Josquin des Prez

Who was Josquin des Prez?

1450–1455 – 27 August 1521) was a composer of 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. 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. He was born somewhere in what is now northeastern France or Belgium and by 1477 he was in the choir of René of Anjou, later probably serving under Louis XI of France. Building on the work of his predecessors like Johannes Ockeghem, he developed a complex style of expressive—and often imitative—movement between independent voices (polyphony) which informs much of his work.

Josquin was a singer, and his compositions are mainly vocal. They include masses, motets and secular chansons.

Historical significance

Josquin's biography has been continually revised by modern scholarship. Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez was a composer of Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish.