Your first Renaissance (musical) hero?

[Karl Henning]

Mine must be Tomás Luis de Victoria. It must have been junior or senior year in high school that we sang the motet O magnum misterium in chorus, and I was hooked.

[Ataraxia]

Gabrieli

[Todd]

Cristobal de Morales.

[Sergeant Rock]

Michael Praetorius. David Munrow's selection of pieces from the Terpsichore was my first pre-Bach purchase.

Sarge

[Karl Henning]

This is all most interesting, thank you for participating!

[Josquin des Prez]

You can take a guess. 

[Sergeant Rock]

You can take a guess. 

Didier Lupi Second?

Sarge

[Que]

You can take a guess. 

The sinistre and troubled minded Carlos Gesualdo?

Q

[Josquin des Prez]

The sinistre and troubled minded Carlos Gesualdo?

Q

I like him too actually. But i still think des Prez is the greatest among all Renaissance masters. I hope somebody decides to do a complete edition soon. Palestrina too needs some fresh new recordings.

[bhodges]

Josquin for me. This Tallis Scholars Missa Pange lingua is the first Renaissance recording I ever bought, and still one of my faves.

[asin]B00005ATCX[/asin]

--Bruce

[TheGSMoeller]

Dowland.

[not edward]

Ockeghem. Something about his contrapuntal style immediately clicked with me (the first work of his I heard was the remarkable Missa prolationum, which might have something to do with it).

[val]

Lassus. He lived in the last period of Renaissance, not many years before Monteverdi started his "seconda pratica". I think Lassus offers an extraordinary synthesis of all different kinds of music in the 16th century, from the polyphonic religious music  (since Josquin and Gombert to Victoria and Palestrina) the beginning of the Madrigal (Arcadelt, Marenzio), to the more popular songs (Janequin). But more important, to me, are his Motets with a new and very deep expression (the Stabat Mater, Lagrime di San Pietro, Psalms de Penitence) announcing already the great works of Schütz.

I believe that Lassus marks his century, the same way Dufay did regarding the 15th century, Monteverdi and Schütz the 17th century or Bach the first half of the 18th century.

[chasmaniac]

Tallis, I reckon.

[The new erato]

Dufay, prompted by Munrow's splendid version of he "Missa Se la Face ay pale" which I played to death. Thereafter I moved to Ockeghem and Josquin which I still regard as supreme musical geniuses, regardless of period.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

I think it was Palestrina, the Missa Papae Marcelli in a recording on DG. I forget the performers.

Josquin (the recording mentioned by Bruce above) and Ockeghem (the Requiem) followed shortly thereafter.