Johannes Prioris (c. 1460 – c. 1514) was a

Netherlandish The Low Countries comprise the coastal Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta region in Western Europe, whose definition usually includes the modern countries of Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. Both Belgium and the Netherlands derived their ...

composer of the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass id ...

. He was one of the first composers to write a

polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...

setting of the Requiem Mass The Music for the Requiem Mass is any music that accompanies the Requiem, a Mass in the Catholic Church for the deceased. It has inspired a large number of compositions, including settings by Mozart, Berlioz, Donizetti, Verdi, Bruckner, Dvoř ...

. On the basis of documents surrounding Saint-Sauveur in

Blois Blois ( ; ) is a commune and the capital city of Loir-et-Cher department, in Centre-Val de Loire, France, on the banks of the lower Loire river between Orléans and Tours. With 45,898 inhabitants by 2019, Blois is the most populated city of the ...

, Theodor Dumitrescu has argued that Prioris is to be identified with the composer "Denis Prieur," making his Latin name "Dionysius Proris." The name "Johannes" is attested in a single source.ibid., p.19 He may have been born in Brabant. Very little is known about his life, except what can be inferred by the distribution of his manuscripts, and from his musical style. There is some evidence that he spent time in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

as a singer at St. Peter's, since a similar name to his appears in the account ledgers, and his music appears in seven separate manuscript sources in the

Vatican Vatican may refer to: Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum The Holy See * The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...

archives. Some time after 1500 he probably moved to

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

, since he is twice called the ''maître de chapelle'' to King

Louis XII Louis XII (27 June 14621 January 1515), was List of French monarchs, King of France from 1498 to 1515 and King of Naples from 1501 to 1504. The son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves, he succeeded his 2nd cousin once removed and b ...

; once in a letter from

Ferrara Ferrara (, ; egl, Fràra ) is a city and ''comune'' in Emilia-Romagna, northern Italy, capital of the Province of Ferrara. it had 132,009 inhabitants. It is situated northeast of Bologna, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the main stream ...

, and once by

Jean d'Auton Jean may refer to: People * Jean (female given name) * Jean (male given name) * Jean (surname) Fictional characters * Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character * Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations * Jean ...

. He probably died before King Louis XII (1515) since there was a new ''maître de chapelle'' for the king's funeral ceremonies. Prioris wrote six masses, of which five are still extant, including a famous Requiem, which he may have written for the funeral of

Anne of Brittany Anne of Brittany (; 25/26 January 1477 – 9 January 1514) was reigning Duchess of Brittany from 1488 until her death, and Queen of France from 1491 to 1498 and from 1499 to her death. She is the only woman to have been queen consort of Franc ...

, who died in 1514. He also wrote settings of the

Magnificat The Magnificat (Latin for " y soulmagnifies he Lord) is a canticle, also known as the Song of Mary, the Canticle of Mary and, in the Byzantine tradition, the Ode of the Theotokos (). It is traditionally incorporated into the liturgical service ...

motet In Western classical music, a motet is mainly a vocal musical composition, of highly diverse form and style, from high medieval music to the present. The motet was one of the pre-eminent polyphonic forms of Renaissance music. According to Marga ...

chanson A (, , french: chanson française, link=no, ; ) is generally any lyric-driven French song, though it most often refers to the secular polyphonic French songs of late medieval and Renaissance music. The genre had origins in the monophonic ...

s, and some examples of an early 16th-century genre which blended the last two: the

motet-chanson The motet-chanson was a specialized musical form of the Renaissance music, Renaissance, developed in Milan during the 1470s and 1480s, which combined aspects of the contemporary motet and chanson. Many consisted of three voice parts, with the low ...

. Most of his chansons look back to the style of

Antoine Busnois Antoine Busnois (also Busnoys; – before 6 November 1492) was a French composer, singer and poet of early Renaissance music. Busnois and colleague Johannes Ockeghem were the leading European composers of the second half the 15th century, and ...

and

Hayne van Ghizeghem Hayne van Ghizeghem ( 1445 – 1476 to 1497) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the early Renaissance Burgundian School. While many of his works have survived, little is known about his life. He was probably born in Gijzegem (near Aalst, in mod ...

, while his motet writing, and especially his mass writing, shows elements of Italian influence, such as a chordal rather than a densely

contrapuntal In music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more musical lines (or voices) which are harmonically interdependent yet independent in rhythm and melodic contour. It has been most commonly identified in the European classical tra ...

style.

References and further reading

*Dumitrescu, Theodor. "Who Was “Prioris”? A Royal Composer Recovered." ''Journal of the American Musicological Society'' 65 (1), 2012 * *

Gustave Reese Gustave Reese ( ; 29 November 1899 – 7 September 1977) was an American musicologist and teacher. Reese is known mainly for his work on medieval and Renaissance music, particularly with his two publications ''Music in the Middle Ages'' (1940) ...

, ''Music in the Renaissance''. New York, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954. Specific {{DEFAULTSORT:Prioris, Johannes 1460s births 1510s deaths Renaissance composers French classical composers French male classical composers 15th-century Franco-Flemish composers 16th-century Franco-Flemish composers