Sometime within a decade or so after the 1497 death of Johannes Ockeghem, crown of the French Royal Chapel, a French nobleman (apparently a connoisseur!) commissioned a massive retrospective anthology of the master's music, known today as the Chigi Codex. Its main corpus contains all of Ockeghem's securely attributed Mass cycles, as well as two motets, the valedictory Intemerata Dei mater and an unassuming four-voiced Ave Maria. Unfortunately, this latter motet has been copied by a later hand, and a Spanish one at that; as this manuscript provides the only extant source for the motet, it may be impossible to verify the attribution or date the piece. In style, however, it generally accords with traits seen in his Masses and his few motets; it certainly is worthy of inclusion in the composer's oeuvre.

The text for the motet is from the familiar salutation of the Angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:28), announcing her forthcoming pregnancy by the Holy Spirit. Ockeghem's setting for four voices seems destined for liturgical use. As is common in other passages of the mature masses, subtle echoes of imitation between the voices, and repetitions of rhythmic cells, aurally unify the various voices. An endearing feature of this setting is the harmonic fluctuation brought about by ambiguities between the pitches B flat and B natural. A number of Bs contain accidental inflections to B flat in the score (several for causa pulchritudinis, for beauty's sake), while several others must in context remain "hard" B (natural). These constant shifts lend a graceful fluidity to the substance of this brief motet.

© All Music Guide