277.
  98. ^ Sherr 2000, p. 17
  99. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Macey et al. 2011, §9 "Reputation".
  100. ^ Milsom 2000, pp. 303–305.
  101. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 347.
  102. ^ Finscher 2000, p. 273.
  103. ^ Reese 1954, pp. 184–185.
  104. ^ a b c d Macey et al. 2011, §10 "Works: canon and chronology", § para. 7.
  105. ^ Godt 1977, pp. 264–292.
  106. ^ a b c d Milsom 2011, § para. 5.
  107. ^ a b c Macey et al. 2011, §10 "Works: canon and chronology", § para. 5.
  108. ^ Macey et al. 2011, §10 "Works: canon and chronology", § paras. 5–7.
  109. ^ a b c d Taruskin 2010, § "What Josquin Was Really Like".
  110. ^ a b c d e Macey et al. 2011, §12 "Masses".
  111. ^ Lockwood & Kirkman, § para. 7.
  112. ^ a b c Macey et al. 2011, § "Works".
  113. ^ Sherr 2000, p. ix.
  114. ^ Sherr 2001, § para. 1.
  115. ^ a b c Grove 2001.
  116. ^ a b c Lockwood 2001, § para. 1.
  117. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Macey et al. 2011, §12 "Masses: (ii) Complete masses".
  118. ^ a b Bloxam 2000, p. 196.
  119. ^ Bloxam 2000, p. 197.
  120. ^ Bloxam 2000, pp. 197–198.
  121. ^ Bloxam 2000, pp. 198, 202.
  122. ^ Urquhart 2012.
  123. ^ a b Bloxam 2000, p. 204.
  124. ^ Bloxam 2000, p. 206.
  125. ^ Blackburn 2000, p. 72.
  126. ^ Taruskin 2010, § "The Man At Arms".
  127. ^ Blackburn 2000, pp. 53–62.
  128. ^ Blackburn 2000, p. 63.
  129. ^ Blackburn 2000, p. 64.
  130. ^ Planchart 2000, p. 89.
  131. ^ Planchart 2000.
  132. ^ Planchart 2000, p. 109.
  133. ^ a b c d e Noble 1980, § "Works".
  134. ^ Planchart 2000, pp. 120–130.
  135. ^ Planchart 2000, pp. 130, 132.
  136. ^ Planchart 2000, p. 142.
  137. ^ a b Bloxam 2000, p. 152.
  138. ^ a b c Bloxam 2000, p. 151.
  139. ^ Bloxam 2000, pp. 151–152.
  140. ^ Bloxam 2000, pp. 152–153.
  141. ^ Bloxam 2000, p. 165.
  142. ^ Bloxam 2000, p. 185.
  143. ^ Reese 1954, p. 240.
  144. ^ Bloxam 2000, pp. 159–160.
  145. ^ Lockwood 2001, Ex. 1.
  146. ^ a b Blackburn 2000, p. 78.
  147. ^ Lockwood 2001, § para. 2.
  148. ^ Finscher 2000, p. 251.
  149. ^ Finscher 2000, p. 249.
  150. ^ Milsom 2000, p. 282.
  151. ^ Milsom 2000, p. 284.
  152. ^ a b c d e f Macey et al. 2011, §11 "Motets".
  153. ^ Milsom 2000, p. 290.
  154. ^ a b Reese 1954, p. 249.
  155. ^ Reese 1954, p. 246.
  156. ^ Milsom 2000, p. 305.
  157. ^ a b c d Litterick 2000, p. 336.
  158. ^ Litterick 2000, pp. 335, 393.
  159. ^ Brown 1980.
  160. ^ a b c d Macey et al. 2011, §13 "Secular Works".
  161. ^ a b Elders 2013, p. 27.
  162. ^ Haggh 1994, p. 91.
  163. ^ Haggh 1994, p. 92.
  164. ^ Elders 2013, p. 28.
  165. ^ Syson et al. 2011, p. 95.
  166. ^ a b Zöllner 2019, p. 225.
  167. ^ a b Fallows 2020, p. 135.
  168. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 135–137.
  169. ^ Marani 2003, p. 164.
  170. ^ a b Fallows 2020, p. 137.
  171. ^ Fagnart 2019, p. 75.
  172. ^ Syson et al. 2011, p. 97.
  173. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 244.
  174. ^ Fallows 2020, p. 245.
  175. ^ Fallows 2020, pp. 247–248.
  176. ^ a b MoC.
  177. ^ Reese 1984, p. 16.
  178. ^ Elders 2013, p. 29.
  179. ^ Milsom 2011, § para. 1.
  180. ^ a b Fallows 2020, p. 349.
  181. ^ a b Taruskin 2010, § "What Legends Do".
  182. ^ Milsom 2011, § para. 3.
  183. ^ Elders 2013, p. 30.
  184. ^ Reese 1940, p. 358.
  185. ^ Leach 2014, p. 304.
  186. ^ Rice 1999, p. 31.
  187. ^ Elders 2013, p. 229.
  188. ^ Taruskin 2010, § "Facts and Myths".
  189. ^ Elders 2013, pp. 42–43.
  190. ^ a b Fallows 2020, p. 193.
  191. ^ Wegman 2000, pp. 21–25.
  192. ^ Burkholder, Grout & Palisca 2014, p. 200.
  193. ^ Higgins 2004, p. 472.
  194. ^ Elders 2013, p. 41.
  195. ^ Higgins 2004, p. 454.
  196. ^ a b c Higgins 2004, p. 455.
  197. ^ Lowinsky 1964.
  198. ^ Wegman 2000, p. 28.
  199. ^ a b c Macey et al. 2011, §10 "Works: canon and chronology".
  200. ^ a b Sherr 2017, § "Studies That Significantly Revised Josquin's Biography".
  201. ^ Sherr 2017, § "Problems: Character and Posthumous Reputation".
  202. ^ Higgins 2004, pp. 444–445.
  203. ^ Sherr 2000, p. 10
  204. ^ a b Rye 2017, p. 32.
  205. ^ Higgins 2004, p. 444.
  206. ^ Sherr 2017, § "Biographies and Overviews".
  207. ^ Ross 2021.
  208. ^ Woolfe 2021.

Sources

Books
  • Bridgman, Nanie (1960). "The Age of Ockeghem and Josquin". In Abraham, Gerald; Hughes, Dom Anselm (eds.). Ars Nova and the Renaissance 1300–1540. The New Oxford History of Music. Vol. III. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 239–302. ISBN 978-0-19-316303-4.
  • Burkholder, J. Peter; Grout, Donald Jay; Palisca, Claude V. (2014). A History of Western Music (9th ed.). New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-91829-8.
  • Charles, Sydney R. (1983). Josquin des Prez: A Guide to Research. New York and London: Garland Publishing. ISBN 978-0-8240-9387-7.
  • Elders, Willem, ed. New Josquin Edition, 30 vols. Utrecht: Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1987– . ISBN 978-90-6375-051-0.
  • Elders, William (2013). Josquin des Pres and His Musical Legacy: An Introductory Guide. Leuven: Leuven University Press. ISBN 978-90-5867-941-3.
  • Fallows, David (2001). "Who composed Mille regretz?". In Haggh, Barbara (ed.). Essays on Music and Culture in Honor of Herbert Kellman. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. pp. 214–252. ISBN 978-2-86931-097-1.
  • Fallows, David (2020) [2009]. Josquin (2nd ed.). Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. ISBN 978-2-503-56674-0.
  • Gleason, Harold; Becker, Warren (1988). Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Music Literature Outline Series (3rd ed.). Bloomington: Frangipani Press. ISBN 978-0-88284-379-7.
  • Haggh, Barbara (1994). "Josquin's Portrait: New Evidence". In Clement, Albert; Jas, Eric (eds.). From Ciconia to Sweelinck: Donum natalicium Willem Elders. Amsterdam: Rodopi. ISBN 978-90-5183-768-1. from the original on 31 May 2022. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  • Kellman, Herbert (2009). "Dad and Granddad Were Cops: Josquin's Ancestry". In Bloxam, M. Jennifer; Filocamo, Gioia; Holford-Strevens, Leofranc (eds.). Uno gentile et subtile ingenio Studies in Renaissance Music in Honour of Bonnie J. Blackburn. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers. pp. 183–200. ISBN 978-2-503-53163-2.
  • Leach, Elizabeth Eva (2014). Guillaume de Machaut: Secretary, Poet, Musician. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-1-5017-0486-4. from the original on 26 April 2022. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  • Lockwood, Lewis (2009). Music in Renaissance Ferrara 1400-1505: The Creation of a Musical Center in the Fifteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-970300-5. from the original on 17 October 2021. Retrieved 23 July 2022.
  • Lowinsky, Edward; Blackburn, Bonnie J., eds. (1976). Josquin des Prez: Proceedings of the International Josquin Festival-Congress Held at the Julliard School at Lincoln Center in New York City, 21–25 June 1971. London: Oxford University Press.
  • Macey, Patrick (1998). Bonfire Songs: Savonarola's Musical Legacy. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-816669-6.
  • Marani, Pietro C. (2003) [2000]. Leonardo da Vinci: The Complete Paintings. New York: Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 978-0-8109-3581-5.
  • Merkley, Paul; Merkley, Lora (1999). Music and Patronage in the Sforza Court. Turnhout: Brepols. ISBN 978-2-503-50706-4.
  • Milsom, John (2015). "Making a Motet: Josquin's Ave Maria … virgo serena". In Busse Berger, Anna Maria; Rodin, Jesse (eds.). The Cambridge History of Fifteenth-Century Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 183–199. doi:10.1017/CHO9781139057813.017. ISBN 978-1-107-01524-1.
  • Reese, Gustave (1940). Music in the Middle Ages: With an Introduction on the Music of Ancient Times. Lanham: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-09750-4.
  • Reese, Gustave (1954). Music in the Renaissance. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-09530-2.
  • Reese, Gustave (1984) [1980]. The New Grove High Renaissance Masters: Josquin, Palestrina, Lassus, Byrd, Victoria. The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians: The Composer Biography Series. Other chapters by Jeremy Noble, Lewis Lockwood, Jessie Ann Owens, James Haar, Joseph Kerman and Robert Stevenson. London: Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-393-30093-2.
  • Reynolds, Christopher (2004). "Chapter 4: Interpreting and Dating Josquin's Missa Hercules dux ferrariae". In Meconi, Honey (ed.). Early Music Borrowing. Routledge. pp. 71–85. ISBN 0-8153-3521-0.
  • Rye, Matthew, ed. (2017). 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die. Preface by Steven Isserlis. Numerous other contributors, see pages 956–958. New York: Chartwell Books. ISBN 978-0-7858-3582-0.
  • Sherr, Richard, ed. (2000). The Josquin Companion. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-816335-0. from the original on 4 August 2022. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  • Syson, Luke; Keith, Larry; Galansino, Arturo; Mazzotta, Antoni; Nethersole, Scott; Rumberg, Per (2011). Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan. London: National Gallery. ISBN 978-1-85709-491-6.
  • Taruskin, Richard (2010). "Chapter 14: Josquin and the Humanists". Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century. The Oxford History of Western Music. Vol. 1. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-538481-9.
  • Zöllner, Frank (2019) [2003]. Leonardo da Vinci: The Complete Paintings and Drawings (Anniversary ed.). Cologne: Taschen. ISBN 978-3-8365-7625-3.
Journal and encyclopedia articles
Online
  • Ross, Alex (14 June 2021). "The Musical Mysteries of Josquin". The New Yorker. from the original on 11 July 2022. Retrieved 23 May 2022.
  • Woolfe, Zachary (29 April 2021). "The Renaissance's Most Influential Composer, 500 Years Later". The New York Times. from the original on 29 April 2021. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
  • "Tableau et cadre: Portrait de Josquin des Près" [Painting and Frame: Portrait of Josquin des Près] (in French). Ministry of Culture. from the original on 3 March 2022. Retrieved 2 March 2022.

Further reading

See Fallows (2020, pp. 469–495) and Sherr (2017) for extensive bibliographies

Short studies
  • Barbier, Jacques (2010). Josquin Desprez. Centre d'études supérieures de la Renaissance (in French). Tours: Bleu nuit éditeur. ISBN 978-2-913575-87-5.
  • Fiore, Carlo (2003). Josquin des Prez. Constellatio Musica 10 (in French). Palermo: L'Epos. ISBN 978-88-8302-220-3.
Outdated historical milestones
500th anniversary reflections
  • Fallows, David (26 November 2021). "Josquin at 500". Early Music. 49 (4): 471–472. doi:10.1093/em/caab065.
  • Fitch, Fabrice (20 January 2022). "Josquin at 500". Early Music. 49 (4): 617–621. doi:10.1093/em/caab078.
  • Rodin, Jesse (14 January 2022). "The Josquin Canon at 500: With an Appendix Produced in Collaboration with Joshua Rifkin". Early Music. 49 (4): 473–497. doi:10.1093/em/caab062.

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Josquin des Prez.

January 10, 2023
josquin, prez, josquin, redirects, here, other, uses, josquin, disambiguation, josquin, lebloitte, prez, 1450, 1455, august, 1521, composer, high, renaissance, music, variously, described, french, franco, flemish, considered, greatest, composers, renaissance, . Josquin redirects here For other uses see Josquin disambiguation Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez c 1450 1455 27 August 1521 was a composer of High Renaissance music who is variously described as French or Franco Flemish Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance he was a central figure of the Franco Flemish School and had a profound influence on the music of 16th century Europe Building on the work of his predecessors Guillaume Du Fay and Johannes Ockeghem he developed a complex style of expressive and often imitative movement between independent voices polyphony which informs much of his work He further emphasized the relationship between text and music and departed from the early Renaissance tendency towards lengthy melismatic lines on a single syllable preferring to use shorter repeated motifs between voices Josquin was a singer and his compositions are mainly vocal They include masses motets and secular chansons A 1611 woodcut of Josquin des Prez possibly copied from a now lost oil painting made during his lifetime 1 There have been doubts concerning whether this depiction is an accurate likeness 2 see Portraits Josquin s biography has been continually revised by modern scholarship and remains highly uncertain Little is known of his early years he was born in the French speaking area of Flanders and he may have been an altar boy and have been educated at the Cambrai Cathedral or taught by Ockeghem By 1477 he was in the choir of Rene of Anjou and then probably served under Louis XI of France Now a wealthy man in the 1480s Josquin traveled Italy with the Cardinal Ascanio Sforza may have worked in Hungary for king Matthias Corvinus and wrote the motet Ave Maria Virgo serena and the popular chansons Adieu mes amours and Que vous ma dame He served Pope Innocent VIII and Pope Alexander VI in Rome Louis XII in France and Ercole I d Este in Ferrara Many of his works were published by Ottaviano Petrucci in the early 16th century including the Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae In his final years in Conde Josquin produced some of his most admired works including the masses Missa de Beata Virgine and Missa Pange lingua the motets Benedicta es Inviolata Pater noster Ave Maria and Praeter rerum seriem and the chansons Mille regretz Nimphes nappes and Plus nulz regretz Influential both during and after his lifetime Josquin has been described as the first Western composer to retain posthumous fame His music was widely performed and imitated in 16th century Europe and was highly praised by Martin Luther and the music theorists Heinrich Glarean and Gioseffo Zarlino In the Baroque era Josquin s reputation became overshadowed by the Italian composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina though he was still studied by some theorists and music historians During the 20th century early music revival publications by August Wilhelm Ambros Albert Smijers Helmuth Osthoff and Edward Lowinsky and a successful academic conference caused his reevaluation as a central figure in Renaissance music This has led to controversy over whether he has been unrealistically elevated over his contemporaries particularly in light of over a hundred attributions now considered dubious He continues to draw interest in the 21st century and his music is frequently recorded central in the repertoire of early music vocal ensembles and the subject of continuing scholarship He was celebrated worldwide on the 500th anniversary of his death in 2021 Contents 1 Name 2 Life 2 1 Early life 2 1 1 Birth and background 2 1 2 Youth 2 1 3 Early career 2 2 Italy and travels 2 2 1 Milan and elsewhere 2 2 2 Rome 2 3 France 2 4 Ferrara 2 5 Conde 3 Music 3 1 Masses 3 1 1 Canonic masses 3 1 2 Cantus firmus masses 3 1 3 Paraphrase masses 3 1 4 Parody masses 3 1 5 Solmization mass 3 2 Motets 3 3 Secular music 4 Portraits 5 Legacy 5 1 Influence 5 2 Reputation 5 2 1 Commendation decline and reconsideration 5 2 2 Skepticism and revision 6 References 6 1 Notes 6 2 Citations 6 3 Sources 7 Further reading 8 External linksName EditJosquin s full name Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez became known in the late 20th century 3 from a pair of 1483 documents found in Conde sur l Escaut where he is referred to as the nephew of Gille Lebloitte dit des Prez and the son of Gossard Lebloitte dit des Prez 4 His first name Josquin is a diminutive form of Josse the French form of the name of a Judoc a Breton saint of the 7th century 5 Josquin was a common name in Flanders and Northern France in the 15th and 16th centuries 6 Other documents indicate that the surname des Prez had been used by the family for at least two generations perhaps to distinguish them from other branches of the Lebloitte family 7 At the time the name Lebloitte was rare and the reason that Josquin s family took up the more common surname des Prez as their dit name remains uncertain 8 His name has many spellings in contemporary records his first name is spelled as Gosse Gossequin Jodocus Joskin Josquinus Josse Jossequin Judocus and Juschino and his surname is given as a Prato de Prato Pratensis de Pres Desprez des Pres and des Pres 6 In his motet Illibata Dei virgo nutrix he includes an acrostic of his name where it is spelled IOSQVIN Des PREZ 9 Documents from Conde where he lived for the last years of his life refer to him as Maistre Josse Desprez These include a letter written by the chapter of Notre Dame of Conde to Margaret of Austria where he is named as Josquin Desprez 10 Scholarly opinion differs on whether his surname should be written as one word Desprez or two des Prez with publications from continental Europe preferring the former and English language publications the latter 11 Modern scholarship typically refers to him as Josquin 12 Life EditEarly life Edit Birth and background Edit Hainault and the surrounding area in the time of Josquin 13 Little is known about Josquin s early years 14 The specifics of his biography have been debated for centuries The musicologist William Elders noted that it could be called a twist of fate that neither the year nor the place of birth of the greatest composer of the Renaissance is known 3 A now outdated theory is that he was born around 1440 based on a mistaken association with Jushinus de Kessalia recorded in documents as Judocus de Picardia 11 A reevaluation of his later career name and family background has discredited this claim 14 He is now thought to have been born around 1450 and at the latest 1455 making him a a close contemporary of Loyset Compere and Heinrich Isaac and slightly older than Jacob Obrecht 14 Josquin s father was a policeman in the castellany of Ath who was accused of numerous offenses including complaints of undue force and disappears from the records after 1448 n 1 Nothing is known of Josquin s mother who is absent from surviving documents suggesting that she was either not considered Josquin s legitimate mother or that she died soon after or during his birth Around 1466 perhaps on the death of his father Josquin was named by his uncle and aunt Gille Lebloitte dit des Prez and Jacque Banestonne as their heir 16 17 Josquin was born in the French speaking area of Flanders in modern day northeastern France or Belgium 18 n 2 Despite his association with Conde in his later years Josquin s own testimony indicates that he was not born there 11 14 The only firm evidence for his birthplace is a later legal document in which Josquin described being born beyond Noir Eauwe meaning Black Water 11 14 This description has puzzled scholars and there are various theories on which body of water is being referred to 14 L Eau Noire river in the Ardennes has been proposed and there was a village named Prez there 14 though the musicologist David Fallows contends that the complications surrounding Josquin s name make a surname connection irrelevant and that the river is too small and too far from Conde to be a candidate 24 Fallows proposes a birthplace near the converging Escaut and Haine rivers at Conde preferring the latter since it was known for transporting coal perhaps fitting the Black Water description 25 n 3 Other theories include a birth near Saint Quentin Aisne due to his early association with the Collegiate Church of Saint Quentin or in the small village of Beaurevoir which is near the Escaut a river that may be referred to in an acrostic in his later motet Illibata Dei virgo nutrix 14 Youth Edit There is no documentary evidence covering Josquin s education or upbringing 27 Fallows associates him with Goseequin de Condent an altar boy at the collegiate church of Saint Gery Cambrai until mid 1466 28 Other scholars such as Gustave Reese relay a 17th century account from Cardinal Richelieu s friend Claude Hemere suggesting that Josquin became a choirboy with his friend Jean Mouton at the Collegiate Church of Saint Quentin 27 this account has been questioned 14 The collegiate chapel there was an important center of royal patronage and music for the area All records from Saint Quentin were destroyed in 1669 and Josquin may have acquired his later connections with the French royal chapel through an early association with Saint Quentin 14 He may have studied under Johannes Ockeghem a leading composer whom he greatly admired throughout his life This is claimed by later writers such as Gioseffo Zarlino and Lodovico Zacconi Josquin wrote a lamentation on the death of Ockeghem Nymphes des bois 14 There is no concrete evidence for this tutorship and later commentators may only have meant that Josquin learnt from the older composer s example 14 Josquin musically quoted Ockeghem several times most directly in his double motet Alma Redemptoris mater Ave regina caelorum which shares an opening line with Ockeghem s motet Alma Redemptoris mater 14 29 n 4 Josquin could have been associated with Cambrai Cathedral as there is a des Prez among the cathedral s musicians listed in Omnium bonorum plena a motet by Compere 31 The motet was composed before 1474 and names many important musicians of the time including Antoine Busnois Johannes Tinctoris Johannes Regis Ockeghem and Guillaume Du Fay 14 The motet may refer to the singer Pasquier Desprez but Josquin is a likelier candidate 14 32 n 5 Josquin was certainly influenced by Du Fay s music 33 the musicologist Alejandro Planchart suggests that the impact was not particularly large 34 Early career Edit Rene of Anjou Josquin s first known employer The first firm record of Josquin s employment is from 19 April 1477 when he was a singer in the chapel of Rene of Anjou in Aix en Provence 35 Other evidence may place him in Aix as early as 1475 36 Josquin remained there until at least 1478 after which his name disappears from historical records for five years 35 He may have remained in Rene s service joining his other singers to serve Louis XI who sent them to the Sainte Chapelle of Paris 35 Josquin s connection to Louis XI could be furthered by his early motet Misericordias Domini in aeternum cantabo which may be a musical tribute for the king since it ends with the psalm verse In te Domine speravi non confundar in aeternum the line Louis commissioned Jean Bourdichon to write on 50 scrolls in the Chateau de Plessis lez Tours 35 A less accepted theory for Josquin s activities between 1478 and 1483 is that he had already entered the household of his future employer Ascanio Sforza in 1480 37 In that case Josquin would have been with Ascanio in Ferrara and might have written his Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae at this time for Ercole d Este 37 Around this period the Casanatense chansonnier was collected in Ferrara 38 which includes six chansons by Josquin Adieu mes amours En l ombre d ung buissonet Et trop penser Ile fantazies de Joskin Que vous ma dame and Une mousque de Biscaye 35 Adieu mes amours and Que vous ma dame are thought to have been particularly popular given their wide dissemination in later sources 39 In February 1483 Josquin returned to Conde to claim his inheritance from his aunt and uncle who may have been killed when the army of Louis XI besieged the town in May 1478 and had the population locked and burned in a church 35 40 In the same document the collegiate church of Conde is reported to have given vin d honneur lit wine of honor to Josquin because as a musician who had already served two kings he was now a distinguished visitor to the little town 40 Josquin hired at least 15 procurators to deal with his inheritance suggesting he was then wealthy 41 This would explain how later in his life he was able to travel frequently and did not have to compose greatly demanded mass cycles like contemporaries Isaac and Ludwig Senfl 41 Italy and travels Edit Milan and elsewhere Edit Tentative outline of Josquin s life from 1483 to 1489 42 Date Location ConfidenceMarch 1483 Conde CertainAugust 1483 Departure from Paris PossibleMarch 1484 Rome Possible15 May 1484 37 Milan CertainJune August 1484 Milan with Ascanio CertainUp to July 1484 Rome with Ascanio CertainJuly 1485 Plans to leave with Ascanio Certain1485 Hungary PossibleJanuary February 1489 Milan CertainEarly May 1489 Milan ProbableJune 1489 Rome in Sistine Chapel Choir CertainA surviving record indicates that Josquin was in Milan by 15 May 1484 perhaps just after his 1483 trip to Conde 37 In March 1484 he may have visited Rome 42 Fallows speculates that Josquin left Conde for Italy so quickly because his inheritance gave him more freedom and allowed him to avoid serving a king who he suspected had caused the deaths of his aunt and uncle 40 By then the sacred music of Milan Cathedral had a reputation for excellence 43 Josquin was employed by the House of Sforza and on 20 June 1484 came into the service of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza 37 Josquin s renown as a composer a strong recommendation from a patron of fellow musician or the use of his wealth might have helped him get this prestigious and long term position 44 While working for Ascanio on 19 August Josquin successfully requested a previously rejected dispensation to be rector at the parish church Saint Aubin without having been ordained a priest 45 Joshua Rifkin dates the well known motet Ave Maria Virgo serena to this time c 1485 35 46 n 6 Josquin went to Rome with Ascanio in July 1484 for a year and may have gone to Paris for a litigation suit involving the benefice in Saint Aubin during the later 1480s 37 Around this time the poet Serafino dell Aquila wrote his sonnet to Josquin Ad Jusquino suo compagno musico d Ascanio To Josquin his fellow musician of Ascanio which asks him not to be discouraged if his genius so sublime seemed poorly remunerated 37 48 Between 1485 and 1489 Josquin may have served under Matthias Corvinus in the Kingdom of Hungary 49 an account by the Cardinal Girolamo Aleandro in 1539 recalls the archbishop of Esztergom Pal Varday hu stating that the court of Matthias included excellent painters and musicians among them even Josquin himself 50 51 Some scholars suggest Aleandro was repeating a false rumor 37 or that Varday confused Josquin des Prez for Josquin Dor or Johannes de Stokem 52 Fallows contends that it is unlikely that Varday who was well educated and a musician would have made such a mistake but concedes that it is possible 53 The court of Matthias had a high standard of music and employed numerous musicians many of them from Italy 37 Though Fallows asserts that Josquin s presence in Hungary is likely 54 the evidence is circumstantial and no original documents survive to confirm the claim 37 Josquin was in Milan again in January 1489 probably until early May and met the theorist and composer Franchinus Gaffurius there 55 Rome Edit Josquin s presumed signature JOSQUINJ on the Sistine Chapel s choir gallery wall From June 1489 until at least April 1494 Josquin was a member of the papal choir in Rome under Pope Innocent VIII then the Borgia pope Alexander VI 56 n 7 Josquin may have arrived there due to an exchange of singers between Ludovico Sforza and Pope Innocent where the latter sent Gaspar van Weerbeke to Milan presumably in return for Josquin 56 Josquin s arrival brought much needed prestige to the choir as the composers Gaspar and Stokem had left recently and the only other choristers known to be composers were Marbrianus de Orto and Bertrandus Vaqueras 58 Two months after his arrival Josquin laid claim to the first of various benefices on 18 August 59 Holding three unrelated benefices at once without having residency there or needing to speak that area s language was a special privilege that Josquin s tenure and position offered 60 many of his choir colleagues had also enjoyed such privileges 56 His claims included a canonry at the Notre Dame de Paris Saint Omer Cambrai a parish in the gift of Saint Ghislain Abbey the Basse Yttre parish church two parishes near Frasnes Hainaut and Saint Gery Cambrai 56 Surviving papal letters indicate that some of these claims were approved but he does not appear to have taken up any of the canonries 60 The Sistine Chapel s monthly payment records give the best record of Josquin s career but all papal chapel records from April 1494 to November 1500 are lost making it unknown when he left Rome 57 After restorations from 1997 to 1998 the name JOSQUINJ was found as a graffito on the wall of the Sistine Chapel s cantoria choir gallery 56 61 It is one of almost four hundred names inscribed in the chapel around a hundred of which can be identified with singers of the papal choir 62 They date from the 15th to 18th centuries and the JOSQUINJ signature is in the style of the former 63 There is some evidence suggesting the name refers to Josquin des Prez it may be interpreted as either Josquin or Josquinus depending on whether the curved line on the far right is read as the abbreviation for us 62 Other choristers named Josquin tended to sign their name in full whereas Josquin des Prez is known to have done so mononymously on occasion 62 Andrea Adami da Bolsena notes in his 1711 Osservazioni per ben regolare il coro dei cantori della Cappella Pontificia that in his time Josquin s name was visibly sculpted in the Sistine Chapel s choir room 63 The musicologist Richard Sherr writes that while this is not a true autograph signature the possibility that Josquin des Prez actually produced it during his stay in the papal chapel is very high 63 and Fallows says that it hardly counts as an autograph but it may be the closest we can get 64 France Edit Josquin probably served under Louis XII who had captured the Sforzas his previous employers Documents found since the late 20th century have shed some light on Josquin s life and works between 1494 and 1503 at some point he was ordained a priest 65 66 In August 1494 he went to Cambrai as attested by a vin d honneur lit wine of honor record and he may have returned to Rome soon after 67 From then to 1498 there is no firm evidence for his activities Fallows suggests he stayed in Cambrai for these four years 66 68 citing Johannes Manlius s 1562 book Locorum communium collectanea which associates Josquin with Cambrai s musical establishment 68 This assertion would fit with Josquin s possible youthful connections in Cambrai and later vin d honneur there 68 Manlius cites the reformer Philip Melanchthon as the source for many of his stories strengthening the authenticity of his Josquin anecdotes Melanchthon was close to musical figures of his time including the publisher Georg Rhau and the composer Adrianus Petit Coclico 68 Two letters between members of the House of Gonzaga and Ascanio Sforza suggest that Josquin may have re entered the service of the Sforza family in Milan around 1498 they refer to a servant Juschino who delivered the hunting dogs to the Gonzagas 66 69 Circumstantial evidence suggests Juschino may have been Josquin des Prez but he is not known to have been qualified for such a task and it would be unusual to refer to him as a servant rather than a musician or singer 70 Josquin probably did not stay in Milan long since his former employers were captured during Louis XII s 1499 invasion 66 Before he left he most likely wrote two secular compositions the well known frottola El Grillo The Cricket and In te Domine speravi I have placed my hope in you Lord based on Psalm 31 66 71 The latter might be a veiled reference to the religious reformer Girolamo Savonarola who had been burned at the stake in Florence in 1498 and for whom Josquin seems to have had a special reverence the text was Savonarola s favorite psalm a meditation on which he left unfinished in prison when he was executed 71 Josquin was probably in France during the early 16th century documents found in 2008 indicate that he visited Troyes twice between 1499 and 1501 72 The long doubted account from Hemere that Josquin had a canonry at Saint Quentin was confirmed by documentary evidence that he had exchanged it by 30 May 1503 73 Canonries at Saint Quentin were almost always gifts from the French king to royal household members suggesting Josquin had been employed by Louis XII 73 According to Glarean in the Dodecachordon of 1547 the motet Memor esto verbi tui servo tuo Remember thy promise unto thy servant was composed as a gentle reminder to the king to keep his promise of a benefice to Josquin 66 Glarean claimed that on receiving the benefice Josquin wrote a motet on the text Bonitatem fecisti cum servo tuo Domine Lord thou hast dealt graciously with thy servant to show his gratitude to the king either Louis XI or Louis XII 74 75 Although such a motet survives and is mentioned with Josquin s Memor esto in many sources Bonitatem fecisti is now attributed to Carpentras 74 75 Some of Josquin s other compositions have been tentatively dated to his French period such as Vive le roy and In exitu Israel which resembles the style of other composers of the French court 76 The five voice De profundis a setting of Psalm 130 seems to have been written for a royal funeral perhaps that of Louis XII Anne of Brittany or Philip I of Castile 66 Ferrara Edit Ercole I d Este an important patron of the arts was Josquin s employer during 1503 1504 Josquin arrived in Ferrara by 30 May 1503 to serve Ercole I d Este Duke of Ferrara an arts patron who had been trying for many years to replace the composer and choirmaster Johannes Martini who had recently died 77 78 No extant documents record Josquin as having worked in Ferrara before though his earlier associations with Ercole suggest prior employment there 79 he signed a deed indicating he did not intend to stay there for long 80 Ercole is known to have met with Josquin s former employer Louis XII throughout 1499 to 1502 and these meetings may have led to his service for the Duke 66 Two letters survive explaining the circumstances of his arrival both from courtiers who scouted musical talent in the service of Ercole 81 The first of these was from Girolamo da Sestola nicknamed Coglia to Ercole explaining My lord I believe that there is neither lord nor king who will now have a better chapel than yours if your lordship sends for Josquin and by having Josquin in our chapel I want to place a crown upon this chapel of ours 14 August 1502 66 The second letter from the courtier Gian de Artiganova criticized Josquin and suggested Heinrich Isaac instead 82 To me Isaac seems well suited to serve your lordship more so than Josquin because he is more good natured and companionable and will compose new works more often It is true that Josquin composes better but he composes when he wants to and not when one wants him to and he is asking 200 ducats in salary while Isaac will come for 120 but your lordship will decide Gian de Artiganova to Ercole I d Este 2 September 1502 66 Around three months later Josquin was chosen his salary of 200 ducats was the highest ever for a ducal chapel member 83 The Artiganova letter is a unique source for Josquin s personality and the musicologist Patrick Macey interprets it as meaning he was a difficult colleague and that he took an independent attitude towards producing music for his patrons 66 Edward Lowinsky connected his purportedly difficult behavior with musical talent and used the letter as evidence that Josquin s contemporaries recognized his genius 84 85 Musicologist Rob Wegman questions whether meaningful conclusions can be drawn from such an anecdote 86 In a later publication Wegman notes the largely unprecedented nature of such a position and warns yet of course the letter could equally well be seen to reflect the attitudes and expectations of its recipient Ercole d Este 87 While in Ferrara Josquin wrote some of his most famous compositions including the austere Savonarola influenced Miserere mei Deus 88 which became one of the most widely distributed motets of the 16th century 89 Also probably from this period was the virtuoso motet Virgo salutiferi set to a poem by Ercole Strozzi and O virgo prudentissima based on a poem by Poliziano 90 Due to its stylistic resemblance to Miserere and Virgo salutiferi the Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae is also attributed to this time it was previously thought to have been written in the early 1480s 91 92 n 8 Josquin did not stay in Ferrara long An outbreak of the plague in 1503 prompted the evacuation of the Duke and his family as well as two thirds of the citizens and Josquin left by April 1504 His replacement Obrecht died of the plague in mid 1505 90 Conde Edit A 1545 map of Conde sur l Escaut by Jacob van Deventer Josquin probably moved from Ferrara to his home region of Conde sur l Escaut and became provost of the collegiate church of Notre Dame on 3 May 1504 he may have obtained the post from Philip I s sponsorship 95 His role gave him political responsibility and put him in charge of a workforce which included a dean a treasurer 25 canons 18 chaplains 16 vicars 6 choir boys and other priests 96 This was an appealing place for his old age it was near his birthplace had a renowned choir and was the leading musical establishment in Hainaut besides St Vincent at Soignies and Cambrai Cathedral 95 Very few records of his activity survive from this time he bought a house in September 1504 and sold it or a different one in November 1508 97 n 9 The Josquin mentioned may be the Joskin who traveled to present chansons to Charles V Holy Roman Emperor in Brussels or Mechelen 95 In his later years Josquin composed many of his most admired works They include the masses Missa de Beata Virgine and Missa Pange lingua the motets Benedicta es Inviolata Pater noster Ave Maria and Praeter rerum seriem and the chansons Mille regretz Nimphes nappes and Plus nulz regretz 39 The last of these Plus nulz regretz is set to a poem by Jean Lemaire de Belges that celebrates the future engagement between Charles V and Mary Tudor 95 In his last years Josquin s music saw European wide dissemination through publications by the printer Ottaviano Petrucci 99 Josquin s compositions were given a prominent place by Petrucci and were reissued numerous times 95 On his deathbed Josquin left an endowment for the performance of his work Pater noster at all general processions when townsfolk passed his house stopping to place a wafer on the marketplace altar to the Holy Virgin 100 He died on 27 August 1521 and left his possessions to Conde s chapter of Notre Dame 95 He was buried in front of the church s high altar 101 but his tomb was destroyed either during the French Wars of Religion 1562 1598 or in 1793 when the church was demolished amid the French Revolution 95 Music EditSee also List of compositions by Josquin des Prez Josquin s four voice motet Domine ne in furore was written c 1480 102 It includes one voice presenting a short motive which is subsequently imitated by other voices After Du Fay died in 1474 Josquin and his contemporaries lived in a musical world of frequent stylistic change 34 in part due to the movement of musicians between different regions of Europe 103 A line of musicologists credits Josquin with three primary developments 1 The gradual departure from extensive melismatic lines and emphasis instead on smaller motifs 104 These motivic cells were short easily recognizable melodic fragments which passed from one voice to another in a contrapuntal texture giving it an inner unity 105 2 The prominent use of imitative polyphony equally between voices which combines a rational and homogeneous integration of the musical space with a self renewing rhythmic impetus 104 3 A focus on the text with the music serving to emphasize its meaning an early form of word painting 104 The musicologist Jeremy Noble concludes that these innovations demonstrate the transition from the earlier music of Du Fay and Ockeghem to Josquin s successors Adrian Willaert and Jacques Arcadelt and eventually to the late Renaissance composers Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlande de Lassus 104 Josquin was a professional singer throughout his life and his compositions are almost exclusively vocal 106 He wrote in primarily three genres the mass motet and chanson with French text 106 In his 50 year career Josquin s body of work is larger than that of any other composer of his period besides perhaps Isaac and Obrecht 107 Establishing a chronology of his compositions is difficult the sources in which they were published offer little evidence and historical and contextual connections are meager 108 Few manuscripts of Josquin s music date from before the 16th century due to according to Noble time war and enthusiasm both religious and anti religious 107 Identifying earlier works is particularly difficult and later works only occasionally offer any more certainty 107 The musicologist Richard Taruskin writes that modern scholarship is still nowhere near a wholly reliable chronology and unlikely ever to reach it and suggests that the current tentative models tell us more about ourselves and the way in which we come to know what we know than they do about Josquin 109 Masses Edit Manuscript showing the opening Kyrie of the Missa de Beata Virgine a late work Rome Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Capp Sist 45 ff 1v 2r The mass is the central rite of the Catholic Church and polyphonic settings of the ordinary of the mass the Kyrie Gloria Credo Sanctus and Agnus Dei increased in popularity in the 14th century From the 15th century composers treated it as a central genre in Western classical music in accordance with greater demand 110 By Josquin s time masses were generally standardized into substantial polyphonic five movement works making it difficult for composers to satisfy both liturgical and musical demands Previous examples in the genre by composers such as Du Fay and Ockeghem were widely admired and emulated 110 Josquin and Obrecht led an intensive development of the genre 111 110 Josquin s masses are generally less progressive than his motets though he is credited with numerous innovations in the genre 110 His less radical approach may be explained by most of the masses being earlier works or the structural and textual limitations of the genre 110 Almost all are for four voices 112 The Josquin Companion categorizes the composer s masses into the following styles 113 Canonic masses which contains one or more voices derived from another via strict imitation Cantus firmus masses in which a pre existing tune appears in one voice of the texture with the other voices being more or less freely composed Paraphrase masses based on a popular monophonic song which is used freely in all voices and in many variations 114 Parody masses based on a polyphonic song which appears in whole or in part with material from all voices in use not just the tune 115 and Solmization masses named soggetto cavato by Zarlino in which the base tune is drawn from the syllables of a name or phrase 116 Josquin began his career at a time when composers started to find strict cantus firmus masses limiting 117 He pioneered paraphrase and parody masses which were not well established before the 16th century 117 Many of his works combine the cantus firmus style with paraphrase and parody making strict categorization problematic 117 Reflecting on Josquin s masses Noble notes that In general his instinct at least in his mature works seems to be to extract as much variety as possible from his given musical material sacred or secular by any appropriate means 117 Canonic masses Edit Opening of Josquin s Missa sine nomine source source Josquin s predecessors and contemporaries wrote masses based on canonic imitation The canonic voices in these masses derive from pre existing melodies such as the L homme arme song Faugues Compere and Forestier or chant Fevin and La Rue s Missae de feria 118 Josquin s two canonic masses are not based on existing tunes and so stand apart from the mainstream They are closer to the Missa prolationum written by Ockeghem and Missa ad fugam by de Orto both of which use original melodies in all the voices 118 Josquin s two canonic masses were published in Petrucci s third book of Josquin masses in 1514 the Missa ad fugam is the earlier of the two It has a head motif consisting of the whole first Kyrie which is repeated in the beginning of all five movements 119 The canon is restricted to the highest voice and the pitch interval between the voices is fixed while the temporal interval varies between only two values the two free voices generally do not participate in the imitation 120 The precise relationship of Josquin s mass to de Orto s is uncertain as is Josquin s authorship of the mass 121 122 No questions of authenticity cloud the Missa sine nomine written during Josquin s final years in Conde 123 In contrast to the inflexibility of the canonic scheme in the Missa ad fugam the temporal and pitch interval of the canon along with the voices that participate in it are varied throughout 123 The free voices are more fully integrated into the texture and frequently participate in imitation with the canonic voices sometimes preemptively 124 Cantus firmus masses Edit Prior to Josquin s mature period the most common technique for writing masses was the cantus firmus a technique which had been in use for most of the 15th century Josquin used the technique early in his career with the Missa L ami Baudichon considered to be one of his earliest masses 117 This mass is based on a secular tune similar to Three Blind Mice Basing a mass on such a source was an accepted procedure as evidenced by the existence of the mass in Sistine Chapel part books copied during the papacy of Julius II 1503 1513 125 Josquin s most famous cantus firmus masses are the two based on the L homme arme lit the armed man a popular tune for mass composition throughout the Renaissance 126 Though both are relatively mature compositions they are very different 117 Missa L homme arme super voces musicales is a technical tour de force on the tune containing numerous mensuration canons and contrapuntal display 127 Throughout the work the melody is presented on each note of the natural hexachord C D E F G and A 117 The later Missa L homme arme sexti toni is a fantasia on the theme of the armed man 128 While based on a cantus firmus it is also a paraphrase mass for fragments of the tune appear in all voices throughout the work the melody appears in a wide variety of tempos and rhythms 117 Technically it is almost restrained compared to the other L homme arme mass until the closing Agnus Dei which contains a complex canonic structure including a rare retrograde canon around which other voices are woven 129 Paraphrase masses Edit Paraphrase masses by Josquin 130 Early worksMissa Ave maris stella Missa GaudeamusLater worksMissa de Beata Virgine Missa Pange lingua The paraphrase mass differed from the cantus firmus technique in that the source material though still monophonic could be by Josquin s time highly embellished often with ornaments 115 As in the cantus firmus technique the source tune may appear in many voices of the mass 131 Several of Josquin s masses feature the paraphrase technique such as the early Missa Gaudeamus which also includes cantus firmus and canonic elements 117 The Missa Ave maris stella also probably an early work paraphrases the Marian antiphon of the same name it is one of his shortest masses 132 The late Missa de Beata Virgine paraphrases plainchants in praise of the Virgin Mary As a Lady Mass it is a votive mass for Saturday performance and was his most popular mass in the 16th century 133 134 The best known of Josquin s paraphrase masses and one of the most famous mass settings of the Renaissance is the Missa Pange lingua based on a hymn by Thomas Aquinas for the Vespers of Corpus Christi It was probably the last mass Josquin composed 135 This mass is an extended fantasia on the tune using the melody in all voices and all parts of the mass in elaborate and ever changing polyphony One of the high points of the mass is the et incarnatus est section of the Credo where the texture becomes homophonic and the tune appears in the topmost voice Here the portion which would normally set Sing O my tongue of the mystery of the divine body is instead given the words And he became incarnate by the Holy Ghost from the Virgin Mary and was made man 136 Noble comments that The vigour of the earlier masses can still be felt in the rhythms and the strong drive to cadences perhaps more so than in the Missa de Beata Virgine but essentially the two contrasting strains of Josquin s music fantasy and intellectual control are so blended and balanced in these two works that one can see in them the beginnings of a new style one which reconciles the conflicting aims of the great 15th century composers in a new synthesis that was in essence to remain valid for the whole of the 16th century 117 Parody masses Edit Parody masses by Josquin 137 Missa Di dadi Morton Missa D ung aultre amer Ockeghem Missa Faisant regretz Frye Missa Fortuna desperata n 10 Missa Malheur me bat Martini or Malcourt Missa Mater Patris Brumel Du Fay was one of the first to write masses based on secular songs a parody mass and his Missa Se la face ay pale dates to the decade of Josquin s birth 138 By the turn of the 16th century composers were moving from quoting single voice lines to widen their reference to all voices in the piece 138 This was part of the transition from the medieval cantus firmus mass where the voice bearing the preexisting melody stood aloof from the others to the Renaissance parody masses where all the voices formed an integrated texture 139 In such masses the source material was not a single line but motifs and points of imitation from all voices within a polyphonic work 115 By the time Josquin died these parody masses had become well established and Josquin s works demonstrate the variety of methods in musical borrowing during this transition period 138 Six works are generally attributed to Josquin which borrow from polyphonic pieces 137 two of which also include canonic features 117 One of these the Missa Di dadi which includes a canon in the Benedictus is based on a chanson by Robert Morton and has the rhythmic augmentation of the borrowed tenor part indicated by dice faces which are printed next to the staff 117 140 Canon can also be found in the Osanna of the Missa Faisant regretz which is based on Walter Frye s Tout a par moy 117 The Missa Fortuna desperata is based on the popular three voice Italian song Fortuna desperata 117 n 10 In this mass Josquin used each of the Italian song s voices as cantus firmi varying throughout the work 117 A similar variation in the source material s voices is used in the Missa Malheur me bat based on a chanson variously attributed to Martini or Abertijne Malcourt 117 The dating of Missa Malheur me bat remains controversial with some scholars calling it an early composition and others a later one 142 The Missa Mater Patris based on a three voice motet by Antoine Brumel is probably the earliest true parody mass by any composer as it no longer contains any hint of a cantus firmus 143 Missa D ung aultre amer is based on a popular chanson of the same name by Ockeghem and is one of Josquin s shortest masses 144 n 11 Solmization mass Edit A solmization mass is a polyphonic mass which uses notes drawn from a word or phrase 116 The style is first described by Zarlino in 1558 who called it soggetto cavato from soggetto cavato dalle parole meaning carved out of the words 116 The earliest known mass by any composer using solmization syllables is the Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae which Josquin wrote for Ercole I 92 133 It is based on a cantus firmus of musical syllables of the Duke s name Ercole Duke of Ferrara which in Latin is Hercules Dux Ferrarie 145 109 Taking the solmization syllables with the same vowels gives Re Ut Re Ut Re Fa Mi Re which is D C D C D F E D in modern nomenclature 117 146 The Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae remains the best known work to use this device and was published by Petrucci in 1505 relatively soon after its composition 109 147 Taruskin notes that the use of Ercole s name is Josquin s method of memorialization for his patron akin to a portrait painting 109 The other Josquin mass to prominently use this technique is the Missa La sol fa re mi based on the musical syllables contained in laisse faire moy let me take care of it 99 Essentially the entire mass s content is related to this phrase and the piece is thus something of an ostinato 117 The traditional story as told by Glarean in 1547 was that an unknown aristocrat used to order suitors away with this phrase and Josquin immediately wrote an exceedingly elegant mass on it as a jab at him 146 Scholars have proposed different origins for the piece Lowinsky has connected it to the court of Ascanio Sforza and the art historian Dawson Kiang connected it to the Turkish prince Cem Sultan s promise to the pope to overthrow his brother Bayezid II 99 Motets Edit The opening passage from Josquin s motet Ave Maria Virgo serena showing imitative counterpoint between the four voices Josquin s motets are his most celebrated and influential works 106 Their style varies considerably but can generally be divided into homophonic settings with block chords and syllabic text declamation ornate and often imitative contrapuntal fantasias in which the text is overshadowed by music and psalm settings which combined these extremes with the addition of rhetorical figures and text painting that foreshadowed the later development of the madrigal 106 148 He wrote most of them for four voices which had become the compositional norm by the mid 15th century and descended from the four part writing of Guillaume de Machaut and John Dunstaple in the late Middle Ages 149 Josquin was also a considerable innovator in writing motets for five and six voices 150 Many of the motets use compositional constraint on the process 151 others are freely composed 152 Some use a cantus firmus as a unifying device some are canonic others use a motto which repeats throughout and some use several of these methods In some motets which use canon it is designed to be heard and appreciated as such in others a canon is present but difficult to hear 153 Josquin frequently used imitation in writing his motets with sections akin to fugal expositions occurring on successive lines of the text he was setting 152 This is prominent in his motet Ave Maria Virgo serena an early work where each voice enters by restating the line sung before it 152 n 6 Other early works such as a Alma Redemptoris mater Ave regina caelorum show prominent imitation 152 as do later ones such as his setting of Dominus regnavit Psalm 93 for four voices 154 Josquin favored the technique throughout his career 152 Few composers before Josquin had written polyphonic psalm settings 155 and these form a large proportion of his later motets 152 Josquin s settings include the famous Miserere Psalm 51 Memor esto verbi tui based on Psalm 119 and two settings of De profundis Psalm 130 which are often considered to be among his most significant accomplishments 154 156 Josquin wrote several examples of a new type of piece developed in Milan the motet chanson 157 Though similar to 15th century works based on the formes fixes mold which were completely secular Josquin s motet chansons contained a chant derived Latin cantus firmus in the lowest of the three voices 157 The other voices sang a secular French text which had either a symbolic relationship to the sacred Latin text or commented on it 157 Josquin s three known motet chansons are Que vous madame In pace A la mort Monstra te esse matrem and Fortune destrange plummaige Pauper sum ego 157 Secular music Edit El grillo source source Sung by the dwsChorale Problems playing this file See media help Josquin left numerous French chansons for three to six voices some of which were probably intended for instrumental performance as well 158 In his chansons he often used a cantus firmus sometimes a popular song whose origin can no longer be traced as in Si j avoye Marion 159 In other works he used a tune originally associated with a separate text or freely composed an entire song using no apparent external source material Another technique Josquin used was to take a popular song and write it as a canon with itself in two inner voices and write new melodic material above and around it to a new text he did this in one of his most famous chansons Faulte d argent 160 Josquin s earliest chansons were probably composed in northern Europe under the influence of composers such as Ockeghem and Busnois Unlike them he never adhered strictly to the conventions of the formes fixes the rigid and complex repetition patterns of the rondeau virelai and ballade instead he often wrote his early chansons in strict imitation as with many of his sacred works 133 He was one of the first to write chansons with all voices equal parts of the texture and many contain points of imitation similar to his motets He also used melodic repetition especially where the lines of text rhymed and many of his chansons had a lighter texture and faster tempo than his motets 133 160 Some of his chansons were almost certainly designed to be performed with instruments Petrucci published many of them without text and some of the pieces for example the fanfare like Vive le roy contain writing more idiomatic for instruments than voices 160 Josquin s most famous chansons circulated widely in Europe some of the better known include his lament on the death of Ockeghem Nymphes des bois Requiem aeternam Mille regretz an uncertain attribution to Josquin n 12 Nimphes nappes and Plus nulz regretz 39 Josquin also wrote at least three pieces in the manner of the frottola a popular Italian song form which he would have heard during his years in Milan These songs include Scaramella El grillo and In te domine speravi They are even simpler in texture than his French chansons being almost uniformly syllabic and homophonic and they remain among his most frequently performed pieces 133 160 Portraits Edit First Early 16th century painting attributed to Filippo Mazzola with a man holding the canon by Josquin It may depict Josquin or Nicolo Burzio it Second The Portrait of a Musician by Leonardo da Vinci mid 1480s in which Josquin has been tentatively proposed as the sitter A small woodcut portraying Josquin is the most reproduced image of any Renaissance composer 161 Printed in Petrus Opmeer s 1611 Opus chronographicum orbis universi the woodcut is the earliest known depiction of Josquin and presumably based on an oil painting which Opmeer says was kept in the collegiate church of St Goedele 162 Church documents discovered in the 1990s have corroborated Opmeer s statement about the painting s existence 163 It may have been painted during Josquin s lifetime and was owned by Petrus Jacobi d 1568 a cantor and organist at St Gudula Brussels 1 161 Following the will s instructions the altarpiece was placed next to Jacobi s tomb but it was destroyed in the late 16th century by Protestant iconoclasts 1 Whether the woodcut is a realistic likeness of the oil painting remains uncertain 2 Elders notes that comparisons between contemporaneous woodcuts based on original paintings that do survive often show incompetent realizations putting the accuracy of the woodcut in question 164 The Portrait of a Musician widely attributed to Leonardo da Vinci n 13 depicts a man holding sheet music which has led many scholars to identify him as a musician 167 The work is usually dated to the mid 1480s 166 and numerous candidates have been proposed including Franchinus Gaffurius and Atalante Migliorotti though none have achieved wide approval 168 In 1972 the Belgian musicologist Suzanne Clercx Lejeune fr argued the subject is Josquin 1 she interpreted the words on the sitter s sheet music as Cont an abbreviation of Contratenor Cantuz Cantus and A Z an abbreviation of Altuz 169 and she identified the music as Josquin s llibata Dei Virgo nutrix 170 Several factors make this unlikely the painting does not resemble the Opmeer portrait the notation is largely illegible 171 172 and as a priest in his mid thirties Josquin does not seem like the younger layperson in the portrait 1 Fallows disagrees noting that a lot of new details point to Josquin who was the right age in the right place had already served at least two kings and was now rich enough to have his portrait painted by the best but concludes that we shall probably never know who Leonardo s musician was 170 A portrait from the early 16th century kept in the Galleria nazionale di Parma is often related to Josquin It is usually attributed to Filippo Mazzola and is thought to depict the Italian music theorist Nicolo Burzio it though neither the attribution nor sitter are certain 173 The man in the painting is holding an altered version of Josquin s canon Guillaume se va chauffer 174 Fallows notes that the subject has similar facial features to the portrait printed by Opmeer but concludes that there is not enough evidence to conclude Josquin is the sitter 175 Clercx Lejeune also suggested Josquin was depicted in Jean Perreal s fresco of the liberal arts in Le Puy Cathedral but this has not achieved acceptance from other scholars 1 An 1811 painting by Charles Gustave Housez fr depicts Josquin 176 it was created long after the composer s death but Clercx Lejeune has contended that it is an older portrait which Housez restored and modified 177 Legacy EditInfluence Edit Imaginary Josquin portrait by Housez fr 1881 176 Elders described Josquin as the first composer in the history of Western music not to have been forgotten after his death 178 while John Milsom called him the towering composer of the Renaissance 179 Fallows wrote that his influence on 16th century European music is comparable to that of Beethoven on the 19th and Igor Stravinsky on the 20th century 180 Comparisons with Beethoven are particularly common though Taruskin cautions that 181 Drawing parallels between Josquin and Beethoven is easy doing so has become traditional in music historiography Unease with this tradition has occasionally been expressed by those who see in it a danger to an unprejudiced view of Josquin and his time To think of Josquin merely as a fifteenth or sixteenth century Beethoven would be like placing him behind the nearer figure and thereby obscuring him from view His popularity led to imitation by fellow composers and some publishers especially in Germany misattributed works to him after his death to meet the demand for new Josquin compositions 99 182 This inspired a well known remark that now that Josquin is dead he is producing more compositions than when he was still alive 183 n 14 Fallows asserts that the issue was more complex than publishers attempting to increase their profits similar names of composers and compositions caused confusion as did works which quoted Josquin or student works which imitated his style 180 Josquin s pupils may have included Jean Lheritier and Nicolas Gombert Coclico claimed to be his student though his statements are notoriously unreliable 99 Numerous composers wrote laments after his death three of which were published by Tielman Susato in a 1545 edition of Josquin s music 99 n 15 These included works by Benedictus Appenzeller Gombert Jacquet of Mantua and Jheronimus Vinders as well as the anonymous Absolve quaesumus while Jean Richafort s requiem musically quoted him 99 Josquin s compositions traveled widely after his death more so than those of Du Fay Ockeghem and Obrecht combined 187 Surviving copies of his motets and masses in Spanish cathedrals date from the mid 16th century and the Sistine Chapel is known to have performed his works regularly throughout the late 16th century and into the 17th 99 Instrumental arrangements of his works were often published from the 1530s to the 1590s 99 Josquin was described by Taruskin as the master architect of High Renaissance music 188 and his compositions were parodied or quoted throughout Europe by almost every major composer of the later Renaissance including Arcadelt Brumel Bartolome de Escobedo Antoine de Fevin Robert de Fevin George de La Hele Lupus Hellinck Pierre Hesdin ca Lassus Jacquet Claudio Merulo Philippe de Monte Pierre Moulu Philippe Rogier Palestrina Cipriano de Rore Nicola Vicentino and Willaert 99 189 Reputation Edit Commendation decline and reconsideration Edit Agnus Dei II from Josquin s Missa L homme arme super voces musicales as reprinted in the Dodecachordon of Heinrich Glarean There is little information on Josquin s reputation during his lifetime 99 His composition of masses was commended by Paolo Cortese it and the poet Jean Molinet and the music theorists Gaffurius and Pietro Aron wrote about his works 99 Josquin s popularity during his lifetime is also suggested by publications Petrucci s Misse Josquin of 1502 was the first single composer mass anthology and Josquin was the only composer whose masses merited a second and a third volume 190 99 Fallows asserts that Josquin gained European renown between 1494 and 1503 since the Petrucci publications and references by Gaffurius and Molinet occurred during this time 190 After Josquin s death humanists such as Cosimo Bartoli Baldassare Castiglione and Francois Rabelais praised him with Bartoli describing him as Michelangelo s equal in music 99 Josquin was championed by the later theorists Heinrich Glarean and Gioseffo Zarlino 191 and the theologian Martin Luther declared he is the master of the notes They must do as he wills as for the other composers they have to do as the notes will 192 Upon the emergence of Baroque music in the 17th century Josquin s dominance began to lessen 99 He was overshadowed by Palestrina who dominated the pre common practice period musical narrative and whose compositions were considered the summit of polyphonic refinement 193 Until the 20th century discussion of Josquin s music was mainly limited to music scholars such as the theorists Angelo Berardi in the 1680s 1690s and Johann Gottfried Walther in 1732 99 The late 18th century saw a new interest in Netherlandish music studies from Charles Burney Johann Nikolaus Forkel Raphael Georg Kiesewetter de and Francois Joseph Fetis gave Josquin more prominence 99 194 The music historian August Wilhelm Ambros described Josquin in the 1860s as one of the towering figures of Western music history not merely a forerunner of Palestrina but his equal 99 and his research established the foundation for modern Josquin scholarship 195 In the early 20th century leading musicologists such as Alfred Einstein and Carl Dahlhaus largely dismissed Josquin 196 Various publications then began to raise his status beginning with a new edition of his complete works by Albert Smijers 1920s and high evaluation by Friedrich Blume in the Das Chorwerk de series 99 The early music revival raised Josquin s status and brought the first major study on him by Helmuth Osthoff Vol 1 1962 Vol 2 1965 an influential article by Lowinsky 1964 197 and debates between the musicologist Joseph Kerman and Lowinsky 1965 196 The 1971 International Josquin Festival Conference firmly established Josquin in the center of Renaissance music a position later cemented by Lowinsky s 1976 monograph 99 196 The New Josquin Edition began publication in 1987 99 Skepticism and revision Edit External videoAve Maria Virgo serena Performance by VOCES8 Performance by Stile AnticoReflecting on the sentiment that Josquin was the greatest composer of his generation and the most important innovative and influential composer of the late 15th and early 16th centuries Sherr notes growing dissent from that position in the early 21st century 18 Josquin s 2001 article in Grove Music Online lists less than 200 works attributed to him 112 down from more than 370 198 These revisions of Josquin s oeuvre have compromised some earlier scholarship which analyzed Josquin s style with works now not considered his 199 Major revision has also occurred in Josquin s biography with entire portions of it being rewritten due to Josquin having being confused with people with similar names 200 n 16 Controversy has arisen about the extent of Josquin s influence there is no doubt about his importance in Western music but some scholars have contended that the extent of his reevaluation has unrealistically apotheosized him over his contemporaries 199 201 202 Wegman asserts that Obrecht was more highly regarded in Josquin s time to which Noble has noted that Josquin s prestigious positions publications and employers scarcely looks like the career of an unregarded composer 199 Reflecting on the dispute Sherr has concluded that Josquin s reputation is somewhat lessened but on the basis of his most admired and firmly attributed works he remains one of the towering figures in the history of music 18 203 Since the 1950s Josquin s music has become central to the repertoire of many early music vocal ensembles and has been increasingly featured in recordings with those by the Hilliard Ensemble Orlando Consort and A Sei Voci recommended by critics in the 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die 2017 survey 204 n 17 The Tallis Scholars have recorded all of Josquin s masses and won the Gramophone record of the year in 1987 for their recording of Missa Pange lingua the only early music group to do so 204 205 Josquin s presence in 21st century scholarship remains strong he was the subject of David Fallows s major monograph 2009 which is currently the standard biography for the composer and he and Machaut were the only pre Baroque composers to have entire chapters in Taruskin s Oxford History of Western Music 2005 181 206 The 500th anniversary of Josquin s death in 2021 was widely commemorated 207 208 References EditNotes Edit The younger Gossard Josquin s father had died by the time Josquin took up his inheritance in 1483 It remains uncertain when Josquin s father died and whether the composer was an orphan for much of his youth 15 Modern scholarship differs in how it describes Josquin s nationality his exact birthplace is unknown 14 and determining nationalities for 15th century composers is problematic in general 19 He is known to have been born somewhere in French speaking Flanders 18 The musicologist Gustave Reese contends that By far the greater number of Josquin s secular compositions have French texts Culturally and legally Josquin was a Frenchman 20 As such sources such as Patrick Macey Jeremy Noble Jeffrey Dean and Reese in Grove Music Online call him a French composer 6 The musicologist Nanie Bridgman fr notes that Josquin succeeded Ockeghem in leading the Netherland ish Style but also that Josquin and his contemporaries united that school with the very different world of French music 19 resulting in what scholars call the Franco Flemish School 21 Some sources refer to him as Franco Flemish 22 23 If the Haine theory from Fallows is correct that would mean Josquin was born in the County of Hainaut which would fit with a 1560 verse by the poet Pierre de Ronsard that describes him as such 26 The similarities between these two pieces are often cited as a clear allusion 30 Fallows expresses uncertainty on how meaningful the similarities between Josquin s Alma Redemptoris mater Ave regina caelorum and Ockeghem s Alma Redemptoris mater are see Fallows 2020 p 37 See Finscher 2000 pp 258 260 for analysis on how Josquin quickly departs from Ockeghem s style in this work See this image for an example Due to chronological issues in his career Josquin was long dismissed as the des Prez of Compere s motet 31 Modern research allows for the reexamination of this possibility See Fallows 2020 pp 25 29 for further information a b Ave Maria Virgo serena is among Josquin s most frequently analyzed and celebrated works 47 See Dumitrescu 2009 Milsom 2015 and Rifkin 2003 for further information on the motet Until 1997 Josquin was thought to have joined the papal choir in 1486 as he was mistakenly identified with a Jo de Pratis in papal documents It is now thought that this refers to the composer Johannes de Stokem instead and thus the earliest record of Josquin s employment in the papal choir is from 1489 57 See Starr 1997 for further information Fallows cites Lewis Lockwood Joshua Rifkin Jeremy Noble and Christopher Reynolds as supporting the later dating against the received view that it was composed much earlier Its structure has been used to date it to both the 1480s and the early 1500s depending on whether the rigidity of the tenor was interpreted as a sign of immaturity or mastery In the end evidence of style biography and transmission all point toward 1503 4 as the most likely composition date 93 94 37 The chapter at Bourges Cathedral asked him to become master of the choirboys there in 1508 but it is not known how he responded and there is no record of him working there most scholars presume he remained in Conde 98 a b The song survives anonymously in most sources The attribution to Busnois which exists in a single late source is not generally accepted 141 Both the Missa Mater Patris and the Missa D ung aultre amer may be spurious works they were both rejected by Noble but accepted by the editors of the New Josquin Edition 112 See Fallows 2001 pp 214 252 and Litterick 2000 pp 374 376 for information on the attribution issues surrounding Mille regretz The Portrait of a Musician has a complex and controversial history of attribution see Attribution but modern scholarship has secured at least a partial attribution to Leonardo 165 166 Fallows noted in 2020 that no scholar in the last thirty years has disputed Leonardo s authorship at least for the main body of the general painting 167 The remark is variously attributed to the music publisher Georg Forster in 1540 by Elders 2013 p 30 and to Martin Luther by Macey et al 2011 9 Reputation Composers writing laments for fellow composers was a long standing tradition in medieval and Renaissance music 184 185 Earlier examples include F Andrieu s Armes amours O flour des flours 1377 for Machaut Ockeghem s Mort tu as navre de ton dart 1460 for Binchois and Josquin s own Nymphes des bois 1497 for Ockeghem 186 See Rice 1999 p 31 for a complete list of extant medieval and Renaissance laments Sherr cited numerous articles as milestones in revising Josquin s biography including Fallows 1996 Kellman 1976 Lockwood 1976 Matthews amp Merkley 1998 Roth 2000 and Starr 1997 200 See Urquhart 2000 Appendix B Discography and Charles 1983 p 127 for comprehensive discographies Citations Edit a b c d e f Macey et al 2011 8 Portrait of Josquin a b Wegman 2000 p 22 a b Elders 2013 p 17 Matthews amp Merkley 1998 pp 208 215 Fallows 2020 p 9 a b c Macey et al 2011 Introduction Fallows 2020 p 12 Matthews amp Merkley 1998 p 214 footnote Fallows 2020 p 52 Fallows 2020 p 306 a b c d Fallows 2020 p 18 Higgins 2004 p 448 Fallows 2020 p 8 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Macey et al 2011 1 Birth family and early training c1450 75 Kellman 2009 p 199 note 57 Fallows 2020 pp 11 13 Kellman 2009 pp 183 200 a b c d Sherr 2017 Introduction a b Bridgman 1960 p 241 Reese 1984 p 2 Gleason amp Becker 1988 pp 106 109 Milsom 2011 The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music 2013 Fallows 2020 p 19 Fallows 2020 pp 19 20 Fallows 2020 p 20 a b Reese 1984 p 3 Fallows 2020 pp 13 35 Finscher 2000 pp 258 259 Fallows 2020 p 37 a b Fallows 2020 p 25 Fallows 2020 p 27 Fallows 2020 p 39 a b Planchart 2004 2 Posthumous reputation a b c d e f g Macey et al 2011 2 Aix en Provence Paris Conde sur l Escaut c1475 1483 Merkley amp Merkley 1999 p 428 a b c d e f g h i j k Macey et al 2011 3 Milan and elsewhere 1484 9 Lockwood 2009 pp 298 299 a b c Fallows 2020 p 351 a b c Fallows 2020 p 105 a b Fallows 2020 p 106 a b Fallows 2020 p 118 Fallows 2020 p 109 Fallows 2020 p 110 Fallows 2020 p 111 Rifkin 2003 p 305 Sherr 2017 Ave Maria virgo serena Elders 2013 p 34 Fallows 2020 pp 114 115 Fallows 2020 p 112 Kiraly 1992 p 145 Fallows 2020 pp 112 113 Fallows 2020 p 113 Fallows 2020 p 115 Fallows 2020 pp 117 118 a b c d e Macey et al 2011 4 The papal chapel 1489 1494 a b Fallows 2020 p 139 Fallows 2020 p 141 Fallows 2020 pp 139 140 a b Fallows 2020 p 171 Pietschmann 1999 p 204 a b c Fallows 2020 p 173 a b c Sherr 2000 p 2 Fallows 2020 p 174 Fallows 2020 pp 193 195 a b c d e f g h i j k Macey et al 2011 5 France and Italy 1494 1503 Fallows 2020 p 191 a b c d Fallows 2020 p 194 Fallows 2020 p 203 Fallows 2020 p 204 a b Macey 1998 p 155 Wegman 2008 pp 210 212 a b Fallows 2020 p 196 a b Fallows 2020 pp 91 93 a b Sherr 2011 pp 449 455 Fallows 2020 pp 231 233 Merkley 2001 pp 547 548 Fallows 2020 p 235 Reese 1984 p 9 Fallows 2020 p 238 Reese 1984 p 10 Fallows 2020 pp 236 237 Reese 1984 p 11 Lowinsky 1964 pp 484 486 Wegman 2000 pp 36 37 Wegman 1999 pp 335 337 Wegman 2000 p 39 Macey 1998 p 184 Milsom 2000 p 307 a b Macey et al 2011 6 Ferrara 1503 4 Fallows 2020 pp 256 259 a b Merkley 2001 pp 578 579 Fallows 2020 p 259 Reynolds 2004 a b c d e f g Macey et al 2011 7 Conde sur l Escaut 1504 21 Fallows 2020 pp 276 277 Fallows 2020 p 277 Sherr 2000 p 17 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Macey et al 2011 9 Reputation Milsom 2000 pp 303 305 Fallows 2020 p 347 Finscher 2000 p 273 Reese 1954 pp 184 185 a b c d Macey et al 2011 10 Works canon and chronology para 7 Godt 1977 pp 264 292 a b c d Milsom 2011 para 5 a b c Macey et al 2011 10 Works canon and chronology para 5 Macey et al 2011 10 Works canon and chronology paras 5 7 a b c d Taruskin 2010 What Josquin Was Really Like a b c d e Macey et al 2011 12 Masses Lockwood amp Kirkman para 7 a b c Macey et al 2011 Works Sherr 2000 p ix Sherr 2001 para 1 a b c Grove 2001 a b c Lockwood 2001 para 1 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Macey et al 2011 12 Masses ii Complete masses a b Bloxam 2000 p 196 Bloxam 2000 p 197 Bloxam 2000 pp 197 198 Bloxam 2000 pp 198 202 Urquhart 2012 a b Bloxam 2000 p 204 Bloxam 2000 p 206 Blackburn 2000 p 72 Taruskin 2010 The Man At Arms Blackburn 2000 pp 53 62 Blackburn 2000 p 63 Blackburn 2000 p 64 Planchart 2000 p 89 Planchart 2000 Planchart 2000 p 109 a b c d e Noble 1980 Works Planchart 2000 pp 120 130 Planchart 2000 pp 130 132 Planchart 2000 p 142 a b Bloxam 2000 p 152 a b c Bloxam 2000 p 151 Bloxam 2000 pp 151 152 Bloxam 2000 pp 152 153 Bloxam 2000 p 165 Bloxam 2000 p 185 Reese 1954 p 240 Bloxam 2000 pp 159 160 Lockwood 2001 Ex 1 a b Blackburn 2000 p 78 Lockwood 2001 para 2 Finscher 2000 p 251 Finscher 2000 p 249 Milsom 2000 p 282 Milsom 2000 p 284 a b c d e f Macey et al 2011 11 Motets Milsom 2000 p 290 a b Reese 1954 p 249 Reese 1954 p 246 Milsom 2000 p 305 a b c d Litterick 2000 p 336 Litterick 2000 pp 335 393 Brown 1980 a b c d Macey et al 2011 13 Secular Works a b Elders 2013 p 27 Haggh 1994 p 91 Haggh 1994 p 92 Elders 2013 p 28 Syson et al 2011 p 95 a b Zollner 2019 p 225 a b Fallows 2020 p 135 Fallows 2020 pp 135 137 Marani 2003 p 164 a b Fallows 2020 p 137 Fagnart 2019 p 75 Syson et al 2011 p 97 Fallows 2020 p 244 Fallows 2020 p 245 Fallows 2020 pp 247 248 a b MoC Reese 1984 p 16 Elders 2013 p 29 Milsom 2011 para 1 a b Fallows 2020 p 349 a b Taruskin 2010 What Legends Do Milsom 2011 para 3 Elders 2013 p 30 Reese 1940 p 358 Leach 2014 p 304 Rice 1999 p 31 Elders 2013 p 229 Taruskin 2010 Facts and Myths Elders 2013 pp 42 43 a b Fallows 2020 p 193 Wegman 2000 pp 21 25 Burkholder Grout amp Palisca 2014 p 200 Higgins 2004 p 472 Elders 2013 p 41 Higgins 2004 p 454 a b c Higgins 2004 p 455 Lowinsky 1964 Wegman 2000 p 28 a b c Macey et al 2011 10 Works canon and chronology a b Sherr 2017 Studies That Significantly Revised Josquin s Biography Sherr 2017 Problems Character and Posthumous Reputation Higgins 2004 pp 444 445 Sherr 2000 p 10 a b Rye 2017 p 32 Higgins 2004 p 444 Sherr 2017 Biographies and Overviews Ross 2021 Woolfe 2021 Sources Edit BooksBridgman Nanie 1960 The Age of Ockeghem and Josquin In Abraham Gerald Hughes Dom Anselm eds Ars Nova and the Renaissance 1300 1540 The New Oxford History of Music Vol III Oxford Oxford University Press pp 239 302 ISBN 978 0 19 316303 4 Burkholder J Peter Grout Donald Jay Palisca Claude V 2014 A History of Western Music 9th ed New York W W Norton amp Company ISBN 978 0 393 91829 8 Charles Sydney R 1983 Josquin des Prez A Guide to Research New York and London Garland Publishing ISBN 978 0 8240 9387 7 Elders Willem ed New Josquin Edition 30 vols Utrecht Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 1987 ISBN 978 90 6375 051 0 Elders William 2013 Josquin des Pres and His Musical Legacy An Introductory Guide Leuven Leuven University Press ISBN 978 90 5867 941 3 Fallows David 2001 Who composed Mille regretz In Haggh Barbara ed Essays on Music and Culture in Honor of Herbert Kellman Turnhout Brepols Publishers pp 214 252 ISBN 978 2 86931 097 1 Fallows David 2020 2009 Josquin 2nd ed Turnhout Brepols Publishers ISBN 978 2 503 56674 0 Gleason Harold Becker Warren 1988 Music in the Middle Ages and Renaissance Music Literature Outline Series 3rd ed Bloomington Frangipani Press ISBN 978 0 88284 379 7 Haggh Barbara 1994 Josquin s Portrait New Evidence In Clement Albert Jas Eric eds From Ciconia to Sweelinck Donum natalicium Willem Elders Amsterdam Rodopi ISBN 978 90 5183 768 1 Archived from the original on 31 May 2022 Retrieved 26 August 2022 Kellman Herbert 2009 Dad and Granddad Were Cops Josquin s Ancestry In Bloxam M Jennifer Filocamo Gioia Holford Strevens Leofranc eds Uno gentile et subtile ingenio Studies in Renaissance Music in Honour of Bonnie J Blackburn Turnhout Brepols Publishers pp 183 200 ISBN 978 2 503 53163 2 Leach Elizabeth Eva 2014 Guillaume de Machaut Secretary Poet Musician Ithaca Cornell University Press ISBN 978 1 5017 0486 4 Archived from the original on 26 April 2022 Retrieved 26 August 2022 Lockwood Lewis 2009 Music in Renaissance Ferrara 1400 1505 The Creation of a Musical Center in the Fifteenth Century Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 970300 5 Archived from the original on 17 October 2021 Retrieved 23 July 2022 Lowinsky Edward Blackburn Bonnie J eds 1976 Josquin des Prez Proceedings of the International Josquin Festival Congress Held at the Julliard School at Lincoln Center in New York City 21 25 June 1971 London Oxford University Press Kellman Herbert Josquin and the Courts of the Netherlands and France The Evidence of the Sources In Lowinsky amp Blackburn 1976 pp 181 216 Lockwood Lewis Josquin at Ferrara New Documents and Letters In Lowinsky amp Blackburn 1976 pp 103 137 Macey Patrick 1998 Bonfire Songs Savonarola s Musical Legacy Oxford Clarendon Press ISBN 978 0 19 816669 6 Marani Pietro C 2003 2000 Leonardo da Vinci The Complete Paintings New York Harry N Abrams ISBN 978 0 8109 3581 5 Merkley Paul Merkley Lora 1999 Music and Patronage in the Sforza Court Turnhout Brepols ISBN 978 2 503 50706 4 Milsom John 2015 Making a Motet Josquin s Ave Maria virgo serena In Busse Berger Anna Maria Rodin Jesse eds The Cambridge History of Fifteenth Century Music Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 183 199 doi 10 1017 CHO9781139057813 017 ISBN 978 1 107 01524 1 Reese Gustave 1940 Music in the Middle Ages With an Introduction on the Music of Ancient Times Lanham W W Norton amp Company ISBN 978 0 393 09750 4 Reese Gustave 1954 Music in the Renaissance New York W W Norton amp Company ISBN 978 0 393 09530 2 Reese Gustave 1984 1980 The New Grove High Renaissance Masters Josquin Palestrina Lassus Byrd Victoria The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians The Composer Biography Series Other chapters by Jeremy Noble Lewis Lockwood Jessie Ann Owens James Haar Joseph Kerman and Robert Stevenson London Macmillan ISBN 978 0 393 30093 2 Reynolds Christopher 2004 Chapter 4 Interpreting and Dating Josquin s Missa Hercules dux ferrariae In Meconi Honey ed Early Music Borrowing Routledge pp 71 85 ISBN 0 8153 3521 0 Rye Matthew ed 2017 1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die Preface by Steven Isserlis Numerous other contributors see pages 956 958 New York Chartwell Books ISBN 978 0 7858 3582 0 Sherr Richard ed 2000 The Josquin Companion Oxford and New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 816335 0 Archived from the original on 4 August 2022 Retrieved 26 August 2022 Blackburn Bonnie J Masses Based on Popular Songs and Solmization Syllables In Sherr 2000 pp 51 88 Bloxam M Jennifer Masses Based on Polyphonic Songs and Canonic Masses In Sherr 2000 pp 151 210 Finscher Ludwig Four Voice Motets In Sherr 2000 pp 249 279 Litterick Louise Chansons for Three and Four Voices In Sherr 2000 pp 335 392 Milsom John Motets for Five or More Voices In Sherr 2000 Planchart Alejandro Masses on Plainsong Cantus Firmi In Sherr 2000 pp 89 150 Sherr Richard Chronology of Josquin s Life and Career Introduction In Sherr 2000 pp 11 20 Urquhart Peter Discography In Sherr 2000 pp 597 640 Wegman Rob C Who Was Josquin In Sherr 2000 pp 21 50 Syson Luke Keith Larry Galansino Arturo Mazzotta Antoni Nethersole Scott Rumberg Per 2011 Leonardo da Vinci Painter at the Court of Milan London National Gallery ISBN 978 1 85709 491 6 Taruskin Richard 2010 Chapter 14 Josquin and the Humanists Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century The Oxford History of Western Music Vol 1 New York Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 538481 9 Zollner Frank 2019 2003 Leonardo da Vinci The Complete Paintings and Drawings Anniversary ed Cologne Taschen ISBN 978 3 8365 7625 3 Journal and encyclopedia articlesDumitrescu Theodor February 2009 Reconstructing and repositioning Regis s Ave Maria virgo serena Early Music 37 1 73 88 doi 10 1093 em can157 JSTOR 27655301 Fagnart Laure 2019 Gaspar Depicted Leonardo s Portrait of a Musician In Lindmayr Brandl Andrea Kolb Paul eds Gaspar van Weerbeke New Perspectives on his Life and Music Epitome musical Turnhout Brepols pp 73 77 doi 10 1484 M EM EB 4 2019026 ISBN 978 2 5035 8454 6 Fallows David April 1996 Josquin and Milan Plainsong amp Medieval Music 5 1 69 80 doi 10 1017 S0961137100001078 ISSN 0961 1371 S2CID 163086950 Godt Irving Autumn 1977 Motivic Integration in Josquin s Motets Journal of Music Theory 21 2 264 292 doi 10 2307 843491 JSTOR 843491 Higgins Paula Autumn 2004 The Apotheosis of Josquin des Prez and Other Mythologies of Musical Genius Journal of the American Musicological Society 57 3 443 510 doi 10 1525 jams 2004 57 3 443 JSTOR 10 1525 jams 2004 57 3 443 Kennedy Michal Kennedy Joyce Bourne eds 2013 2007 Johannes Ockeghem The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 920383 3 Archived from the original on 19 July 2022 Retrieved 19 July 2022 Kiraly Peter 1992 Un sejour de Josquin des Pres a la cour de Hongrie A stay of Josquin des Pres at the court of Hungary Revue de musicologie fr in French 78 1 145 150 doi 10 2307 947243 JSTOR 947243 Lockwood Lewis 2001 Mass 6 The cyclic mass in the later 15th century Grove Music Online Revised by Andrew Kirkman Oxford Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 45872 ISBN 978 1 56159 263 0 Archived from the original on 6 May 2019 Retrieved 1 June 2022 subscription or UK public library membership required Lockwood Lewis 2001 Soggetto cavato Grove Music Online Oxford Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 26100 ISBN 978 1 56159 263 0 Archived from the original on 6 June 2020 Retrieved 4 August 2022 subscription or UK public library membership required Lowinsky Edward October 1964 Musical Genius Evolution and the Origins of a Concept II The Musical Quarterly 50 4 476 495 doi 10 1093 mq L 4 476 JSTOR 740957 Macey Patrick Noble Jeremy Dean Jeffrey Reese Gustave 2011 2001 Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez Grove Music Online Oxford Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 14497 ISBN 978 1 56159 263 0 Archived from the original on 11 March 2021 Retrieved 17 January 2022 subscription or UK public library membership required Matthews Lora Merkley Paul Spring 1998 Iudochus de Picardia and Jossequin Lebloitte dit Desprez The Names of the Singer s The Journal of Musicology 16 2 200 226 doi 10 2307 764140 JSTOR 764140 Merkley Paul Fall 2001 Josquin Desprez in Ferrara The Journal of Musicology 18 4 544 583 doi 10 1525 jm 2001 18 4 544 JSTOR 10 1525 jm 2001 18 4 544 Milsom John 2011 Josquin des Prez In Latham Alison ed The Oxford Companion to Music Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 957903 7 Archived from the original on 15 May 2022 Retrieved 15 May 2022 Pietschmann Klaus 1999 Ein Graffito von Josquin Desprez auf der Cantoria der Sixtinischen Kapelle Die Musikforschung in German 52 2 204 207 doi 10 52412 mf 1999 H2 887 JSTOR 41123290 S2CID 140790222 Planchart Alejandro Enrique 2004 2001 Du Fay Dufay Du Fayt Guillaume Grove Music Online Oxford Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 08268 ISBN 978 1 56159 263 0 Archived from the original on 22 June 2020 Retrieved 23 May 2022 subscription or UK public library membership required Roth Adalbert 2000 Judocus de Kessalia and Judocus de Pratis Recercare 12 23 51 JSTOR 41701332 Rice Eric 1999 Tradition and Imitation in Pierre Certon s Deploration for Claudin de Sermisy Revue de Musicologie 85 1 29 62 doi 10 2307 947006 JSTOR 947006 Rifkin Joshua Summer 2003 Munich Milan and a Marian Motet Dating Josquin s Ave Maria virgo serena Journal of the American Musicological Society 56 2 239 350 doi 10 1525 jams 2003 56 2 239 JSTOR 10 1525 jams 2003 56 2 239 Sadie Stanley ed 1980 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 1st ed London Macmillan ISBN 978 1 56159 174 9 Brown Howard M Chanson In Sadie 1980 Noble Jeremy Josquin Desprez In Sadie 1980 Sherr Richard 2001 Paraphrase Grove Music Online Oxford Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 20882 ISBN 978 1 56159 263 0 Archived from the original on 3 June 2018 Retrieved 4 August 2022 subscription or UK public library membership required Sherr Richard August 2011 Laudat Autem David Fallows on Josquin Music amp Letters 92 3 437 461 doi 10 1093 ml gcr061 JSTOR 23013012 Sherr Richard 27 April 2017 Josquin des Prez Oxford Bibliographies Music Oxford Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 OBO 9780199757824 0194 Archived from the original on 3 March 2022 Retrieved 3 March 2022 subscription required Starr Pamela F Winter 1997 Josquin Rome and a Case of Mistaken Identity The Journal of Musicology 15 1 43 65 doi 10 2307 763903 JSTOR 763903 Urquhart Peter 2012 Ad fugam De Orto and a Defense of the Early Josquin Tijdschrift van de Koninklijke Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis 62 1 2 3 27 JSTOR 43738331 Wegman Rob C Summer 1999 And Josquin Laughed Josquin and the Composer s Anecdote in the Sixteenth Century The Journal of Musicology 17 3 319 357 doi 10 2307 764097 JSTOR 764097 Wegman Rob C May 2008 Ockeghem Brumel Josquin New Documents in Troyes Early Music 36 2 203 215 doi 10 1093 em can015 JSTOR 27655169 Parody mass Grove Music Online Oxford Oxford University Press 2001 doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 20939 ISBN 978 1 56159 263 0 Archived from the original on 6 April 2019 Retrieved 4 August 2022 subscription or UK public library membership required OnlineRoss Alex 14 June 2021 The Musical Mysteries of Josquin The New Yorker Archived from the original on 11 July 2022 Retrieved 23 May 2022 Woolfe Zachary 29 April 2021 The Renaissance s Most Influential Composer 500 Years Later The New York Times Archived from the original on 29 April 2021 Retrieved 29 April 2021 Tableau et cadre Portrait de Josquin des Pres Painting and Frame Portrait of Josquin des Pres in French Ministry of Culture Archived from the original on 3 March 2022 Retrieved 2 March 2022 Further reading EditSee Fallows 2020 pp 469 495 and Sherr 2017 for extensive bibliographies Short studiesBarbier Jacques 2010 Josquin Desprez Centre d etudes superieures de la Renaissance in French Tours Bleu nuit editeur ISBN 978 2 913575 87 5 Fiore Carlo 2003 Josquin des Prez Constellatio Musica 10 in French Palermo L Epos ISBN 978 88 8302 220 3 Outdated historical milestonesAmbros August Wilhelm 1893 Chapter 5 In Kade Otto ed Geschichte der Musik History of Music in German Vol 3 3rd ed Leipzig F E C Leuckart Verlag de Osthoff Helmuth 1962 1965 Josquin Desprez in German Tutzing Hans Schneider Lowinsky Edward 1976 Josquin des Prez Oxford Oxford University Press ISBN 978 0 19 315229 8 500th anniversary reflectionsFallows David 26 November 2021 Josquin at 500 Early Music 49 4 471 472 doi 10 1093 em caab065 Fitch Fabrice 20 January 2022 Josquin at 500 Early Music 49 4 617 621 doi 10 1093 em caab078 Rodin Jesse 14 January 2022 The Josquin Canon at 500 With an Appendix Produced in Collaboration with Joshua Rifkin Early Music 49 4 473 497 doi 10 1093 em caab062 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Josquin des Prez The Josquin Research Project a large scale database of Josquin s works directed by Jesse Rodin Free scores by Josquin des Prez at the International Music Score Library Project IMSLP Free scores by Josquin des Prez in the Choral Public Domain Library ChoralWiki List of compositions by Josquin des Prez at the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music Portals Classical music Biography Music Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Josquin des Prez amp oldid 1130937199, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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