Josquin des Prez (c. 1450/1455 – 1521), often
referred to simply as Josquin, was a French composer of
the Renaissance. His original name is sometimes given
as Josquin Lebloitte and his later name is given under
a wide variety of spellings in French, Italian, and
Latin, including Iosquinus Pratensis and Iodocus a
Prato. His motet Illibata Dei virgo nutrix includes an
acrostic of his name, where he spelled it "Josquin des
Prez". He was the most famous European composer between
Guillaume Dufay ...(+)
Josquin des Prez (c. 1450/1455 – 1521), often
referred to simply as Josquin, was a French composer of
the Renaissance. His original name is sometimes given
as Josquin Lebloitte and his later name is given under
a wide variety of spellings in French, Italian, and
Latin, including Iosquinus Pratensis and Iodocus a
Prato. His motet Illibata Dei virgo nutrix includes an
acrostic of his name, where he spelled it "Josquin des
Prez". He was the most famous European composer between
Guillaume Dufay and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina,
and is usually considered to be the central figure of
the Franco-Flemish School. Josquin is widely considered
by music scholars to be the first master of the high
Renaissance style of polyphonic vocal music that was
emerging during his lifetime.
During the 16th century, Josquin gradually acquired the
reputation as the greatest composer of the age, his
mastery of technique and expression universally
imitated and admired. Writers as diverse as Baldassare
Castiglione and Martin Luther wrote about his
reputation and fame, with Luther declaring that "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." Theorists such as Heinrich Glarean and Gioseffo
Zarlino held his style as that best representing
perfection. He was so admired that many anonymous
compositions were attributed to him by copyists,
probably to increase their sales. More than 370 works
are attributed to him; it was only after the advent of
modern analytical scholarship that some of these
attributions were challenged, and revealed as mistaken,
on the basis of stylistic features and manuscript
evidence. Yet in spite of Josquin's colossal
reputation, which endured until the beginning of the
Baroque era and was revived in the 20th century, his
biography is shadowy, and virtually nothing is known
about his personality. The only surviving work which
may be in his own hand is a graffito on the wall of the
Sistine Chapel, and only one contemporary mention of
his character is known, in a letter to Duke Ercole I of
Ferrara. The lives of dozens of less revered
Renaissance composers are better documented than that
of Josquin.
Josquin wrote both sacred and secular music, and in all
of the significant vocal forms of the age, including
masses, motets, chansons and frottole. During the 16th
century, he was praised for both his supreme melodic
gift and his use of ingenious technical devices. In
modern times, scholars have attempted to ascertain the
basic details of his biography, and have tried to
define the key characteristics of his style to correct
misattributions, a task that has proved difficult, as
Josquin liked to solve compositional problems in
different ways in successive compositions—sometimes
he wrote in an austere style devoid of ornamentation,
and at other times he wrote music requiring
considerable virtuosity. Heinrich Glarean wrote in 1547
that Josquin was not only a "magnificent virtuoso" (the
Latin can be translated also as "show-off") but capable
of being a "mocker", using satire effectively. While
the focus of scholarship in recent years has been to
remove music from the "Josquin canon" (including some
of his most famous pieces) and to reattribute it to his
contemporaries, the remaining music represents some of
the most famous and enduring of the Renaissance.
Josquin lived during a transitional stage in music
history. Musical styles were changing rapidly, in part
owing to the movement of musicians between different
regions of Europe. Many northern musicians moved to
Italy, the heart of the Renaissance, attracted by the
Italian nobility's patronage of the arts; while in
Italy, these composers were influenced by the native
Italian styles, and often brought those ideas with them
back to their homelands. The sinuous musical lines of
the Ockeghem generation, the contrapuntal complexity of
the Netherlanders, and the homophonic textures of the
Italian lauda and secular music began to merge into a
unified style; indeed Josquin was to be the leading
figure in this musical process, which eventually
resulted in the formation of an international musical
language, of which the most famous composers included
Palestrina and Lassus.
Many "modern" musical compositional practices were
being born in the era around 1500. Josquin made
extensive use of "motivic cells" in his compositions,
short, easily recognizable melodic fragments which
passed from voice to voice in a contrapuntal texture,
giving it an inner unity. This is a basic
organizational principle in music which has been
practiced continuously from approximately 1500 until
the present day.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josquin_des_Prez).
Although originally composed for Chorus (SATB), I
created this interpretation of the "Nymphes des bois,
déesses des fontaines" (Nymphs of the woods, goddesses
of the fountains) for Woodwind Quintet (Flute, Oboe,
English Horn, French Horn & Bassoon).
