Jacob Obrecht (c. 1450-1505); FLM

Jacob Obrecht (1457/58–1505) was a Franco-Flemish composer, born in Ghent, and one of the leading masters of sacred polyphony in the generation between Johannes Ockeghem and Josquin des Prez. The son of a city trumpeter, he entered the church and held musical appointments in Bergen op Zoom, Cambrai, Bruges, and Antwerp. His reputation spread rapidly across Europe, and he twice travelled to Ferrara, where Duke Ercole I d’Este was an admirer of his music. Obrecht died there during an outbreak of plague in 1505.

Obrecht was especially celebrated for his Masses, in which he developed borrowed melodies through ingenious cantus-firmus procedures, sequences, repetitions, and large-scale structural designs. Among his important works are Missa Maria zart, Missa Fortuna desperata, and Missa Sub tuum praesidium. He also composed motets and secular songs. His music combines intellectual complexity with abundant melodic invention and represents one of the high points of late-fifteenth-century Franco-Flemish polyphony.

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