Only a few of his most distinguished pupils can be mentioned here: Jean de Roi, Basiron, Jacques Barbireau, Pierre de la Rue, Compère, Agricola, Caron, Verbonnet, Brumel, and, greatest of all, Josquin des Prés. Some of them, such as Agricola, unfortunately conceived the writing of contrapuntal intricacies to be their chief duty; while others used their acquired knowledge to better purpose. The Belgian, Hobrecht (1450-1505), chapel master of Notre Dame at Antwerp, was probably not a personal pupil of Okeghem, though a zealous follower and admirer. While assimilating and adopting the master’s ingenuity, he also was able to weave into his masses and motets a personal, subjective quality which marks them with the composer’s individuality. So highly esteemed was Hobrecht in his day that in 1494 the whole choir of the principal church in Bruges, for which he had written a mass, travelled to Antwerp in order to express thanks and do him honor.
During Okeghem’s supremacy—a matter of forty years or so—some of the more interesting forms, which had been cultivated in the time of Dufay, disappeared. We look in vain for the mediæval rondo, the ballad, the accompanied secular art song, and the paraphrased church song, with instrumental accompaniment. The contribution of Okeghem and his followers was the development of technical resources and a greater freedom, both in range and style, in vocal composition. His unremitting, thoughtful search for fundamental rules established the art of polyphony on a firm basis, and provided a safe starting point for the utterance of truth and passion. It is the fate, however, of work depending on a passing taste to grow old quickly, and Okeghem himself probably outlived his popularity. But his pupils spread over Europe and perpetuated his learning, and some of them, at least, enriched the art by a fresher genius. Unlike the old French and Gallo-Belgian masters, who stayed at home, these writers overflowed into Italy and Germany, established schools of instruction, and founded choruses for the production of vocal works. Among them, moreover, was one genius who exercised the strongest influence on the art of music, and deserves to rank as one of its greatest masters. That genius was Josquin des Prés.
III
Josquin des Prés is almost the last in the long list of Netherland composers, and overtops them all, with the exception of Lassus. The year of his birth is uncertain, but has been placed at about 1450, since he was a singer in the papal chapel under Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84). He has been claimed as a countryman by Italian writers, because his name was modified into del Prato; by German, because, ethnologically and geographically, the Low Countries are a part of Germany; by the French, because the Netherlands became a political dependency of France about two hundred years after Josquin’s death; and naturally the Belgians claim some share in the fame of the man who represents the glory of Belgian music. The towns of Condé, Tours, and Cambrai, the home of Dufay, and of others, have all been candidates for the honor of his birth; but scholars are now agreed that he was born at least in the province of Hainault, which belonged, during the middle and later fifteenth century, to the dominions of Philip the Good of Burgundy. Josquin had been chapel singer at Milan before entering the papal choir (1484), and afterward he is found in the service of Louis XII of France, with whom he was a great favorite. Like some of his predecessors, he received an appointment to a canonry, but seems not to have kept the office very long. In the year 1515 the Netherlands became German, and, according to Konrad Peutinger, Josquin left France for a position in the Netherland chapel of Maximilian I. It seems probable, therefore, that he spent the latter part of his life at Condé, in his native country, where he died in 1521.
Josquin des Prés.
Okeghem was still alive, and Dufay less than a score of years dead, when Josquin’s fame sprang to the sky. So great a stir did his gifts create in Rome that beside him the fame of all other composers paled. The Duke Hercules d’Este of Ferrara, for whom Josquin composed a mass entitled Hercules dux Ferrariæ, called him the Prince of Music; and the Abbate Baini, director of the pontifical chapel in the early nineteenth century, says of him: ‘In a short time, by his new productions, he becomes the idol of Europe. There is no longer tolerance for any one but Josquin. Josquin alone is sung in every chapel in Christendom. Nobody but Josquin in Italy, nobody but Josquin in France, nobody but Josquin in Germany, in Flanders, in Hungary, in Spain—Josquin and Josquin alone.’[96]
Fables grew up about his name, as about that of Homer or Wilhelm Tell. It is said that the French monarch, under whom Josquin served, had a bad voice and a still worse ear. Nevertheless, he was fond of music and desired his brilliant retainer to compose something in which he could take part. Josquin was equal to the occasion. He constructed a quartette somewhat different from the usual sort, there being two upper parts in a canon, and a free bass. To these he added a fourth part, the vox regis, as he flippantly called it, consisting of a single note which it was the king’s office to repeat, almost incessantly, throughout the piece!
The emoluments even of a royal musician were evidently not always prompt or large, and Josquin is reported more than once to have given the cue to the king by compositions whose opening Biblical words contained a punning comment on the royal dilatoriness in paying salaries, or whose sacred meaning could be amusingly applied to his own indigence. When finally the king good-naturedly took the hint, Josquin poured out his gratitude in a motet, ‘Lord, thou hast dealt graciously with thy servant.’ One biographer of Josquin cynically declares that the thank-offering was not at all up to the mark of the petitions.