Micrologus; Ockeghem

81-01 JOHANNES OCKEGHEM, PRINCE OF MUSIC

Today's show is about Johannes Ockeghem. One of the best known Flemish composers from the early Renaissance, he was born about 1420–1430 and died on February 6th, 1497. He was called by Johannes Tinctoris, the greatest theorist of the early Renaissance, "the most excellent composer, and a careful searcher after sweetness"; and by Erasmus of Rotterdam, that famous Renaissance humanist, he was called "the Prince of Music." You can tell from these praises that Ockeghem was very highly regarded in his lifetime, not just as a composer, but as a singer, as well. His bass voice was said to be one of the finest to be heard anywhere in Europe. But Ockeghem has received a lot of bad press in more recent times. He is a very technical composer—like J. S. Bach is a technical composer—and because of that, people, without looking at his works, said that they really contained no musical value beyond their technical merit. This simply is not true. However, while most well-known composers from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance have “Collected Works” which bring together all of their known compositions, Ockeghem's collected works have yet to be completed.

One of his secular works, "Prenez sur moi," to which we are about to listen, was very well-known in the Renaissance, because it is a canon between three voices, each of which begins on a different pitch. So well-known was this piece, and so much did it impress Isabella d’ Este, the great head of the court in Mantua, that she had it inlaid in marquetry, that is, in different colors of wood, on the wall of her study. The text is: "Take me as your example in love. The beginning of love is sweet, the middle full of pain and sadness, and the end is to have a fine mistress, but the tricky part is extricating oneself."

[MUSIC: The chanson "Prenez sur moi,” performed by the Early Music Consort of London, directed by David Munrow]

I doubt if too many of you were offended by the technical mastery of that composition—the fact that only one part is written down by the composer and three parts are realized in performance. It is a delightful piece; as Tinctoris would say, "full of sweetness." Actually, most of Ockeghem's chansons are in a rather conservative style, one which harks back to the music of Guillaume Dufay. We know for a fact that Ockeghem and Dufay met at least twice, in 1462 and 1464, when Ockeghem visited Dufay as part of the retinue of the King of France. Ockeghem was at that time the First Chaplain and Musical Director for the Court of France, and Dufay was Music Director at the Cathedral of Cambrai. We know from accounts of the Cathedral of Cambrai that the two shared a very expensive wine together.

The next piece we are going to hear is a bergerette, "Ma maistresse." It is couched in the traditional love terms of the Franco-Flemish chanson. The text of the refrain reads: "My lady, my dearest friend, my desire is a deadly enemy, perfection it is in everything if ever woman was, the one woman justly reputed to be peerless. Shall I never see you?" The performance is by Pomerium Musices, directed by Alexander Blachly.

[MUSIC]

During his lifetime, Ockeghem was known best of all for his Mass compositions—his setting of the movements of the Mass Ordinary. While Dufay, in making his settings of the Mass Ordinary, might take a preexistent melody, such as the tune from a chanson, or a Gregorian chant; and while Josquin, the later composer, would base his Masses on the extensive use of imitative fugal-like entries; Ockeghem used neither one of those techniques very often. He carved for himself a very personal style, based not on imitation and not so much on the use of pre-existent melodic material; again, we find him turning to very complex structures. One of his best known Masses, the Missa Cuiusvis Toni, is written so that it can be sung starting on any one of four different pitches, so that it ends on any one of the four different finals of the eight Renaissance modes--really quite an achievement. Another one—and we are going to be sampling a movement from this one—the Missa Prolationum, is a canon, like "Prenez sur moi.” Ockeghem wrote only two parts, but each part was to be sung starting on two different pitches and in two different meters. For example, the top part, which is most often notated in what we would call 2/4 time, is also sung by the alto, but at a different pitch and in 3/4 time. Well, you might ask, what is the point of all this complexity, it just seems to be complexity for its own sake? But it really was not; it was not meant to be perceived by the listener. As Charles Burney, one of the first historians of music, commented in the late 18th century: "The performer was to solve canonical mysteries and discover latent beauties of ingenuity and contrivance about which the hearers were indifferent, provided the general harmony was pleasing." Well, I don't think that the listeners would have been too indifferent to the soaring lines and the surging, inexorable qualities of Ockeghem's harmonies. The idea was that the notational complexities would be perceived only by the composer, by the performers and, of course, by God. We are going to listen to the Agnus Dei from Ockeghem's Missa prolationum, the performance is by the Cappella Nova, directed by Richard Taruskin.

[MUSIC]

The Cappella Nova, by the way, has won a national award for its performance of Ockeghem's music. That is the last piece by Ockeghem we are going to hear on today's program, but it is not the end of the program. Ockeghem's death engendered a number of tributes in poetry and in music, and we are going to listen to a setting of Molinet's poem "Nymphes des bois," by Josquin Desprez. The music exploits the bass register, no doubt, in deference to Ockeghem's own wonderful bass voice. The earliest printed editions of the piece have text at one point: "Le vrai tresor de musique" (the true treasure of music) in describing Ockeghem; but, in fact, the only source to date from Josquin's lifetime, a manuscript, has the text at that point: "Le vrai tresorier de musique" (the true treasurer of music), a punning reference to the fact that, along with being the First Chaplain and Master of Music to the King of France, Ockeghem was also Treasurer of the Abbey of St. Martin of Tours, of which the Kings of France were honorary Abbots. The complete text runs as follows:

“Nymphs of the woods, goddesses of the streams, fine singers of every nation, change your bright and lofty voices to piercing wails and lamentations, for Atropos with cruel shears your Ockeghem has taken. The true treasurer of music and true master, from death can now no more escape and grievous loss in earth buried. Clothe yourselves in deepest mourning, Josquin, Brumel, Compère, Perissone, and from your eyes shed flowing tears for your good father now is lost. May he rest in peace, Amen.”

[MUSIC]