
"True treasurer of music and masterpiece / Scholar, elegant of body and not trap"
— Josquin des Prez
Josquin des Prez (c. 1450 - 1521) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He is regarded as one of the most ingenious and highly admired composers to emerge from that period and is arguably the first composer whose fame outlasted his lifetime.
Despite the fame he received during his lifetime and after, very little is known about his early life. Even the place of his birth is of speculation, but it was somewhere along the present-day border between Belgium and France.
Around 1460, Josquin became a choirboy at the collegiate church of Saint-Quentin and was in charge of its music. The first definite record of his employment was in 1477 where he was a singer at the chapel of René (in France). In the 1480s, Josquin spent time in Milan and Naples, Italy, and was also a court musician in Hungary. Then from 1489-1495, Josquin was a member of the papal choir in Rome.
Josquin's style evolved during this period. In Milan, he absorbed the influence of light Italian secular music, then in Rome, he refined his techniques of sacred music. During the last two decades of his life, his fame spread abroad, as did his music. This was helped by the newly developed technology of the printing press.
Josquin dominated the musical world of his time through a skill, originality, and mastery of technique and expression that was universally admired and imitated. With a supreme melodic gift, he was a highly demanded musician.
Josquin wrote both sacred and secular music. Masses, motets (choral compositions), chanson (lyric-driven French songs), and frottole (popular Italian secular songs) are all attributed to him. His contemporaries wrote that he was a "magnificent virtuoso". His music represents some of the most famous and enduring music of the Renaissance Period.
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