Music
The first volume of Helmut Osthoff's work on Josquin Desprez (ca. 1440–1521) dealing with the Netherlandish master's biography and his Mass compositions marks an epoch in Josquin research. It is the first monograph devoted to the greatest musical figure of the Renaissance.Josquin's genius was mighty enough to encompass both old and new worlds of music, the old world of masterly contrapuntal construction and of mathematical symbolism of Netherlandish vintage, and the new world of euphonious harmony and of musical expression of Italian and of humanistic origin. As an artistic personality Josquin is a novelty in the world of music: he is the first composer in Western history of whom we can form some picture of personality and of whom we have a goodly number of anecdotes, all of which show him to be endowed with a penetrating sense of his artistic mission and a vast, almost condescending, yet at times melancholy, sense of humor toward the great patrons who commanded his services.