Josquin des Prez was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He
was the most famous European composer between Guillaume Dufay and
Palestrina, and is usually considered to be the central figure of the
Franco-Flemish School. Josquin is widely considered by music scholars
to be the first master of the high Renaissance style of polyphonic
vocal music that was emerging during his lifetime. During the 16th
century, Josquin gradually acquired the reputation as the greatest
composer of the age, his mastery of technique and expression
universally imitated and admired. Writers as diverse as Baldassare
Castiglione and Martin Luther wrote about his reputation and fame;
theorists such as Heinrich Glarean and Gioseffo Zarlino held his style
as that best representing perfection. He was so admired that many
anonymous compositions were attributed to him by copyists, probably to
increase their sales. At least 374 works are attributed to him; it was
only after the advent of modern analytical scholarship that some of
these mistaken attributions have been challenged, on the basis of
stylistic features and manuscript evidence. Yet in spite of Josquin's
colossal reputation, which endured until the beginning of the Baroque
era, and was revived in the 20th century, his biography is shadowy,
and we know next to nothing about his personality.
Read the rest of this article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josquin_des_Prez
_______________________________
Today's selected anniversaries:
1836:
Texas Revolution: At a convention in Washington-on-the-Brazos, the
Mexican state of Texas adopted a declaration of independence from
Mexico, establishing the Republic of Texas.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Declaration_of_Independence)
1865:
Second Taranaki War: Protestant missionary Carl Sylvius Völkner died
at the hands of Hauhau militants in Opotiki for working as an agent
for George Grey, Governor-General of New Zealand.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkner_Incident)
1943:
World War II: Australian and American air forces attacked and
destroyed a large convoy of the Japanese Navy at the Battle of the
Bismarck Sea in the Bismarck Sea north of the island of Papua New
Guinea.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bismarck_Sea)
1970:
Rhodesia formally broke its links with the British crown and
declared itself a republic.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodesia)
1978:
Aboard the Soviet spacecraft Soyuz 28 (insignia patch pictured),
Czech Vladimír Remek became the first person not from the Soviet Union
or the United States to go into space.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soyuz_28)
_____________________
Wiktionary's Word of the day:
pedagogic: Relating to teaching, pedagogy.
(
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pedagogic)
_____________________
Wikiquote of the day:
I'm telling you this 'cause you're one of my friends.
My alphabet starts where your alphabet ends!
... So, on beyond Z!
It's high time you were shown
That you really don't know
All there is to be known.
(
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Dr._Seuss)