Josquin was the greatest composer of the high Renaissance, the most varied in invention and the most profound in expression. Due to his uncanny self-promotion and use of the new printing press, Josquin became the first international superstar of classical music. "Josquin" became the first brand name in music history and myths grew around him. His music was widely admired throughout the 16th century but his fame faded as the Baroque era began.
Josquin's music fit with humanism because of its focus on the individual and subjective religious expression. After the Reformation began, he posthumously became very popular in Protestant Germany, even earning praise from Martin Luther. Some labeled his music ars perfecta, the perfection of music. Largely because of Josquin, the status of music rose to be equal with poetry and the visual arts. The idea of musical genius was born.
Much of Josquin's music cannot be dated. Generally, however, his first period (up to circa 1485) is characterized by abstract, melismatic (many notes to one syllable) counterpoint in the manner of Ockeghem and by tenuous relationships between words and music. The middle period (to circa 1505) saw the development and perfection of the technique of pervasive imitation based on word-generated motifs.
This style has been seen as a synthesis of two traditions: the northern polyphony of Dufay, Binchois and Ockeghem, in which he presumably had his earliest training, and the more chordal, harmonically orientated practice of Italy. In the final period the relationship between word and note becomes even closer and there is increasing emphasis on declamation and rhetorical expression within a style of the utmost economy.
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Miserere was based on Dominican Friar, preacher, and reformer Girolamo Savonarola's 1498 apology to God for recanting, under torture, his prophetic visions of the destruction of the corrupt Roman Catholic Church. He had denounced clerical corruption, despotic rule and the exploitation of the poor. He prophesied the coming of a biblical flood and a new Cyrus from the north who would reform the Church. The Church had Savonarola and two fellow friars burned at the stake in the square in Florence two decades before Martin Luther issued his 95 theses.
[Play Howard Goodall on Josquin - 7:15]
Miserere mei, deus "Have mercy on us" (Motet - 1504?)
A thousand regrets at deserting you
and leaving behind your loving face,
I feel so much sadness and such painful distress,
I feel so much sadness and such painful distress,
that it seems to me my days will soon dwindle away.
Petite camusette (Little minx)
Little Camusette (you little minx), you will be the death of me.
Robin and Marion, they went off to the pretty (green) woods.
They went off, they went off arm in arm.
They fell asleep.
Little minx, you will be the death of me
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