midicnMusic History 中文

Josquin des Prez

The Franco-Flemish composer who made equal voices in imitation the norm, and became the sixteenth century's yardstick

RenaissanceMotetMass

Who he was

Josquin des Prez (c. 1450–1521) was the leading Franco-Flemish composer of the High Renaissance. His birthplace is still disputed, somewhere in Hainaut or Picardy. He moved between courts and churches all his life: the Sforza court in Milan, the papal choir in Rome, the Este court in Ferrara, and at the end the collegiate church at Condé-sur-l'Escaut, where he was provost and where he died. He wrote masses, motets and chansons, and in all three genres works of his were copied and recopied.

His place

He stands exactly where polyphonic practice changes track. In a mid-fifteenth-century mass one voice usually carries the borrowed tune while the others decorate it; by Josquin's generation the voices begin to enter one after another with the same phrase, which is imitation. In 1502 the Venetian printer Ottaviano Petrucci issued a volume of Josquin masses, one of the first prints devoted to a single composer. The name alone could sell a book.

What to hear

Listen first for imitation. One voice states a phrase, the other three take it up in turn; the subject travels through the texture, keeping its intervals and changing its position. Then listen for word-setting. El grillo is about a cricket, and short syllables become a repeated figure, so polyphony can imitate a specific thing. Finally listen for cadences. A Renaissance cadence closes on an octave or a fifth between two voices, and the notes filling the middle are chosen by the rules of the moment, so it does not sound as tidy as a later major or minor triad.

Key works

Influence

Sixteenth-century theorists treated his music as the measure of counterpoint, and publishers put his name on other men's work because it sold. When the nineteenth century rediscovered him, music history placed him at the start of mature Renaissance polyphony. His way of organising imitative subjects was taken up by Palestrina and Lassus and became the common language of sixteenth-century Europe.

Listen in the library

Mille regrets de vous abandonnerC11:20《Mille regretz》尚松，一句旋律在四个声部间传递，听句尾怎样收进八度（C1）DetailsEl grilloC11:15《El grillo》蟋蟀歌，短促音节被做成重复音型，听复调怎样模仿虫鸣（C1）DetailsMissa la homme armeeC11:00《武士歌弥撒》，一首流行曲被拆进各声部，听弥撒怎样由它搭起来（C1）DetailsAve MariaC13:22《Ave Maria》，开头的长音与逐级下行的线条，他最常被引用的写法（C1）Details

All tracks from midicn-lib — inline badge is the license tier (C1 commercial / C2 non-commercial / C3 study only).

Sources

  • 若斯坎生平、任职城市与作品归属，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 的 Josquin des Prez 条；本文为原创表述
  • 文艺复兴模仿复调与彼得鲁奇 1502 年弥撒印本，参通行文艺复兴音乐研究；实例说明为本站听辨提示

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.