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Donald Macleod and art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon return to London's National Gallery to look at the work of artists active in the time when Josquin sang in the papal chapel.

The humanist Cosimo Bartoli described Josquin as the Michelangelo of Music. A master of polyphonic choral writing, Josquin was as widely admired in his own lifetime as posthumously. While Josquin was a dominant force in music, the Franco-Flemish area with which he’s associated, also produced some remarkable painters, who, like Josquin and his fellow composers, exported their style, technical accomplishments and influence across Europe. In a series to mark the 500th anniversary of Josquin’s death, Donald Macleod visits the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square with art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon, to build a picture of Josquin’s music and the places he lived and worked, which also stimulated painters to produce equally outstanding Art. To accompany the series the paintings they discuss can be viewed on the Radio 3 website.

Considering his fame, it’s surprisingly difficult to map Josquin’s life. His birthdate was possibly 1450 or perhaps 1455 and it’s thought he was a choirboy at the collegiate church of St. Géry in Cambrai. Documents show he died in 1521, by which time he was probably in his seventies. He spent his last years as provost of the Collegiate church of Notre Dame in Condé sur l’Escaut, a town near Saint Quentin, right on the border with what’s now Belgium. In between times, Josquin may have had an association with the royal courts of King René in Aix-en-Provence and Louis XI of France, before working for the influential Sforza family in Milan and becoming the first maestro di cappella for Ercole d’Este in Ferrara.

Josquin appears in papal records as a singer in the choir from June 1489. He would have sung in the Sistine Chapel around forty times a year, surrounded by friezes commissioned by some of the leading artists of the period. The paintings mentioned in the programme can be seen online on the Radio 3 website.

Missa fortuna
Cut Circle
Jesse Rodin, director

Alma Redemptoris mater / Ave regina
Siglo d’Oro
Patrick Allies, director

Missa l’homme armé (sexti toni)
Gloria
Oxford Camerata
Jeremy Summerly, director

Missa La sol fa re mi
Credo
The Tallis Scholars
Peter Phillips, director

Domine non secundum peccata
Chanticleer
Joseph H Jennings, director

Stabat Mater a 5
Cantica Symphonia
Giuseppe Maletto, director