Jacob Obrecht

[1] He was the most famous composer of masses in Europe of the late 15th century and was only eclipsed after his death by Josquin des Prez.

[9] He is likely to have known Antoine Busnois at the Burgundian court, and certainly knew his music, since Obrecht's earliest mass shows close stylistic parallels with the elder composer.

[17] While most of Obrecht's appointments were in Flanders in the Low Countries, he made at least two trips to Italy, once in 1487 at the invitation of Duke Ercole d'Este I of Ferrara,[18] and again in 1504.

[29] He often used a cantus firmus technique for his masses:[30] sometimes he divided his source material up into short phrases;[31] at other times he used retrograde versions of complete melodies or melodic fragments.

In his Missa Sub tuum presidium, the number of voice parts in the five movements increases from three in the Kyrie, to four in the Gloria, and so on up to seven in the Agnus Dei.

[40] Requiring more than an hour to perform, it is one of the longest polyphonic settings of the Mass Ordinary ever written[41] and is considered among his finest works.

[47] Although he was renowned in his time, Obrecht appears to have had little influence on subsequent composers; most probably, he simply went out of fashion along with the other contrapuntal masters of his generation.