Josquin des Prez

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Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez (c. 1450 – 1455 – 27 August 1521) was a French or Franco-Flemish composer of Renaissance music. 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 16th-century European music. Building on the work of his predecessors like Johannes Ockeghem, he developed a complex style of expressive, often imitative movement between independent voices (polyphony). He 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. Josquin was a singer, and his compositions are mainly vocal. They include masses, motets and secular chansons. His biography has been continually revised by scholarship. Born in present-day northeastern France or Belgium, he was in the choir of René of Anjou by 1477 and, later, likely served under Louis XI...

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