Johannes Ockeghem
Johannes Ockeghem | |
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Born | c. 1410 |
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Works | List of compositions |
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Renaissance music |
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Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1410 – 6 February 1497[1]) was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of early Renaissance music. Ockeghem was the most influential European composer in the period between Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez,[2] and he was—with his colleague Antoine Busnois—the leading European composer in the second half of the 15th century.[3] He was an important proponent of the early Franco-Flemish School.
Ockeghem was well associated with other leading composers of the time, and spent most of his career serving the French royal court under Charles VII, Louis XI and Charles VIII.[4] Numerous poets and musicians lamented his death, including Erasmus, Guillaume Crétin, Jean Molinet and Josquin, who composed the well known Nymphes des bois for him.
It is thought that Ockeghem's extant works represent only a small part of his entire oeuvre, including around 14 masses, 20 chansons and less than 10 motets—though the exact numbers vary due to attribution uncertainties.[5] His better known works include the canon-based Missa prolationum; the Missa cuiusvis toni, which can be sung in any mode; the chanson Fors seulement; and the earliest surviving polyphonic Requiem.
Life
Background and early life
The spelling of Ockeghem's name comes from a supposed autograph of his which survived as late as 1885, and was reproduced by Eugène Giraudet, a historian in Tours;[6] the document has since been lost.[4] In 15th-century sources, the spelling "Okeghem" predominates. Other spellings include Ogkegum, Okchem, Hocquegam and Ockegham.
Ockeghem is believed to have been born in the Walloon city Saint-Ghislain, Burgundian Netherlands (now Belgium). His birthdate is unknown; dates as early as 1410 and as late as 1430 have been proposed.[7] The earlier date is based on the possibility that he knew Binchois in Hainaut before the older composer moved from Mons to Lille in 1423.[1] Ockeghem would have to have been younger than 15 at the time. This particular speculation derives from Ockeghem's reference, in the lament he wrote on the death of Binchois in 1460, to a chanson by Binchois dated to that time.[8] In this lament Ockeghem not only honored the older composer by imitating his style, but also revealed some useful biographical information about him.[9] The comment by the poet Guillaume Crétin, in the lament he wrote on Ockeghem's death in 1497, "it was a great shame that a composer of his talents should die before 100 years old", is also often taken as evidence for the earlier birthdate for Ockeghem.
In 1993, documents dating from 1607 were found stating that "Jan Hocquegam" was a native of
Details of his early life are lacking. Like many composers in this period, he started his musical career as a chorister, although the exact location of his education is unknown: Mons, a town near Saint-Ghislain that had at least two churches with competent music schools, has been suggested.[8] The first actual documented record of Ockeghem is from the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwe cathedral in Antwerp, where he was employed in June 1443 as a "left-hand choir singer" ("left-handers" sang composed music, "right-handers" sang chant). He probably sang under the direction of Johannes Pullois, whose employment also dates from that year.[14] This church was a distinguished establishment, and it was likely here that Ockeghem became familiar with the English compositional style, which influenced late 15th-century musical practice on the continent.[1]
Training and career
Ockeghem probably studied with Gilles Binchois, and at least was closely associated with him at the Burgundian court. Since Antoine Busnois wrote a motet in honor of Ockeghem sometime before 1467, it is probable that those two were acquainted as well; and writers of the time often link Dufay, Busnois and Ockeghem. Although Ockeghem's musical style differs considerably from that of the older generation, it is probable that he acquired his basic technique from them, and as such can be seen as a direct link from the Burgundian style to the next generation of Netherlanders, such as Obrecht and Josquin.
Between 1446 and 1448 Ockeghem served, along with singer and composer
Music and influence
Ockeghem was not a prolific composer, given the length of his career and extent of his reputation, and some of his work was lost. Many works formerly attributed to him are now presumed to be by other composers; Ockeghem's total output of reliably attributed compositions, as with many of the most famous composers of the time (such as Josquin), has shrunk with time.[8] Surviving reliably attributed works include some 14 masses (including a Requiem), an isolated Credo (Credo sine nomine), five motets, a motet-chanson (a deploration on the death of Binchois), and 21 chansons.[1] Thirteen of Ockeghem's masses are preserved in the Chigi codex, a Flemish manuscript dating to around 1500.[16] His Missa pro Defunctis is the earliest surviving polyphonic Requiem mass (a possibly earlier setting by Dufay has been lost). Some of his works, alongside compositions by his contemporaries, are included in Petrucci's Harmonice musices odhecaton (1501), the first collection of music published using moveable type.[17]
Dating Ockeghem's works is difficult, as there are almost no external points of reference, except of course the death of Binchois (1460) for which Ockeghem composed a motet-chanson. The Missa Caput is almost certainly an early work, since it follows on an anonymous English mass of the same title dated to the 1440s, and his late masses may include the Missa Ma maistresse and Missa Fors seulement, in view of both his innovative treatment of the cantus firmus and his increasingly homogeneous textures later in his life.[8]
Ockeghem used the cantus firmus technique in about half of his masses; the earliest of these masses use head-motifs at the start of the individual movements, a common practice around 1440 but one that had already become archaic by around 1450.[8] Three of his masses, Missa Ma maistresse, Missa Fors seulement, and Missa Mi-mi are based on chansons he wrote himself, and use more than one voice of the chanson, foreshadowing the parody mass techniques of the 16th century. In his remaining masses, including the Missa cuiusvis toni and Missa prolationum, no borrowed material has been found, and the works seem to have been freely composed.[8][18]
Ockeghem would sometimes place borrowed material in the lowest voice, such as in the Missa Caput, one of three masses written in the mid-15th century based on that fragment of chant from the English
A strong influence on
List of compositions
- Masses
- Missa sine nomine a 3 (doubtful attribution)
- Missa sine nomine a 5 (incomplete: only Kyrie, Gloria and Credo exist)
- Missa Au travail suis a 4
- Missa Caput
- Missa cuiusvis toni
- Missa De plus en plus
- Missa Ecce ancilla Domini
- Missa Fors seulement a 5 (has not survived complete: only Kyrie, Gloria and Credo remain)
- Missa L'homme armé a 4
- Missa Ma maistresse (only Kyrie and Gloria extant)
- Missa Mi-mi a 4 (also known as the Missa quarti toni)
- Missa prolationum a 4 (circa 1470)
- Missa quinti toni a 3
- Missa pro defunctis (Requiem) a 4 (incomplete, probably composed for the funeral of Charles VII in 1461)
- Credo sine nomine (Mass section, also known as Credo "De village")
- Motets
- Marian antiphons
- Alma Redemptoris Mater
- Ave Maria
- Salve Regina
- Others
- Intemerata Dei mater a 5 (possibly written 1487)[19]
- Ut heremita solus (possibly intended for instrumental performance)
- Deo gratias a 36 (doubtful attribution)
- Gaude Maria (doubtful attribution)
- Motet-chanson
- Mort tu as navré/Miserere (lamentation on the death of Gilles Binchois, probably written in 1460)
- Chansons
- Two voices
- O rosa bella(ballata) (Ai lasso mi – John Bedyngham/John Dunstaple?)
- Three voices
- Aultre Venus estes
- Au travail suis (attrib: possibly by Barbingant)
- Baisiés moy dont fort
- D'ung aultre amer
- Fors seulement contre
- Fors seulement l'attente
- Il ne m'en chault plus
- La despourveue et la bannie
- L'autre d'antan
- Les desléaux ont la saison
- Ma bouche rit
- Ma maistresse
- Prenez sur moi
- Presque transi
- Quant de vous seul
- Qu'es mi vida preguntays
- Se vostre cuer eslongne
- Tant fuz gentement resjouy
- Ung aultre l'a
- Three or four voices
- J'en ay dueil
- Four voices
- S'elle m'amera/Petite camusette
Recordings
- Flemish Masters, Virginia Arts Recordings, VA-04413, performed by Zephyrus. Includes the Ockeghem Alma Redemptoris mater, the Obrecht Missa Sub tuum presidium, as well as motets by Willaert, Clemens non Papa, Josquin, Mouton, and Gombert.
- Angelus, Virginia Arts Recordings, VA-00338, performed by Zephyrus. Includes the Ockeghem Ave Maria ... benedicta tu, as well as motets by Palestrina, Josquin, Victoria, Rore, Morales, Clemens non Papa, Lassus, de Wert, and Andrea Gabrieli
- "Missa Cuiusvis Toni", æon, ÆCD 0753 (2 CDs-2007), performed by Ensemble Musica Nova, Lucien Kandel; First recording of the four versions. Ed. Gérard Geay.
- "Missa prolationum", agogique AGO 008, Ensemble Musica Nova, Lucien Kandel. Ed. Gérard Geay.
References
Notes
- ^ This portrait is tentatively identified as Ockeghem by Reinhard Strohm, "Portrait of a Musician", in Vendrix, Philippe, ed. Johannes Ockeghem : actes du XLe Colloque international d'études humanistes, Tours, 3–8 février 1997. Paris: Klinckseick, 1998. [pp. 167-172.] WorldCat shows copies at the Sorbonne, and Bibliothèque nationale de France: WorldCat page op. cit.
Citations
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Brown & Stein 1996, p. 61.
- ^ The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music 2013.
- ^ Higgins 2001, § "Introduction".
- ^ a b Perkins 2009, "Introduction".
- ^ Milsom 2011, § para. 2.
- ^ Giraudet, 1885. Les artistes tourangeaux (series: Mémoires de la société archéologique de Touraine, 33. Bibliothèque nationale de France. Online resource. Gallica) pp 312f.
- ^ Fitch 1997, p. 57.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Perkins 2009.
- ^ a b Brown & Stein 1996, pp. 61–71.
- ^ van Overstraeten 1992, pp. 11–17.
- ^ Brown & Stein 1996, p. 60.
- ^ van Overstraeten 1992, p. 10.
- ^ van Overstraeten 1992, pp. 8–9.
- ^ Starr, Grove online
- ^ a b Brown & Stein 1996, p. 69.
- ^ Brown & Stein 1996, p. 70.
- ^ Brown & Stein 1996, p. 68.
- ^ Brown & Stein 1996, p. 62.
- ^ Dean 1998, p. 555.
Sources
- Brown, Howard Mayer; Stein, Louise K. (1996). Music in the Renaissance. Hoboken: Prentice Hall.
- Dean, Jeffrey (1998). "Okeghem's valediction? The meaning of 'Intemerata Dei mater'". Johannes Ockeghem: Actes du XLe Colloque international d'études humanistes. Éditions Klincksieck. ISBN 978-2-252-03214-5.
- Fitch, Fabrice (1997). Johannes Ockeghem: Masses and Models. Paris: Honoré Champion Éditeur. ISBN 978-2-85203-735-9.
- Higgins, Paula (2001). "Busnoys [Busnois, Bunoys, de Busnes], Antoine". ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membershiprequired)
- ISBN 978-0-19-920383-3.
- Milsom, John (2011). "Ockeghem, Johannes". In Latham, Alison (ed.). ISBN 978-0-19-957903-7.
- Perkins, Leeman L. (1999). Music in the Age of the Renaissance. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
- Perkins, Leeman L. (2009) [2001]. "Ockeghem [Okeghem, Hocquegam, Okegus etc.], Jean de". ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0. (subscription or UK public library membershiprequired)
- ISBN 978-0-393-09530-2.
- van Overstraeten, Daniel (1992). "Le lieu de naissance de Jean Ockeghem (ca 1420-1497): une énigme élucidée". Revue belge de Musicologie / Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Muziekwetenschap. 46: 23–32. JSTOR 3686780.
- Philippe Vendrix, dir. Johannes Ockeghem. Actes du XIe Colloque international d'études humanistes. Centre d'Etudes Supérieures de la Renaissance. Coll. Epitome musical. Kincksieck, 1998. ISBN 2-252-03214-6(in French and in English).
Further reading
- Martin Picker: Johannes Ockeghem and Jacob Obrecht: A Guide to Research. (Garland Composer Resource Manuals, 13.) New York: Garland Publishing Co., 1988. (ISBN 0-8240-8381-4)
External links
- Biography and discography from The Medieval Music & Arts Foundation
- Free scores by Johannes Ockeghem in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
- Free scores by Johannes Ockeghem at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- List of compositions by Johannes Ockeghem at the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music
- Information on Ockeghem from the Stanford University Libraries