Jacob Obrecht

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Jacob Obrecht. Ascribed to Hans Memling or Quentin Matsys, dated 1496 on the frame.

Jacob Obrecht (also Hobrecht; 1457/8[1] – late July 1505) was a Flemish composer of masses, motets and songs.[1] He was the most famous composer of masses in Europe of the late 15th century and was only eclipsed after his death by Josquin des Prez.[2]

Life

What little is known of Obrecht's origins and early childhood comes mostly from his motet Mille quingentis.[3] He was the only son[4] of Ghent city trumpeter Willem Obrecht and Lijsbette Gheeraerts.[5] His mother died in 1460 at the age of 20,[6] and his father in 1488 in Ghent.[7]

Details of his early education are sparse,[8] but he probably learned to play the trumpet, like his father, and in so doing learned counterpoint and how to improvise over a cantus firmus.[9] He is likely to have known Antoine Busnois at the Burgundian court, and certainly knew his music, since Obrecht's earliest mass shows close stylistic parallels with the elder composer.[10]

Scholar, composer and clergyman,[11] Obrecht seems to have had a succession of short appointments, two of which ended in less than ideal circumstances.[12] There is a record of his compensating for a shortfall in his accounts by donating choirbooks he had copied.[13] Throughout the period he was held in the highest esteem both by his patrons and by his fellow composers.[14] Tinctoris, writing in Naples, singles him out in a shortlist of contemporary master composers[15]—all the more significant because he was only 25 when Tinctoris created his list, and on the other side of Europe.[16] Erasmus served as one of Obrecht's choirboys around 1476.[17]

While most of Obrecht's appointments were in

Ercole d'Este I of Ferrara,[18] and again in 1504.[19] Ercole had heard Obrecht's music, which is known to have circulated in Italy between 1484 and 1487,[20] and said that he appreciated it above the music of all other contemporary composers;[21] consequently he invited Obrecht to Ferrara for six months in 1487.[22] In 1504 Obrecht returned to Ferrara,[23] but on the death of the Duke at the beginning of the next year he became unemployed.[24] In what capacity he stayed in Ferrara is unknown, but he died in the outbreak of plague there just before 1 August 1505.[25]

Works

Obrecht wrote mainly sacred music—masses and motets[26]—and he also wrote some chansons.[27]

Combining modern and archaic elements, Obrecht's style is multi-dimensional.[28] Perhaps more than those of the mature Josquin, the masses of Obrecht display a profound debt to the music of Johannes Ockeghem in the wide-arching melodies and long musical phrases that typify the latter's music. Obrecht's style is an example of the contrapuntal extravagance of the late 15th century.[29] He often used a cantus firmus technique for his masses:[30] sometimes he divided his source material up into short phrases;[31] at other times he used retrograde versions of complete melodies or melodic fragments.[32] He once even extracted the component notes and ordered them by note value, long to short, constructing new melodic material from the reordered sequences of notes.[33] Clearly to Obrecht there could not be too much variety,[34] particularly during the musically exploratory period of his early twenties.[35] He began to break free from conformity to formes fixes, especially in his chansons. Of the formes fixes, the rondeau retained its popularity longest.[36] However, he much preferred composing Masses, where he found greater freedom.[37] Furthermore, his motets reveal a wide variety of moods and techniques.

In his

Tyrol, which he probably heard as he went through the region around 1503 to 1504.[40] Requiring more than an hour to perform, it is one of the longest polyphonic settings of the Mass Ordinary ever written[41] and is considered among his finest works.[42]

Despite working at the same period, Obrecht and Ockeghem (Obrecht's senior by some 30 years) differ significantly in musical style.[43] Obrecht does not share Ockeghem's fanciful treatment of the cantus firmus but chooses to quote it verbatim.[44] Whereas the phrases in Ockeghem's music are ambiguously defined, those of Obrecht's music can easily be distinguished, though both composers favor wide-arching melodic structure.[45] Furthermore, Obrecht splices the cantus firmus melody with the intent of audibly reorganizing the motives; Ockeghem, on the other hand, does this far less.[46]

Obrecht's procedures contrast sharply with the works of the next generation, who favored an increasing simplicity of approach (prefigured by some works of his contemporary Josquin).[47] Although he was renowned in his time, Obrecht appears to have had little influence on subsequent composers; most probably, he simply went out of fashion along with the other contrapuntal masters of his generation.[48]

Recordings

  • Flemish Masters, Virginia Arts Recordings, VA-04413, performed by Zephyrus, 2004. Includes the Obrecht Missa Sub tuum presidium, as well as motets by Willaert, Clemens non-Papa, Ockeghem, Des Prez, Mouton, and Gombert.
  • Obrecht, Missa Maria zart, performed by the Tallis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips, Gimell CDGIM 032, 1996.
  • Jacob Obrecht. Chansons, Songs, Motets, Capilla Flamenca and Piffaro, Eufoda 1361, 2005
  • "Missa Sub Tuum Praesidium", The Clerks' Group, Gaudeamus, 2003.
  • "Missa Malheur Me Bat", The Clerks' Group, Gaudeamus, 1998.
  • "Missa de Sancto Donatiano", Cappella Pratensis, Fineline, 2009.
  • "Jacob Obrecht", The Sound and the Fury, ORF, 2009.
  • "Obrecht Masses", Beauty Farm, 2019, includes Missa Fortuna Desperata and Missa Maria Zart.

Notes

  1. ^ a b [http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/20231 Rob C. Wegman. "Obrecht, Jacob." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, (accessed 24 September 2020).
  2. ^ Sparks, "Jacob Obrecht", p.477.
  3. ^ Wegman 1994, p.21.
  4. ^ Wegman 1994, p.39.
  5. ^ Wegman 1994, p.36.
  6. ^ Wegman 1994, p.39.
  7. ^ Wegman 1994, p.147.
  8. ^ Wegman 1994, p.21.
  9. ^ Wegman 2007.
  10. ^ Wegman, "Obrecht, Jacob".
  11. ^ Atlas 1998, p.295.
  12. ^ Wegman, "Obrecht, Jacob".
  13. ^ Sparks, "Obrecht, Jacob, p.477.
  14. ^ Atlas 1998, p.295.
  15. ^ Wegman, "Obrecht, Jacob".
  16. ^ Atlas 1998, p.294.
  17. ^ Reese 1959, p.107.
  18. ^ Wegman, "Obrecht, Jacob".
  19. ^ Wegman, "Obrecht, Jacob".
  20. ^ Wegman 1994, p.81-2.
  21. ^ Wegman 1994, p.139.
  22. ^ Wegman, "Obrecht, Jacob".
  23. ^ Wegman, "Obrecht, Jacob".
  24. ^ Atlas 1998, p.295.
  25. ^ Atlas 1998, p.295.
  26. ^ Sparks, "Jacob Obrecht", p.478.
  27. ^ Sternfeld 1973, p.198.
  28. ^ Sternfeld 1973, p.196.
  29. ^ Sparks, "Jacob Obrecht", p.477.
  30. ^ Sparks, "Jacob Obrecht", p.482.
  31. ^ Sparks, "Jacob Obrecht", p.478.
  32. ^ Sparks, "Jacob Obrecht", p.478.
  33. ^ Sparks, "Jacob Obrecht", p.478.
  34. ^ Sparks, "Jacob Obrecht", p.478.
  35. ^ Wegman 1994, p.87.
  36. ^ Sternfeld 1973, p.198.
  37. ^ Sternfeld 1973, p.197.
  38. ^ Wegman 1994, p.338.
  39. ^ Wegman, "Obrecht, Jacob".
  40. ^ Wegman, "Obrecht, Jacob".
  41. ^ Wegman, "Obrecht, Jacob".
  42. ^ Fallows, David (9 January 2013). "Obrecht Missa Maria Zart". www.gramophone.co.uk. Retrieved 24 July 2019.
  43. ^ Sparks 1975, p.312.
  44. ^ Sparks 1975, p.312.
  45. ^ Sparks 1975, p.312.
  46. ^ Sparks 1975, p.312-3.
  47. ^ Sternfeld 1973, p.198-9.
  48. ^ Sparks, "Jacob Obrecht", p.482.

References

  • Atlas, Allan W. 1998. Renaissance Music. New York: W.W. Norton.
  • Reese, Gustav, 1959. Music in the Renaissance. New York: W.W. Norton.
  • Sparks, Edgar H. 1975. Cantus Firmus in Mass and Motet: 1420–1520. New York: Da Capo Press.
  • (Sparks, Edgar H. "Obrecht, Jacob" in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 1980 ed.)
  • Sternfeld, F.W. 1973. Music from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. New York: Preager Publishers.
  • Wegman, Rob C. 1994. Born for the Muses: The Life and Masses of Jacob Obrecht. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
  • Wegman, Rob C. "Obrecht, Jacob", in New Grove Music Online Dictionary, accessed 20 November 2007.

External links

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