Ockeghem, Missa Mi Mi, Agnus Dei

If you begin reading about the Franco-Flemish composer Johannes Ockeghem (1410/25 – 1497), you may notice how much we don’t know about him. His birth date has been narrowed to a 15-year range. Historians have suggested several cities as the location where he was born and raised. They still speculate on where he received his musical training.

Records do exist that tell us about his career: as a chorister at the Cathedral in Antwerp, in the French court of Charles VII and Louis XI, and at Notre Dame in Paris. But his final years become murky again. He probably died in Tours because he left a will there.

Yet, we know the specific date of death, February 6, 1497, and are impressed by the subsequent outpouring of musical lamentations on his death written by the many composers who were influenced by his work, the most famous being Josquin des Prez’s La Déploration sur la mort de Johannes Ockeghem. People of that time knew Ockeghem well and revered his work.

If you know anything about  sacred music of the Renaissance, you probably have gained familiarity with works by Josquin and Palestrina. Their works display a seamless contrapuntal style that flows throughout the music’s distinct sections. The phrases overlap and the voices all have the same prominence. You hear these same techniques in Ockeghem’s music, written a century before Palestrina. And although there is much to be said for sacred music from all periods, this Renaissance style seems particularly well-suited to the expression of the transcendent with its continuous unfolding of vocal lines and effortless imitation.