The Josquin Companion

Edited by Richard Sherr

The most complete discussion ever published in English on the greatest composer of the late 15th and early 16th centuries

The Josquin Companion

Edited by Richard Sherr

Description

The Josquin Companion presents both the scholarly and general reader with the most complete and concentrated discussion ever published in English on the music of Josquin des Prez (c.1450-1521) - the greatest composer of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Not a standard, single-author life and works, the volume provides a basic survey of Josquin's music and of the many problems which attend it. Through a collaborative effort of distinguished scholars, it takes into account the most recent research on Josquin. Beginning with a summary of the latest developments in the composer's constantly-changing biography and a discussion of his stature as a great man then and now, the Companion continues with chapters considering all the compositional genres employed by Josquin and offers wide-ranging surveys as well as close studies of individual pieces.

Further chapters explore both traditional and untraditional analytical perspectives on Josquin's music, and suggest new avenues of research. A Worklist, Bibliography, and Annotated Discography (the first since the advent of the compact disc and the concurrent explosion of early music recording) end the book.

The Josquin Companion

Edited by Richard Sherr

List of Illustrations
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Musical Examples
Contents of the Compact Disc
Notes on Contributors
Abbreviations and Manuscript Style
1:Introduction, Richard Sherr
2:Chronology of Josquin's Life and Career, Richard Sherr
3:Who Was Josquin?, Rob C. Wegman
4:Masses Based on Popular Songs and Solmization Syllables, Bonnie J. Blackburn
5:Masses on Plainsong Cantus Firmi, Alejandro Enrique Planchart
6:Masses Based on Polyphonic Songs and Canonic Masses, M. Jennifer Bloxam
7:Mass Sections, Richard Sherr
8:Missa Da pacem and Missa Allez regretz, Richard Sherr
9:Four-Voice Motets, Ludwig Finscher
10:Motets for Five or More Voices, John Milson
11:Two Hymns and Three Magnificats, Richard Sherr
12:Chansons for Three and Four Voices, Louise Litterick
13:Chansons for Five and Six Voices, Lawrence Bernstein
14:Three Settings of Italian Texts and Two Secular Motets, Richard Sherr
15:Analysing Josquin, John Milson
16:Josquin and Musical Rhetoric: Miserere mei, Deus and Other Motets, Patrick Macey
17:Symbolism in the Sacred Music of Josquin, Willem Elders
18:Afterword: Thoughts for the Future, David Fallows
Appendix A. List of Works, Peter Urquhart
Appendix B. Discography, Peter Urquhart
Bibliography
Index of Works by or attributed to Josquin
General Index

The Josquin Companion

Edited by Richard Sherr

Author Information

Edited by Richard Sherr, Professor of Music, Smith College, USA

The Josquin Companion

Edited by Richard Sherr

Reviews and Awards

"... a comprehensive account, based on the latest scholarship ... aimed at both specialists in Renaissance musicology and students of music history generally ... benefits from the strengths of a multi-author approach." - Renaissance Quarterly

"Impressive in terms of its overall conception and organisation ... provides a tremendous amount of well-informed information about a lot of music ... the Companion is both timely and, for the right audience, extremely valuable, for it presents a clear exposition of the state and character of present-day Josquin scholarship and what makes it tick." - Musical Times

"The most important musicological contribution in the last 35 years to the life and work of undoubtedly one of the greatest composers of all time. This volume consists of 18 articles examining the life of the composer from very different angles. Its contributors include specialists of the stature of Bonnie J. Blackburn, Willem Elders, David Fallows, Ludwig Finscher, Alejandro Planchart, Richard Sherr, Rob C. Wegman and others, all cleverly chosen and co-ordinated by Sherr, who himself wrote six of the articles." - Maricarmen Gomez, Early Music Magazine

"The contributors to "The Josquin Companion" are some of the finest scholars in its subject area ... readers will find [it] a superb example of the current state of work on some of the best music of 500 years ago." - Times Literary Supplement

"The contributors here are a roll-call of the finest scholars working in the field, and the volume is far more valuable as a testimony to the diversity of current scholarship than as the expression of a single authorial voice." - Edward Wickham, Classical Music

"This splendid, multi-authored collection of essays ... It also adds a biographical coup of its own: the frontispiece (and cover) is a photograph of a recently uncovered wall in the Sistine Chapel where Josquin has apparently scratched his own name." - BBC Music Magazine

"The Josquin Companion should have a long shelf life as a major work of reference." - Sixteeenth Century Journal