Biography
Alexander Agricola journeyed extensively as a composer across France, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands. Documentation of his career and achievements lacks complete reliability, and several variant names appear in reference to him, among them Allesandro Alemanno, Alexander de Alemanna, and Allessandro d'Allemagna. He produced an array of compositions that encompassed masses, mass movements, motets, hymns, lamentations, magnificat settings, motet-chansons, secular vocal pieces, and instrumental works. Contemporary accounts lauded him both as a singer and as a composer, and he likely served under the patronage of the Duke of Milan. He received a recommendation to Lorenzo de' Medici, after which Piero de' Medici sought his return from Naples and the Aragonese court in 1492. Before that date he is confirmed to have spent time in the French royal chapel, though the specific posts he occupied there remain unknown. By 1500 he had entered the service of Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy and King of Castile, and around 1503-1505 he composed Transit Anna Timor. Contemporary reports record his death in 1506, the same year Philip died. Agricola left behind an extensive and accomplished body of work whose textures feature dense rhythms, melismatic melodic writing, and contrapuntal construction; its motifs proceed through sequence, repetition, and imitation. While many contemporaries absorbed Italian influences, Agricola’s music retained its Gothic character.