Jacob Obrecht was one of the primary composers responsible for significant changes in musical style during the late fifteenth century. He was especially important to the development of larger forms, as the first composer to systematically demonstrate unified formal structure and long-range cadential planning over the course of extended works. Obrecht's approach to unity and development went beyond the simple employment of a cantus firmus or unifying gesture. He consequently personifies today's mass-as-symphony ideal most decisively. Obrecht's innovations also touched the realm of sonority, where he reaffirmed the prominence of reduced scoring passages, and pioneered a lighter sound-world in which changes in the number of active voices served to continue a broader musical argument without being ends in themselves. Recent revisions to the biographies and chronologies of Obrecht & Josquin indicate that some developments previously credited to Josquin were actually Obrecht's doing. A vision of Obrecht now emerges in which he was a precocious talent, the first of his generation to perfect the mature style of the era, and a composer who redefined mass composition in the 1480s. His work was followed only later by Josquin's own refinements.
Guillaume Dufay, Composer
Guillaume Dufay was a Franco-Flemish composer and music theorist of the early Renaissance. As the central figure in the Burgundian School, he was the most famous and infl...
Johannes Ockeghem, Composer
Johannes Ockeghem was the leading composer of the second generation of the Netherlandish school. Ockeghem is often considered the most important composer between Dufay an...
