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Once more at the National Gallery, to see two works by Leonardo da Vinci, Donald Macleod and art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon line up information on Josquin and Leonardo da Vinci, who were both employees of the ruling Sforza family. The paintings can be viewed on the Radio 3 website.

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.

Arriving in Italy, it seems Josquin was employed by Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, a man of considerable influence. Music was evidently generously funded and flourishing in Milan in the 1480s, but how were other branches of the Arts faring?

Adieu mes amours
Piffaro

Tu solus qui facis mirabilia
The Clerks Group
Edward Wickham, director

Fama malum
Alamire
David Skinner, director

Vultum tuum deprecabuntur
Intermerata virgo
Ora pro nobis virgo
Cantica Symphonia
Giuseppe Maletto, director

Qui velatus facie fuisti
Sei voci
Bernard Fabre-Garrus, director

Missa L’homme arme super voces musicales
Sanctus
Cut Circle
Jesse Rodin, director