Josquin Desprez
Born c. 1440, possibly in Picardy.

Died August 1521, Condé-sur-l'Escaut.

Josquin's career took him, before he was 20, to the Milan cathedral, thence to his long service of the Sforza family there and, in the retinue of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, to Rome (1484). In Rome he became a member of the papal choir. He appears to have served the king of France, Louis XII, from the 1490s until past the turn of the century. In the spring of 1502, he became the highly paid maestro di cappella to Ercole d'Este, duke of Ferrara. Fleeing an outbreak of the plague in 1503, he went home to Condé-sur-l'Escaut, a few dozen kilometers from Cambrai, where he was affiliated with the local monastic order. At his death he had long been an extremely famous composer, owing notably to the publication of his works, during his lifetime, by Ottaviano Petrucci of Venice. His posthumous reputation continued to grow. All told, he left, firmly ascribed to him, 18 masses, some 100 motets, several dozen secular works, and a few instrumental pieces.

Works

Masses (18)
Missa de Beata Virgine
Missa Pange lingua

Motets (112)
Absalon, fili mi
Ave Maria
    Déploration sur la mort de Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1497)

Chansons (70)
Mille regretz

Instrumental music
La Bernadina
Vive le roy