Josquin des Prez(1440 — 1521)
Josquin des Prés
France, Pays-Bas des Habsbourg
6 min read
Josquin des Prez was a Franco-Flemish composer and a major figure of Renaissance polyphony. An undisputed master of vocal music, he brought the art of counterpoint to a peak of expressiveness and influenced musicians across all of Europe.
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born around 1450-1455 in Hainaut (the Picard/Franco-Flemish region)
- Active in several Italian courts: Milan (the Sforza), Rome (the papal chapel), and Ferrara (the Este court) at the end of the 15th century
- Composed around 18 masses, including the Missa Pange lingua and the Missa L'homme armé
- Author of celebrated motets such as the Ave Maria... virgo serena and of many secular chansons
- Died on 27 August 1521 in Condé-sur-l'Escaut, where he was provost of the collegiate church
Works & Achievements
A Mass based on a Gregorian hymn, regarded as a pinnacle of his late style. It blends liturgical chant and free polyphony to admirable effect.
A Mass built on the most widely used secular song of the era, displaying dazzling contrapuntal virtuosity.
A Mass whose theme is drawn from the vowels in the name of the Duke of Ferrara: a coded musical tribute to his patron.
A Marian motet of celebrated purity, often cited as one of the masterpieces of Renaissance polyphony.
A vast penitential motet composed in Ferrara, of an expressive intensity that left a lasting mark on later composers.
A funeral lament composed on the death of his elder Johannes Ockeghem, blending a French text with the Latin chant of the requiem.
A light, imitative Italian frottola that reveals the composer's humour and his secular side.
Anecdotes
We don't even know for certain what Josquin looked like or when he was born: for a long time, several musicians with similar names were confused with one another. Historians had to reconstruct his life like a detective investigation, cross-referencing chapel records and cathedral archives.
The reformer Martin Luther, a great music lover, held Josquin in boundless admiration. He is said to have declared: “Josquin is the master of the notes: they must do what he wants; other composers must do what the notes want.”
After his death, Josquin became so famous that unscrupulous publishers put out mediocre works under his name to sell them better. A contemporary quipped: “Now that Josquin is dead, he is producing more works than when he was alive!”
Josquin knew how to slip humor into his learned music. In one piece, he is said to have repeated the same note tirelessly to remind his employer, King Louis XII, of the promised and forgotten salary, with Latin words meaning “remember your word to your servant.”
To compose his famous Mass “L'homme armé,” Josquin took a simple popular song that everyone was humming at the time and transformed it into a complex sonic architecture, proving that a street tune could become a cathedral of sound.
Primary Sources
Josquin composes better, but he composes when he feels like it and not when asked to ; and he demands 200 ducats in salary whereas Isaac is content with 120.
Josquin is the master of the notes : they must do what he wants ; the other composers must do what the notes want.
No one has better than Josquin expressed the affections of the soul through song ; none has equaled him in grace and ease.
Josquin des Prez may justly be called the prince of the musicians of his time.
Key Places
Town in Hainaut where Josquin ended his life as provost of the collegiate church of Notre-Dame. He died there on 27 August 1521 and was buried there.
Josquin was a singer in the pope's chapel during the 1480s and 1490s. His name can still be read carved there (“Josquinj”) on the wall of the singers' gallery.
In 1503 Josquin entered the service of Duke Ercole I d'Este, one of the most prestigious patrons in Italy. There he composed the Mass “Hercules Dux Ferrariae”.
In the service of the Sforza family, dukes of Milan, Josquin earned his first stripes as a musician in Renaissance Italy.
Josquin probably served the French king Louis XII, for whom he is said to have composed pieces. The court was a major artistic hub of the kingdom.
