Musicatlas
Music
Johannes Prioris published a fine Requiem mass which skillfully paraphrases the traditional plainsongs, and also composed attractive chansons (such as “Elle l’a pris”, in Burgundian “forme fixe”) and motets. His Marian antiphonal motet “Regina caeli” also demonstrates his art in paraphrasing the Gregorian original, while contemporaries such as his own subordinate Antoine Divitis pioneered the “parody mass” by spinning an elaborate contrapunctal web which almost completely hides the plainchant.
Life
This Flemish Polyphony composer of the third generation (championed by Josquin Desprez) was organist at the papal St Peter’s basilica in Rome in 1490, before he got his last and major appointment in 1503 as maître de chapelle to the French royal chapel — then leading in Europe — under king Louis XII (1498–1515), which included as singers the Flemish polyphonist composers Antoine de Févin and Antonius Divitis.
[This contribution is mainly based on KULeuven’s musicology professor I. Bossuyt’s book “De Vlaamse Polyfonie” and the HOASM-site which links below.]