Josquin des Prez

Born around 1450 somewhere along the French-Flemish border, Josquin des Prez spent his life moving between the great courts and chapels of Europe: René of Anjou's choir by 1477, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza's retinue through Italy in the 1480s, the papal chapels in Rome under Innocent VIII and Alexander VI, then service to Louis XII and a brief stint with Ercole I d'Este in Ferrara. He wrote masses, motets, and chansons — works like Ave Maria ... Virgo serena and the Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae — building on Ockeghem's foundation to create a complex, expressive polyphony where independent voices i…