Fétis says: "As a professor, Ockeghem was also very remarkable, for all
the most celebrated musicians at the close of the fifteenth and beginning
of the sixteenth century were his pupils." In the "Complaint" written
after his death by William Grespel, appear the following lines:
"Argicola, Verbonnet, Prioris,
Josquin des Près, Gaspard, Brumel, Compère,
Ne parlez plus de Joyeul chants, ne ris,
Mais composez un ne recorderis,
Pour lamentir nostre maîstre et bon père."
Antoine Brumel achieved the greatest distinction among these pupils. He
was born about 1460 and died about 1520. His personal history is lost.
The present age possesses, however, a fuller record of his work than it
has of his master's. In one volume printed by Petrucci in 1503 and to
be found in the Royal Library at Berlin, there are five of his masses.
Another mass by this composer is in a volume of works by various writers,
printed also by Petrucci. A copy of this composition is in the British
Museum. A number of masses and motets of his are scattered through other
collections of Petrucci's. Others exist in MS. in Munich. Brumel's motet,
"O Domine Jesu Christe, pastor bone," quoted by Naumann, is written in
a clear and dignified style, abounds in full chords, and contains only
such passages of imitation as would readily suggest themselves. A better
example of the style of the period is his canonic, "Laudate Dominum,"
given by Foskel and Kiesewetter.
Jacob Hobrecht, the principal Dutch master of the first Netherland
period, was born about 1430, at Utrecht, where he subsequently became
chapel-master. It does not appear on record anywhere that he was a pupil
of Ockeghem, but he was unquestionably a disciple of that composer.
He achieved celebrity in his life time and was honored with many
distinctions. He wrote a mass for the choir of the Bruges Cathedral,
and the whole body journeyed to Antwerp to pay him homage. It is stated
that he also received a visit from Bishop Borbone of Cortona, leader of
the papal choir. Hobrecht became chapel-master at Utrecht, about 1465,
and had there a choir of seventy voices. A part of his life was spent in
Florence at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent, where he met Josquin
des Près.
The indefatigable Ambros goes into a careful discussion of eight masses
of Hobrecht's, published in the Petrucci collections. Of these the best,
known as the "Fortuna desperata," was published in modern notation at
Amsterdam in 1870. Examples of Hobrecht's writing are also to be found in
the works of Burney, Forkel, Kiesewetter, and Naumann. One of Hobrecht's
musical feats was the composition of a mass in a single night. His works
contain all the canonic inventions employed by Ockeghem, and are a mine
of contrapuntal learning. Doubtless when sung by the trained cathedral
choirs of their period, they were impressive to ears not attuned to
modern tonality.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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