Josquin des Prez: A Spotify Playlist

Josquin des Prez (c. 1450 to 1455 –1521), often referred to simply as Josquin, 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. - Wikipedia

Spotify launched in Belgium and Switzerland today, on this occasion I did a playlist for the greatest sixteenth century composer Josquin, who was (probably) born in Hainaut, Belgium. This playlist includes all the decent recordings of Josquin's works on Spotify, sorted by genres: masses, motets, chansons and instrumental compositions. Most recordings of the masses also have some motets or others works in it, and I kept the full albums. So this playlist starts with Josquin's most famous work Ave Maria ... virgo serena ("The whole 'perfected art' of sixteenth century sacred music, it sometimes seems, was formed on the example ofthis one supreme masterpieces - Richard Taruskin). At the end of the playlist there are two laments on Josquin's death by his contemporaries: Jheronimus Vinders's O mors inevitabilis and Nicolas Gombert's Musae Jovis, and two wonderful transcriptions  by Charles Wuorinen: Ave Christe for piano and Josquiniana for string quartet.

Here's the Spotify playlist: Josquin des Prez: Complete Works (322 tracks, total time: 21 hours) Ctrl (CMD)+G to browse in album view.