josquin and friends

prelude

• musical renaissance spread from the low countries to other areas of western europe

• desprez was the most renowned composer of the 1500s

northern composers: the generation after du fay

ockeghem:

• had a reputation in italy

• wrote 13 masses, each with four similar voices interacting in a contrapuntal texture of independent melodic lines

• full, thick texture

• tenor masses - built on a single cantus firmus used as the basis for every movement

• cyclic mass - movements are unified musically

• masses without a cantus firmus sometimes took their titles from the mode in which they were written

canon:

• deriving two or more voices from a single notated voice, and the instruction of rule by which these parts were derived

• missa prolatonium is notated in two voices but sung in four, using the four prolations of mensural notation

the next generation: josquin and his contemporaries

ockeghem's pupils:

• obrecht, isaac, deprez

• all shared similar life stories and paths crossed several times

• all traveled throughout europe so their music combines northern and southern elements

odhecaton:

• first printed anthology of chansons

• mostly for three voices and written primarily in older styles

• four-voice chansons use fuller texture, imitative counterpoint, clearer harmonic structure, greater equality of voices, duple meter

deprez:

• attained crazy hero-worship prestige - first artist in music history to reach this level of prestige

• wrote both sacred and secular music in a variety of vocal styles (masses, motets, chansons, frottole)

• traveled and worked in various churches across europe

• frequently utilized imitation - each voice takes up the same idea one after the other, overlapping at a point of imitation, to unify the voices, bringing them together to create an effect similar to perspective in art

• works were performed and published for almost a century after his death thanks to the invention of the printing press

• text is carefully taken into account, with each section unique in texture in relation to the text, and melodic lines fit the words so they sound natural and can be understood

• employs conservative styles in his masses, which usually use a secular tune as a cantus firmus

• first time people tried to pass other music off as his - over half of the music attributed to him was fake

• protestant reformation placed a lot of importance on individual achievement, people felt that certain qualities of josquin's music aligned with the values of the protestant reformation

• the duke of ferrara tried to increase his prestige by hiring josquin

• there's more significance in the legend surrounding him than the actual facts about his life

paraphrase mass:

• based on plainchant hymn

• paraphrases hymn melody in all four voices

• became dominant over the structurally confining cantus firmus technique

imitation mass:

• rearranges another mass composition

• all parts, not just the hymn melody