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155-398: Jacopo Peri (20 August 1561 – 12 August 1633) was an Italian composer, singer and instrumentalist of the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods. He wrote what is considered the first opera , the mostly lost Dafne ( c.  1597 ), and also the earliest extant opera, Euridice (1600). He is sometimes known by the byname lo Zazzerino ( lit.   '

310-696: A seconda prattica (an innovative practice involving monodic style and freedom in treatment of dissonance, both justified by the expressive setting of texts) during the late 16th and early 17th centuries. In the late 16th century, as the Renaissance era closed, an extremely manneristic style developed. In secular music, especially in the madrigal , there was a trend towards complexity and even extreme chromaticism (as exemplified in madrigals of Luzzaschi , Marenzio , and Gesualdo ). The term mannerism derives from art history. Beginning in Florence , there

465-433: A contrapuntal texture, giving it an inner unity. 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". 3) A focus on the text, with the music serving to emphasize its meaning, an early form of word painting . The musicologist Jeremy Noble concludes that these innovations demonstrate

620-498: A lamentation on the death of Ockeghem, Nymphes des bois . There is no concrete evidence for this tutorship, and later commentators may only have meant that Josquin "learnt from the older composer's example". 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 . Josquin could have been associated with Cambrai Cathedral , as there

775-555: A vin d'honneur ( lit.   ' wine of honor ' ) record, and he may have returned to Rome soon after. From then to 1498 there is no firm evidence for his activities; Fallows suggests he stayed in Cambrai for these four years, citing Johannes Manlius's 1562 book Locorum communium collectanea , which associates Josquin with Cambrai's musical establishment. This assertion would fit with Josquin's possible youthful connections in Cambrai and later vin d'honneur there. Manlius cites

930-520: 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. Canon can also be found in the "Osanna" of the Missa Faisant regretz which is based on Walter Frye 's Tout a par moy . The Missa Fortuna desperata is based on the popular three-voice Italian song Fortuna desperata . In this mass, Josquin used each of

1085-745: 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. Surviving papal letters indicate that some of these claims were approved, but he does not appear to have taken up any of the canonries. 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. After restorations from 1997 to 1998,

1240-500: A cappella, predominantly light in style, and generally began as either copies or direct translations of Italian models. Most were for three to six voices. Musica reservata is either a style or a performance practice in a cappella vocal music of the latter half of the 16th century, mainly in Italy and southern Germany, involving refinement, exclusivity, and intense emotional expression of sung text. The cultivation of European music in

1395-529: A deed indicating he did not intend to stay there for long. 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. Two letters survive explaining the circumstances of his arrival, both from courtiers who scouted musical talent in the service of Ercole. The first of these was from Girolamo da Sestola (nicknamed "Coglia") to Ercole, explaining: "My lord, I believe that there

1550-586: A different one) in November 1508. The Josquin mentioned may be the Joskin who traveled to present chansons to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in Brussels or Mechelen . 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

1705-524: A few decades later in about 1476, the Flemish composer and music theorist Tinctoris reaffirmed the powerful influence Dunstaple had, stressing the "new art" that Dunstaple had inspired. Tinctoris hailed Dunstaple as the fons et origo of the style, its "wellspring and origin." The contenance angloise , while not defined by Martin le Franc, was probably a reference to Dunstaple's stylistic trait of using full triadic harmony (three note chords), along with

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1860-514: A hymn by Thomas Aquinas for the Vespers of Corpus Christi . It was probably the last mass Josquin composed. 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

2015-594: A jab at him. 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 . Josquin's motets are his most celebrated and influential works. 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

2170-574: A king who he suspected had caused the deaths of his aunt and uncle. By then, the sacred music of Milan Cathedral had a reputation for excellence. Josquin was employed by the House of Sforza , and on 20 June 1484 came into the service of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza. 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. While working for Ascanio, on 19 August Josquin successfully requested

2325-480: 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". While in Ferrara, Josquin wrote some of his most famous compositions, including the austere, Savonarola-influenced Miserere mei, Deus , which became one of the most widely distributed motets of

2480-596: A liking for the interval of the third . Assuming that he had been on the continent with the Duke of Bedford, Dunstaple would have been introduced to French fauxbourdon ; borrowing some of the sonorities, he created elegant harmonies in his own music using thirds and sixths (an example of a third interval is the notes C and E; an example of a sixth interval is the notes C and A). Taken together, these are seen as defining characteristics of early Renaissance music. Many of these traits may have originated in England, taking root in

2635-610: A musician, would have made such a mistake, but concedes that it is possible. The court of Matthias had a high standard of music and employed numerous musicians, many of them from Italy. Though Fallows asserts that Josquin's presence in the Hungarian king's service is likely, the evidence is circumstantial, and no original documents survive to confirm the claim. Josquin was in Milan again in January 1489, probably until early May, and met

2790-474: A number of other operas, often in collaboration with other composers (such as La Flora with Marco da Gagliano ), and also wrote a number of other pieces for various court entertainments. Few of his pieces are still performed today, and even by the time of his death, his operatic style was looking rather old-fashioned when compared to the work of relatively younger reformist composers such as Claudio Monteverdi . Peri's influence on those later composers, however,

2945-569: A prescriptive weight that overspecifies and distorts its original openness". Renaissance compositions were notated only in individual parts; scores were extremely rare, and barlines were not used. Note values were generally larger than are in use today; the primary unit of beat was the semibreve , or whole note . As had been the case since the Ars Nova (see Medieval music ), there could be either two or three of these for each breve (a double-whole note), which may be looked on as equivalent to

3100-539: A previously rejected dispensation to be rector at the parish church Saint Aubin without having been ordained a priest. Joshua Rifkin dates the well-known motet Ave Maria ... Virgo serena to this time, c.  1485 . 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. Around this time

3255-478: A result of the increased use of paper (rather than vellum ), as the weaker paper was less able to withstand the scratching required to fill in solid noteheads; notation of previous times, written on vellum, had been black. Other colors, and later, filled-in notes, were used routinely as well, mainly to enforce the aforementioned imperfections or alterations and to call for other temporary rhythmical changes. Accidentals (e.g. added sharps, flats and naturals that change

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3410-534: A servant Juschino who delivered the hunting dogs to the Gonzagas. 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. Josquin probably did not stay in Milan long, since his former employers were captured during Louis XII's 1499 invasion . Before he left, he most likely wrote two secular compositions,

3565-529: 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 . 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. No extant documents record Josquin as having worked in Ferrara before, though his earlier associations with Ercole suggest prior employment there; he signed

3720-462: A singer versed in counterpoint." (See musica ficta .) A singer would interpret his or her part by figuring cadential formulas with other parts in mind, and when singing together, musicians would avoid parallel octaves and parallel fifths or alter their cadential parts in light of decisions by other musicians. It is through contemporary tablatures for various plucked instruments that we have gained much information about which accidentals were performed by

3875-637: A singer. He subsequently began to work in the Medici court around September 1588, first as a tenor singer and keyboard player, and later as a composer. His earliest works were incidental music for plays, intermedi and madrigals . In the 1590s, Peri became associated with Jacopo Corsi , the leading patron of music in Florence. They believed contemporary art was inferior to classical Greek and Roman works, and decided to attempt to recreate Greek tragedy , as they understood it. Their work added to that of

4030-448: A solo instrument such as the lute, vihuela, harp, or keyboard. Such arrangements were called intabulations (It. intavolatura , Ger. Intabulierung ). Towards the end of the period, the early dramatic precursors of opera such as monody , the madrigal comedy , and the intermedio are heard. According to Margaret Bent : "Renaissance notation is under-prescriptive by our [modern] standards; when translated into modern form it acquires

4185-433: 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

4340-490: A texture dominated by the highest voice; the other two voices, unsupplied with text, were probably played by instruments. Du Fay was one of the last composers to make use of late-medieval polyphonic structural techniques such as isorhythm , and one of the first to employ the more mellifluous harmonies, phrasing and melodies characteristic of the early Renaissance. His compositions within the larger genres (masses, motets and chansons) are mostly similar to each other; his renown

4495-516: 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 . 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. A solmization mass is a polyphonic mass which uses notes drawn from a word or phrase. The style is first described by Zarlino in 1558, who called it soggetto cavato , from soggetto cavato dalle parole , meaning "carved out of

4650-499: A variety of other sacred works. John Dunstaple (c. 1390–1453) was an English composer of polyphonic music of the late medieval era and early Renaissance periods. He was one of the most famous composers active in the early 15th century, a near-contemporary of Power, and was widely influential, not only in England but on the continent, especially in the developing style of the Burgundian School . Dunstaple's influence on

4805-524: A vehicle for personal expression. Composers found ways to make vocal music more expressive of the texts they were setting. Secular music absorbed techniques from sacred music , and vice versa. Popular secular forms such as the chanson and madrigal spread throughout Europe. Courts employed virtuoso performers, both singers and instrumentalists. Music also became more self-sufficient with its availability in printed form, existing for its own sake. Precursor versions of many familiar modern instruments (including

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4960-544: A workforce which included a dean, a treasurer, 25 canons, 18 chaplains, 16 vicars, 6 choir-boys and other priests. 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. Very few records of his activity survive from this time; he bought a house in September 1504, and sold it (or

5115-399: Is D–C–D–C–D–F–E–D in modern nomenclature. 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. Taruskin notes that the use of Ercole's name is Josquin's method of memorialization for his patron, akin to a portrait painting . The other Josquin mass to prominently use this technique

5270-565: Is a diminutive form of Josse, the French form of the name of a Judoc , a Breton saint of the 7th century. Josquin was a common name in Flanders and Northern France in the 15th and 16th centuries. 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. At the time,

5425-484: Is a "des Prez" among the cathedral's musicians listed in Omnium bonorum plena , a motet by Compère. 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 . The motet may refer to the singer Pasquier Desprez, but Josquin is a likelier candidate. Josquin was certainly influenced by Du Fay's music;

5580-495: 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". Edward Lowinsky connected his purportedly difficult behavior with musical talent, and used the letter as evidence that Josquin's contemporaries recognized his genius. Musicologist Rob Wegman questions whether meaningful conclusions can be drawn from such an anecdote. In

5735-484: 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). 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

5890-490: Is being referred to. L'Eau Noire river in the Ardennes has been proposed, and there was a village named Prez there, 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. Fallows proposes a birthplace near the converging Escaut and Haine rivers at Condé, preferring

6045-551: Is best known for his well-written melodies, and for his use of three themes: travel, God and sex . Gilles Binchois ( c.  1400 –1460) was a Dutch composer, one of the earliest members of the Burgundian school and one of the three most famous composers of the early 15th century. While often ranked behind his contemporaries Guillaume Dufay and John Dunstaple by contemporary scholars, his works were still cited, borrowed and used as source material after his death. Binchois

6200-409: Is considered to be a fine melodist, writing carefully shaped lines which are easy to sing and memorable. His tunes appeared in copies decades after his death and were often used as sources for mass composition by later composers. Most of his music, even his sacred music, is simple and clear in outline, sometimes even ascetic (monk-like). A greater contrast between Binchois and the extreme complexity of

6355-675: 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 Vienna for

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6510-409: Is largely due to what was perceived as his perfect control of the forms in which he worked, as well as his gift for memorable and singable melody. During the 15th century, he was universally regarded as the greatest composer of his time, an opinion that has largely survived to the present day. During the 16th century, Josquin des Prez ( c.  1450/1455  – 27 August 1521) gradually acquired

6665-460: Is larger than that of any other composer of his period, besides perhaps Isaac and Obrecht. 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. 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)". Identifying earlier works

6820-429: 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." Around three months later, Josquin was chosen; his salary of 200 ducats was the highest ever for a ducal chapel member. The Artiganova letter

6975-422: 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). The second letter, from the courtier Gian de Artiganova, criticized Josquin and suggested Heinrich Isaac instead: "To me [Isaac] seems well suited to serve your lordship, more so than Josquin, because he

7130-568: Is no documentary evidence covering Josquin's education or upbringing. Fallows associates him with Goseequin de Condent, an altar boy at the collegiate church of Saint-Géry, Cambrai until mid-1466. 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; this account has been questioned. The collegiate chapel there

7285-452: 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", and Fallows says that "it hardly counts as an autograph, but it may be the closest we can get." 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. In August 1494 he went to Cambrai, as attested by

7440-409: Is particularly difficult, and later works only occasionally offer any more certainty. 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". The mass

7595-490: Is spelled IOSQVIN Des PREZ. 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". Scholarly opinion differs on whether his surname should be written as one word (Desprez) or two (des Prez), with publications from continental Europe preferring

7750-836: Is that he had already entered the household of his future employer Ascanio Sforza in 1480. 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. Around this period the Casanatense chansonnier was collected in Ferrara, 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 . Adieu mes amours and Que vous ma dame are thought to have been particularly popular, given their wide dissemination in later sources. In February 1483 Josquin returned to Condé to claim his inheritance from his aunt and uncle, who may have been killed when

7905-475: Is that he was born around 1440, based on a mistaken association with Jushinus de Kessalia, recorded in documents as "Judocus de Picardia". A reevaluation of his later career, name and family background has discredited this claim. He is now thought to have been born around 1450, and at the latest 1455, making him a "a close contemporary" of composers Loyset Compère and Heinrich Isaac , and slightly older than Jacob Obrecht . Josquin's father Gossart dit des Prez

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8060-496: Is the Missa La sol fa re mi , based on the musical syllables contained in ' laisse faire moy ' ("let me take care of it"). Essentially the entire mass's content is related to this phrase, and the piece is thus something of an ostinato . 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

8215-705: 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. 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

8370-562: Is uncertain, as is Josquin's authorship of the mass. No questions of authenticity cloud the Missa sine nomine , written during Josquin's final years in Condé. 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. The free voices are more fully integrated into

8525-447: 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. 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. The precise relationship of Josquin's mass to de Orto's

8680-425: The ars subtilior of the prior (fourteenth) century would be hard to imagine. Most of his secular songs are rondeaux , which became the most common song form during the century. He rarely wrote in strophic form , and his melodies are generally independent of the rhyme scheme of the verses they are set to. Binchois wrote music for the court, secular songs of love and chivalry that met the expectations and satisfied

8835-501: The Baroque , but for further explanation of this transition, see antiphon , concertato , monody , madrigal , and opera, as well as the works given under "Sources and further reading." Many instruments originated during the Renaissance; others were variations of, or improvements upon, instruments that had existed previously. Some have survived to the present day; others have disappeared, only to be recreated in order to perform music of

8990-544: The Counter-Reformation in the florid counterpoint of Palestrina ( c.  1525 –1594) and the Roman School . Music was increasingly freed from medieval constraints, and more variety was permitted in range, rhythm, harmony, form, and notation. On the other hand, rules of counterpoint became more constrained, particularly with regard to treatment of dissonances . In the Renaissance, music became

9145-471: 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. 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

9300-475: The Florentine Camerata of the previous decade, which produced the first experiments in monody , the solo song style over continuo bass which eventually developed into recitative and aria . Peri and Corsi brought in the poet Ottavio Rinuccini to write a text, and the result, Dafne , is seen as the first work in a new form, opera. Rinuccini and Peri next collaborated on Euridice . This

9455-501: The Low Countries , along with a flourishing system of music education in the area's many churches and cathedrals allowed the training of large numbers of singers, instrumentalists, and composers. These musicians were highly sought throughout Europe, particularly in Italy, where churches and aristocratic courts hired them as composers, performers, and teachers. Since the printing press made it easier to disseminate printed music, by

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9610-600: The Marian antiphon of the same name ; it is one of his shortest masses. 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. 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

9765-575: The Sainte-Chapelle of Paris. 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 . A less accepted theory for Josquin's activities between 1478 and 1483

9920-450: The archbishop of Esztergom Pal Varday  [ hu ] stating that the court of Matthias included "excellent painters and musicians, among them even Josquin himself". Some scholars suggest Aleandro was repeating a false rumor, or that Varday confused Josquin des Prez for Josquin Dor or Johannes de Stokem . Fallows contends that it is unlikely that Varday, who was well-educated and

10075-479: The cantus firmus technique in that the source material, though still monophonic, could be (by Josquin's time) highly embellished, often with ornaments. As in the cantus firmus technique, the source tune may appear in many voices of the mass. Several of Josquin's masses feature the paraphrase technique, such as the early Missa Gaudeamus , which also includes cantus firmus and canonic elements. The Missa Ave maris stella , also probably an early work, paraphrases

10230-415: The cornett and sackbut , and the tabor and tambourine . At the beginning of the 16th century, instruments were considered to be less important than voices. They were used for dances and to accompany vocal music. Instrumental music remained subordinated to vocal music, and much of its repertory was in varying ways derived from or dependent on vocal models. Various kinds of organs were commonly used in

10385-413: The formes fixes ( rondeau , ballade, and virelai), which dominated secular European music of the 14th and 15th centuries. He also wrote a handful of Italian ballate , almost certainly while he was in Italy. As is the case with his motets, many of the songs were written for specific occasions, and many are datable, thus supplying useful biographical information. Most of his songs are for three voices, using

10540-583: The lute song . Mixed forms such as the motet-chanson and the secular motet also appeared. Purely instrumental music included consort music for recorders or viols and other instruments, and dances for various ensembles. Common instrumental genres were the toccata , prelude , ricercar , and canzona . Dances played by instrumental ensembles (or sometimes sung) included the basse danse (It. bassadanza ), tourdion , saltarello , pavane , galliard , allemande , courante , bransle , canarie , piva , and lavolta . Music of many genres could be arranged for

10695-449: The ordinary of the mass which were thematically unified and intended for contiguous performance. The Old Hall Manuscript contains his mass based on the Marian antiphon , Alma Redemptoris Mater , in which the antiphon is stated literally in the tenor voice in each movement, without melodic ornaments. This is the only cyclic setting of the mass ordinary which can be attributed to him. He wrote mass cycles, fragments, and single movements and

10850-486: 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. 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. His role gave him political responsibility, and put him in charge of

11005-516: The polyphonic style of the Franco-Flemish school . The invention of the printing press in 1439 made it cheaper and easier to distribute music and music theory texts on a wider geographic scale and to more people. Prior to the invention of printing, written music and music theory texts had to be hand-copied, a time-consuming and expensive process. Demand for music as entertainment and as a leisure activity for educated amateurs increased with

11160-449: The triangle , the Jew's harp, the tambourine, the bells, cymbals , the rumble-pot, and various kinds of drums. Woodwind instruments (aerophones) produce sound by means of a vibrating column of air within the pipe. Holes along the pipe allow the player to control the length of the column of air, and hence the pitch. There are several ways of making the air column vibrate, and these ways define

11315-528: The "L'homme armé" song ( Faugues , Compère and Forestier ), or chant ( Fevin and La Rue 's Missae de feria ). 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. Josquin's two canonic masses were published in Petrucci's third book of Josquin masses in 1514;

11470-504: The 14th century, with highly independent voices (both in vocal music and in instrumental music). The beginning of the 15th century showed simplification, with the composers often striving for smoothness in the melodic parts. This was possible because of a greatly increased vocal range in music – in the Middle Ages, the narrow range made necessary frequent crossing of parts, thus requiring a greater contrast between them to distinguish

11625-532: The 16th century. 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 . 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. Josquin did not stay in Ferrara long. An outbreak of

11780-788: The Americas began in the 16th century soon after the arrival of the Spanish, and the conquest of Mexico. Although fashioned in European style, uniquely Mexican hybrid works based on native Mexican language and European musical practice appeared very early. Musical practices in New Spain continually coincided with European tendencies throughout the subsequent Baroque and Classical music periods. Among these New World composers were Hernando Franco , Antonio de Salazar , and Manuel de Zumaya . In addition, writers since 1932 have observed what they call

11935-484: The Baroque era. The main characteristics of Renaissance music are: The development of polyphony produced the notable changes in musical instruments that mark the Renaissance from the Middle Ages musically. Its use encouraged the use of larger ensembles and demanded sets of instruments that would blend together across the whole vocal range. As in the other arts, the music of the period was significantly influenced by

12090-616: The Basilica San Marco di Venezia (see Venetian School ). These multiple revolutions spread over Europe in the next several decades, beginning in Germany and then moving to Spain, France, and England somewhat later, demarcating the beginning of what we now know as the Baroque musical era. The Roman School was a group of composers of predominantly church music in Rome, spanning the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras. Many of

12245-653: The Burgundian School around the middle of the century. Because numerous copies of Dunstaple's works have been found in Italian and German manuscripts, his fame across Europe must have been widespread. Of the works attributed to him only about fifty survive, among which are two complete masses, three connected mass sections, fourteen individual mass sections, twelve complete isorhythmic motets and seven settings of Marian antiphons , such as Alma redemptoris Mater and Salve Regina, Mater misericordiae . Dunstaple

12400-756: The Hungarian 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 printed and 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

12555-476: The Italian song's voices as cantus firmi , varying throughout the work. 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 . The dating of Missa Malheur me bat remains controversial, with some scholars calling it an early composition, and others a later one. The Missa Mater Patris , based on

12710-524: The Renaissance period, were masses and motets , with some other developments towards the end of the era, especially as composers of sacred music began to adopt secular (non-religious) musical forms (such as the madrigal ) for religious use. The 15th and 16th century masses had two kinds of sources that were used: monophonic (a single melody line) and polyphonic (multiple, independent melodic lines), with two main forms of elaboration, based on cantus firmus practice or, beginning some time around 1500,

12865-410: The Renaissance, from large church organs to small portatives and reed organs called regals . Brass instruments in the Renaissance were traditionally played by professionals. Some of the more common brass instruments that were played: As a family, strings were used in many circumstances, both sacred and secular. A few members of this family include: Some Renaissance percussion instruments include

13020-437: The Renaissance, including masses, motets, madrigals, chansons, accompanied songs, instrumental dances, and many others. Beginning in the late 20th century, numerous early music ensembles were formed. Ensembles specializing in music of the Renaissance era give concert tours and make recordings, using modern reproductions of historical instruments and using singing and performing styles which musicologists believe were used during

13175-413: The Renaissance. Though both are relatively mature compositions, they are very different. Missa L'homme armé super voces musicales , is a technical tour-de-force on the tune, containing numerous mensuration canons and contrapuntal display. Throughout the work, the melody is presented on each note of the natural hexachord: C, D, E, F, G and A. The later Missa L'homme armé sexti toni is a "fantasia on

13330-501: The army of Louis XI besieged the town in May 1478 and had the population locked and burned in a church. 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". Josquin hired at least 15 procurators to deal with his inheritance, suggesting he

13485-488: The blond one ' ). Jacopo di Antonio di Franceso Peri was born in either Rome or Florence to a middle-class family. Peri himself claimed to be from Rome, but considering the pro-Roman sentiments of the reigning Fernando de'Medici , it was a disadvantage to be known as a Florentine, which may have motivated Peri to lie about his true birthplace. Nonetheless, he was employed to sing at the Servite monastery of SS. Annunziati in

13640-509: The chansons Mille regretz , Nimphes, nappés and Plus nulz regretz . 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 . In his last years Josquin's music saw European-wide dissemination through publications by the printer Ottaviano Petrucci . Josquin's compositions were given a prominent place by Petrucci, and were reissued numerous times. On his deathbed, Josquin left an endowment for

13795-534: 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. Two months after his arrival, Josquin laid claim to the first of various benefices on 18 August. 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; many of his choir colleagues had also enjoyed such privileges. His claims included

13950-614: The church was demolished amid the French Revolution . After Du Fay died in 1474, Josquin and his contemporaries lived in a musical world of frequent stylistic change, in part due to the movement of musicians between different regions of Europe. A line of musicologists credits Josquin with three primary developments: 1) The gradual departure from extensive melismatic lines, and emphasis instead on smaller motifs . These "motivic cells " were short, easily recognizable melodic fragments which passed from one voice to another in

14105-480: The city of Florence. He likely received an education from the monastery school as well. Due to its size and favour with the Medici court, who attended mass each week, SS. Annunziati was a pipeline for many musical students into musical careers. Because of his talent and education, Peri was able to study in Florence with Cristofano Malvezzi , and went on to work in a number of churches there, both as an organist and as

14260-583: The composers had a direct connection to the Vatican and the papal chapel, though they worked at several churches; stylistically they are often contrasted with the Venetian School of composers, a concurrent movement which was much more progressive. By far the most famous composer of the Roman School is Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. While best known as a prolific composer of masses and motets, he

14415-480: The continent's musical vocabulary was enormous, particularly considering the relative paucity of his (attributable) works. He was recognized for possessing something never heard before in music of the Burgundian School : la contenance angloise ("the English countenance"), a term used by the poet Martin le Franc in his Le Champion des Dames. Le Franc added that the style influenced Dufay and Binchois . Writing

14570-485: The curved line on the far right is read as the abbreviation for "us". Other choristers named Josquin tended to sign their name in full, whereas Josquin des Prez is known to have done so mononymously on occasion. 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. The musicologist Richard Sherr writes that "while this

14725-543: The developments which define the Early Modern period: the rise of humanistic thought; the recovery of the literary and artistic heritage of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome ; increased innovation and discovery; the growth of commercial enterprises; the rise of a bourgeois class; and the Protestant Reformation . From this changing society emerged a common, unifying musical language, in particular,

14880-420: The different parts. The modal (as opposed to tonal , also known as "musical key", an approach developed in the subsequent Baroque music era, c. 1600–1750) characteristics of Renaissance music began to break down towards the end of the period with the increased use of root motions of fifths or fourths (see the " circle of fifths " for details). An example of a chord progression in which the chord roots move by

15035-440: The emergence of a bourgeois class. Dissemination of chansons , motets , and masses throughout Europe coincided with the unification of polyphonic practice into the fluid style which culminated in the second half of the sixteenth century in the work of composers such as Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina , Orlande de Lassus , Thomas Tallis , William Byrd and Tomás Luis de Victoria . Relative political stability and prosperity in

15190-498: The end of the 16th century, Italy had absorbed the northern musical influences with Venice , Rome, and other cities becoming centers of musical activity. This reversed the situation from a hundred years earlier. Opera, a dramatic staged genre in which singers are accompanied by instruments, arose at this time in Florence. Opera was developed as a deliberate attempt to resurrect the music of ancient Greece. Principal liturgical (church-based) musical forms, which remained in use throughout

15345-578: The era. One of the most pronounced features of early Renaissance European art music was the increasing reliance on the interval of the third and its inversion, the sixth (in the Middle Ages , thirds and sixths had been considered dissonances, and only perfect intervals were treated as consonances: the perfect fourth the perfect fifth , the octave , and the unison ). Polyphony  – the use of multiple, independent melodic lines, performed simultaneously – became increasingly elaborate throughout

15500-420: 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. 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. This was part of the transition from the medieval cantus firmus mass, where the voice bearing the preexisting melody stood aloof from

15655-428: The former and English-language publications the latter. Modern scholarship typically refers to him as Josquin. Little is known about Josquin's early years. 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". A now-outdated theory

15810-410: The genre by composers such as Du Fay and Ockeghem were widely admired and emulated. Josquin and Obrecht led an intensive development of the genre. Josquin's masses are generally less progressive than his motets—though he is credited with numerous innovations in the genre. His less radical approach may be explained by most of the masses being earlier works, or the structural and textual limitations of

15965-920: The genre. Almost all are for four voices. The Josquin Companion categorizes the composer's masses into the following styles: Josquin began his career at a time when composers started to find strict cantus firmus masses limiting. He pioneered paraphrase and parody masses, which were not well established before the 16th century. Many of his works combine the cantus firmus style with paraphrase and parody, making strict categorization problematic. 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." Josquin's predecessors and contemporaries wrote masses based on canonic imitation. The canonic voices in these masses derive from pre-existing melodies such as

16120-480: The harmonization used a technique of parallel writing known as fauxbourdon , as in the following example, a setting of the Marian antiphon Ave maris stella . Du Fay may have been the first composer to use the term "fauxbourdon" for this simpler compositional style, prominent in 15th-century liturgical music in general and that of the Burgundian school in particular. Most of Du Fay's secular (non-religious) songs follow

16275-420: The interval of a fourth would be the chord progression, in the key of C Major: "D minor/G Major/C Major" (these are all triads; three-note chords). The movement from the D minor chord to the G Major chord is an interval of a perfect fourth. The movement from the G Major chord to the C Major chord is also an interval of a perfect fourth. This later developed into one of the defining characteristics of tonality during

16430-422: The king, either Louis XI or Louis XII. Although such a motet survives and is mentioned with Josquin's Memor esto in many sources, Bonitatem fecisti is now attributed to Carpentras . 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. The five-voice De profundis ,

16585-528: The latter since it was known for transporting coal, perhaps fitting the "Black Water" description. 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 . There

16740-530: The level of the breve–semibreve relationship, "perfect/imperfect prolation" at the level of the semibreve–minim, and existed in all possible combinations with each other. Three-to-one was called "perfect," and two-to-one "imperfect." Rules existed also whereby single notes could be halved or doubled in value ("imperfected" or "altered," respectively) when preceded or followed by other certain notes. Notes with black noteheads (such as quarter notes ) occurred less often. This development of white mensural notation may be

16895-410: The lower parts; all of his sacred music is vocal. Instruments may have been used to reinforce the voices in actual performance for almost any of his works. Seven complete masses, 28 individual mass movements, 15 settings of chant used in mass propers, three Magnificats, two Benedicamus Domino settings, 15 antiphon settings (six of them Marian antiphons ), 27 hymns, 22 motets (13 of these isorhythmic in

17050-445: 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

17205-470: The mid-15th century. Du Fay composed in most of the common forms of the day, including masses , motets , Magnificats , hymns , simple chant settings in fauxbourdon , and antiphons within the area of sacred music, and rondeaux , ballades , virelais and a few other chanson types within the realm of secular music. None of his surviving music is specifically instrumental, although instruments were certainly used for some of his secular music, especially for

17360-491: The modern "measure," though it was itself a note value and a measure is not. The situation can be considered this way: it is the same as the rule by which in modern music a quarter-note may equal either two eighth-notes or three, which would be written as a "triplet." By the same reckoning, there could be two or three of the next smallest note, the "minim," (equivalent to the modern "half note") to each semibreve. These different permutations were called "perfect/imperfect tempus" at

17515-486: The more angular, austere 14th-century style which gave way to more melodic, sensuous treble-dominated part-writing with phrases ending in the "under-third" cadence in Du Fay's youth) and 87 chansons definitely by him have survived. Many of Du Fay's compositions were simple settings of chant, obviously designed for liturgical use, probably as substitutes for the unadorned chant, and can be seen as chant harmonizations. Often

17670-678: The musicologist Alejandro Planchart suggests that the impact was not particularly large. 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 . Other evidence may place him in Aix as early as 1475. Josquin remained there until at least 1478, after which his name disappears from historical records for five years. He may have remained in René's service, joining his other singers to serve Louis XI , who sent them to

17825-629: The name JOSQUINJ was found as a graffito on the wall of the Sistine Chapel 's cantoria (choir gallery). 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. They date from the 15th to 18th centuries, and the JOSQUINJ signature is in the style of the former. There is some evidence suggesting the name refers to Josquin des Prez; it may be interpreted as either "Josquin" or "Josquinus", depending on whether

17980-505: 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. 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. In his motet Illibata Dei virgo nutrix , he includes an acrostic of his name, where it

18135-406: The new style of "pervasive imitation", in which composers would write music in which the different voices or parts would imitate the melodic and/or rhythmic motifs performed by other voices or parts. Several main types of masses were used: Masses were normally titled by the source from which they borrowed. Cantus firmus mass uses the same monophonic melody, usually drawn from chant and usually in

18290-461: The notes) were not always specified, somewhat as in certain fingering notations for guitar-family instruments ( tablatures ) today. However, Renaissance musicians would have been highly trained in dyadic counterpoint and thus possessed this and other information necessary to read a score correctly, even if the accidentals were not written in. As such, "what modern notation requires [accidentals] would then have been perfectly apparent without notation to

18445-488: The original practitioners. For information on specific theorists, see Johannes Tinctoris , Franchinus Gaffurius , Heinrich Glarean , Pietro Aron , Nicola Vicentino , Tomás de Santa María , Gioseffo Zarlino , Vicente Lusitano , Vincenzo Galilei , Giovanni Artusi , Johannes Nucius , and Pietro Cerone . The key composers from the early Renaissance era also wrote in a late Medieval style, and as such, they are transitional figures. Leonel Power (c. 1370s or 1380s–1445)

18600-652: The others, to the Renaissance parody masses, where all the voices formed an integrated texture. In such masses, the source material was not a single line, but motifs and points of imitation from all voices within a polyphonic work. 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. Six works are generally attributed to Josquin which borrow from polyphonic pieces, two of which also include canonic features. One of these—the Missa Di dadi , which includes

18755-535: 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. He died on 27 August 1521 and left his possessions to Condé's chapter of Notre Dame. He was buried in front of the church's high altar, but his tomb was destroyed, either during the French Wars of Religion (1562–1598) or in 1793 when

18910-596: The period on authentic instruments. As in the modern day, instruments may be classified as brass, strings, percussion, and woodwind. Medieval instruments in Europe had most commonly been used singly, often self-accompanied with a drone, or occasionally in parts. From at least as early as the 13th century through the 15th century there was a division of instruments into haut (loud, shrill, outdoor instruments) and bas (quieter, more intimate instruments). Only two groups of instruments could play freely in both types of ensembles:

19065-494: 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". Between 1485 and 1489 Josquin may have served under the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus in Vienna; an account by the Cardinal Girolamo Aleandro in 1539 recalls

19220-517: The preceding Medieval era, and probably a rich store of popular music of the late Middle Ages is lost. Secular music was music that was independent of churches. The main types were the German Lied , Italian frottola , the French chanson , the Italian madrigal , and the Spanish villancico . Other secular vocal genres included the caccia , rondeau , virelai , bergerette , ballade , musique mesurée , canzonetta , villanella , villotta , and

19375-502: 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 . 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

19530-437: 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 . Josquin's biography has been continually revised by modern scholarship, and remains highly uncertain. Little

19685-548: 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. In Venice , from about 1530 until around 1600, an impressive polychoral style developed, which gave Europe some of the grandest, most sonorous music composed up until that time, with multiple choirs of singers, brass and strings in different spatial locations in

19840-593: The sound of instrumental ensembles. During the 15th century, the sound of full triads became common, and towards the end of the 16th century the system of church modes began to break down entirely, giving way to functional tonality (the system in which songs and pieces are based on musical "keys"), which would dominate Western art music for the next three centuries. From the Renaissance era, notated secular and sacred music survives in quantity, including vocal and instrumental works and mixed vocal/instrumental works. A wide range of musical styles and genres flourished during

19995-415: The subcategories of woodwind instruments. A player may blow across a mouth hole, as in a flute; into a mouthpiece with a single reed, as in a modern-day clarinet or saxophone; or a double reed, as in an oboe or bassoon. All three of these methods of tone production can be found in Renaissance instruments. Josquin des Prez Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez ( c.  1450–1455 – 27 August 1521)

20150-468: The subject of continuing scholarship. He was celebrated worldwide on the 500th anniversary of his death in 2021. Josquin's full name, Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez, became known in the late 20th century 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. His first name Josquin

20305-533: The taste of the Dukes of Burgundy who employed him, and evidently loved his music accordingly. About half of his extant secular music is found in the Oxford Bodleian Library. Guillaume Du Fay ( c.  1397 –1474) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the early Renaissance. The central figure in the Burgundian School , he was regarded by his contemporaries as the leading composer in Europe in

20460-413: The tenor and most often in longer note values than the other voices. Other sacred genres were the madrigale spirituale and the laude . During the period, secular (non-religious) music had an increasing distribution, with a wide variety of forms, but one must be cautious about assuming an explosion in variety: since printing made music more widely available, much more has survived from this era than from

20615-401: 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 . 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

20770-409: The texture, and frequently participate in imitation with the canonic voices, sometimes preemptively. 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. This mass

20925-564: The theme of the armed man." 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. 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. Paraphrase masses by Josquin The paraphrase mass differed from

21080-514: The theorist and composer Franchinus Gaffurius there. 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 . 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. Josquin's arrival brought much-needed prestige to

21235-477: 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." 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

21390-482: 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 . Josquin was a professional singer throughout his life, and his compositions are almost exclusively vocal. He wrote in primarily three genres: the mass , motet , and chanson (with French text). In his 50-year career, Josquin's body of work

21545-451: 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." Parody masses by Josquin Du Fay was one of

21700-408: The violin, guitar, lute and keyboard instruments) developed into new forms during the Renaissance. These instruments were modified to respond to the evolution of musical ideas, and they presented new possibilities for composers and musicians to explore. Early forms of modern woodwind and brass instruments like the bassoon and trombone also appeared, extending the range of sonic color and increasing

21855-447: 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 . 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

22010-461: The words". The earliest known mass by any composer using solmization syllables is the Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae , which Josquin wrote for Ercole I. It is based on a cantus firmus of musical syllables of the Duke's name, 'Ercole, Duke of Ferrara', which in Latin is 'H e rc u l e s D u x F e rr a r ie' . Taking the solmization syllables with the same vowels gives: Re–Ut–Re–Ut–Re–Fa–Mi–Re , which

22165-668: 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

22320-428: 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. 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

22475-497: Was also an important madrigalist. His ability to bring together the functional needs of the Catholic Church with the prevailing musical styles during the Counter-Reformation period gave him his enduring fame. The brief but intense flowering of the musical madrigal in England, mostly from 1588 to 1627, along with the composers who produced them, is known as the English Madrigal School . The English madrigals were

22630-470: Was an English composer of the late medieval and early Renaissance music eras. Along with John Dunstaple , he was one of the major figures in English music in the early 15th century. Power is the composer best represented in the Old Hall Manuscript , one of the only undamaged sources of English music from the early 15th century. He was one of the first composers to set separate movements of

22785-437: Was an attempt to revive the dramatic and musical forms of Ancient Greece, through the means of monody , a form of declaimed music over a simple accompaniment; a more extreme contrast with the preceding polyphonic style would be hard to find; this was also, at least at the outset, a secular trend. These musicians were known as the Florentine Camerata . We have already noted some of the musical developments that helped to usher in

22940-461: 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. 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

23095-504: Was executed. Josquin was probably in France during the early 16th century; documents found in 2008 indicate that he visited Troyes twice between 1499 and 1501. 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. Canonries at Saint-Quentin were almost always gifts from the French king to royal household members, suggesting Josquin had been employed by Louis XII. According to Glarean in

23250-461: Was first performed on 6 October 1600 at the Palazzo Pitti for the wedding of Princess Marie de' Medici and Henry IV . Unlike Dafne , it has survived to the present day (though it is hardly ever staged, and then only as a historical curio). The work made use of recitatives , a new development which went between the arias and choruses and served to move the action along. Peri produced

23405-446: 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

23560-408: Was large. Renaissance music The period may be roughly subdivided, with an early period corresponding to the career of Guillaume Du Fay ( c.  1397 –1474) and the cultivation of cantilena style, a middle dominated by Franco-Flemish School and the four-part textures favored by Johannes Ockeghem (1410s or '20s–1497) and Josquin des Prez (late 1450s–1521), and culminating during

23715-571: Was named by his uncle and aunt, Gille Lebloitte dit des Prez and Jacque Banestonne, as their heir. Josquin was born in the French-speaking area of Flanders, in modern-day northeastern France or Belgium. Despite his association with Condé in his later years, Josquin's own testimony indicates that he was not born there. The only firm evidence for his birthplace is a later legal document in which Josquin described being born beyond Noir Eauwe, meaning 'Black Water'. This description has puzzled scholars, and there are various theories on which body of water

23870-410: Was one of the first to compose masses using a single melody as cantus firmus . A good example of this technique is his Missa Rex seculorum . He is believed to have written secular (non-religious) music, but no songs in the vernacular can be attributed to him with any degree of certainty. Oswald von Wolkenstein (c. 1376–1445) is one of the most important composers of the early German Renaissance. He

24025-497: Was then wealthy. 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 . A surviving record indicates that Josquin was in Milan by 15 May 1484, perhaps just after his 1483 trip to Condé. In March 1484 he may have visited Rome. Fallows speculates that Josquin left Condé for Italy so quickly because his inheritance gave him more freedom and allowed him to avoid serving

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