Wie man einen Renaissancekomponisten erzählt: Josquin auf dem Tonträgermarkt

Music historiography has gradually restored Josquin's music to a position comparable to that during the composer's lifetime and in the decades following his death, when the myth of Josquin was created and consolidated. It is a central role that was regained primarily through historiography: In fact, it was the 19th/early 20th century musical history accounts and memorial editions that re-constructed Josquin's "greatness" through their narratives, which then further radiated to a multitude of other texts, images, objects and were thereby confirmed. In the course of the 20th century, this historiographical narrative was also expressed in other media: sound recordings. Especially since the period after the Second World War, Josquin's music, like that of other Renaissance composers, has increasingly become part of musical life. In an increasingly mediatised society, this other central role was and is mainly made possible by recordings. It is based above all on listening to CDs and, to a lesser extent, on attending live events: shellac discs, LPs, cassettes, CDs, etc. have made Josquin's music a sound experience again since the Renaissance. However, if the ideological backgrounds of the historical-musical narratives about Josquin have become the subject of musicological research in recent decades (Paula Higgins' studies come to mind, for example), the recordings of Josquin's music have not yet received comparable attention, at least not as sounding contributions to the historiographical narrative about the composer. And this despite their importance and dissemination as cultural and entertainment media, which, in contrast to the music history accounts or editions, are more easily accessible to many, if not all, and which allow an experience of this music that can be repeated at will. My presentation will therefore focus on the music of Josquin as it has been promoted by the record industry since around the 1950s. I will reflect on the historiographical, cultural and ideological assumptions and aims of these recordings, which have 'narrated' Josquin through recorded music over the last sixty years, to show the extent to which they have helped to shape the discourse on the composer and Renaissance music.