The Requiem Mass of Johannes Ockeghem is the earliest surviving work in a genre that would come to fascinate composers throughout the centuries. After the celebrated, but unfortunately lost, Requiem mentioned in the will of Guillaume Dufay, settings of the Mass (and Office) of the Dead frequently adorn the musical landscape of the European Renaissance. Odo, Bishop of the Benedictine Abbey of Cluny first proclaimed the most solemn observance of All Souls' Day (2 November), the Feast of All the Faithful Departed, in 998. The Mass for the Dead (later termed the Requiem Mass, after the first words of the Introit), is sung annually on All Souls', on the occasion of a funeral, and on anniversaries of a death; in the later Middle Ages, obituary singing of Requiems became intensely popular as a weapon against the torments of Purgatory. Stylistic (and time-of-life) considerations generally yield a late date for Ockeghem's Requiem Mass. However, some scholars consider the possibility of its composition for the obsequies of Ockeghem's patron Charles VII of France in 1461.

Before the Council of Trent codified the structure of the Catholic Requiem Mass in 1570, different centers used different texts; Ockeghem's five surviving movements reflect pre-Tridentine French usage:

Introit: Requiem aeternam

Kyrie/Christe

Gradual: Si ambulem (Psalm 23:4)

Tract: Sicut cervus (Psalm 42:1-3)

Offertory: Domine Jesu Christe

Ockeghem soberly paraphrases the plainchant associated with each text (in a version slightly different from the Sarum Rite) in the upper voice; this underscores the solemnity of the liturgy, and becomes a nearly uniform practice in polyphonic Requiems. The five movements as they exist in the unique manuscript source do not, at first glance, form a musical and cyclical unity, leading to speculation about composite construction or lost movements (this last a tantalizing possibility indeed!). However, all show consistency within his compositional practice and within his faith.

In every movement but the first, Ockeghem exploits the dramatic potential of vocal scoring. The Kyrie/Christe alternates trios and upper duos for the first eight acclamations of the text, engaging all four voices only in the final Kyrie eleison. Both the Gradual and Tract, similarly, utilize the full four-voiced texture only at the conclusion of the movement—in the Gradual, the effect is one of calm chordal writing on "consolata sunt," while the more emotive Tract reaches a contrapuntal climax on the mockers' question, "Ubi est Deus tuus?" ("Where is thy God?") In the Offertory, the structure of voicings provides for an alternation of four-voiced and three-voiced sections, with brief duos interspersed. The Tract and Offertory also gradually increase the pace of affective word-painting (even Augenmusik for the performers' eyes only, such as using only black notes for the word "death").

The Offertory movement, however, is defined much more by its rhythmic complexity and its mensural anomalies. Ockeghem's choice of mensurations (key signatures) demonstrate a bravura facility in compositional varietas, combining different signatures in different voices simultaneously, and requiring the Contratenor to sing in every possible mensuration in succession. The Introit also stands a bit aloof from the rest of the movements, being constructed in four-voiced texture throughout, entirely in simple chordal harmonies. Apparently, the beginning of such a solemn occasion as a funeral or obituary deserves the utmost in reflective propriety. Fabrice Fitch notes the poet Guillaume Crétin, in a Déploration on Ockeghem's death, envisioned musical mourning by such figures as Tubal, David, and Orpheus. A heavenly choir follows, singing four of the master's Masses, including this Requiem; the choirboys are asked, in propriety, to sing Requiem note-against-note.

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