Sacred Music & History

Johannes Ockeghem (ca. 1410-1497 – wearing glasses in the contemporary portrait in the thumbnail) was the greatest composer of the period between Guillaume Dufay and Josquin des Prez. Johannes Tinctoris, the Flemish music theorist and author of the first musical dictionary, called Ockeghem the first among all the most excellent composers of his time. He was honored not only by musicians of France and Burgundy, but great men of the day as diverse as Duke Sforza of Milan and Erasmus of Rotterdam. He was also a respected singer, choirmaster, and teacher.
 
Ockeghem was born in Saint-Ghislain, Hainault, an ancient province of the Holy Roman Empire that lay partly in what is now Belgium and partly in France. The first we hear of him in public records is in 1443 as a choir singer at the Cathedral of Our Lady in Antwerp. From there he went to France and the Duke of Bourbon, then to the chapel of King Charles VII (who was restored to his throne by St. Joan of Arc). He was quickly promoted to premier chapellain and given the powerful and lucrative position of Treasurer at the Abbey of St. Martin at Tours. In his long career he served three kings of France, and not only as a musician: he went on diplomatic missions for Charles the Bold’s old enemy Louis XI (better known as The Spider King), who made him Master of the King’s Chapel.
 
Ockeghem was renowned for his unusually deep and resonant bass voice, and many of his works feature prominent, complex bass parts – something of an innovation at the time, as in his “Ave Maria.” In addition to his beautiful bass lines, he is noted for his inventive use of the “canon,” one aspect of counterpoint in which multiple voices imitate each other in melody but vary in timing, structure, or rhythm. A well-known, simple form of canon is the “round” or rota – “Three blind mice” or “Row, row, row your boat,” in three parts. But Ockeghem’s canon "Deo Gracias" has nine sets of four voices for a total of thirty-six parts – a technical tour de force, but at the same time lovely to hear (although difficult to perform). And his “Missa Prolationum” is an entire Mass using the same melody performed at different speeds and beginning on different pitches. But all the technical mastery in the world would not have preserved Ockeghem’s music but for its lyrical and melodic beauty.
 
Upon Ockeghem’s death, many poets and musicians wrote laments or “deplorations”, the most famous (and perhaps the greatest ever composed) the lovely and moving “Nymphes des bois” – “Nymphs of the woods” – in which the rising composer Josquin pays homage not only to Ockeghem himself but to his music, employing the resonant bass voices and long floating lines characteristic of Ockeghem’s work, with somber descending thirds paired with a cantus firmus from the Requiem Mass:
 
Put on your mourning garments,
Josquin, Brumel, Pierchon, Compère,
And weep great tears from your eyes:
For you have lost your good father.

Ockeghem: “Deo Gratias” performed by the Hilliard Ensemble

Ockeghem: “Ave Maria” performed by Quire Cleveland

Ockeghem: “Kyrie” from Missa Prolationem, again by the Hilliard Ensemble

Josquin: “Nymphes des bois” – a live performance by Vox Luminis