Twenty-two of Ockeghem's chansons survive, and they bear the marks of the same fierce intelligence that is behind his masses. In their formal ambition and perfection they transcend the normal musical scope of the formes fixes in ways that the chansons of few other composers do. Not that the chansons arrogantly defy the forms while using them, as do the chansons of Agricola, but there is a sense of the chanson as a total piece (rather than discrete segments of music), a continuity and completeness, that is unrivaled. He applies an intensity of attention to all aspects normally reserved for more pompous forms.

The rondeau Aultre venus shows this typically careful handling, although it is somewhat old-fashioned in that it is treble-dominated. Superius and tenor are both given equally beautiful long-winded, ornate melodic lines. We don't find a banal alternation between catchy sections, but a delicate miniature that seems to smoothly unfold as a complete piece of unified musical thought. He has taken such care to balance high points and low points in both of the prominent melodies that the whole has a remarkable, long-range sense of direction towards its own end.

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