Josquin des Prez

Josquin des Prez was a French or Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance and a central figure of the Franco-Flemish School, born around 1450 in present-day northeastern France or Belgium. A singer by training, he served René of Anjou, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, Popes Innocent VIII and Alexander VI, Louis XII and Ercole I d'Este of Ferrara, for whom he wrote the Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae. His masses, motets and chansons developed an imitative polyphony of independent voices closely tied to the text, and many were printed by Ottaviano Petrucci. From 1504 he was provost of the collegiate church of Notre-Dame at Condé-sur-l'Escaut, and he died in 1521.