With his compositions Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1420-1497) had a major influence on the music of the fifteenth century. For example it may have been Ockegham, who founded the long tradition of the artistic compositions of the chanson L’homme arme. In addition to his famous mass for four voices, the German-Belgian ensemble Beauty Farm also interprets the Missa quinti toni for three voices. Beauty Farm specializes in the interpretation of works from the early Renaissance. Their recordings have been described as “extraordinarily sensitive.” Beauty Farm is made up of members of top international ensembles such as La Capilla Flamenca, Huelgas Ensemble, Vox Luminis, Collegium Vocale Gent, and Cinquecento. The ensemble recently won first prize at the international competition for early music ensembles at the Landshuter Hofmusiktage.

For a long time, Johannes Ockeghem (ca. 1420-1497) was one of the most famous Unknown Persons in music history. There is no doubt about his position as the most important representative of the second generation of Franco-Flemish composers. But what its effect actually was and how its artistic development can be described, there was a long lack of clarity about it, which has only been somewhat cleared up in recent decades thanks to intensive research and discographic exploration. The FRA BERNARDO recording of the Masses with the vocal ensemble Beauty Farm is undoubtedly an impressive way of illustrating the significance of Ockeghem.

REVIEW:

The account of the Missa Prolationum is particularly rich-textured, and beautifully balanced: the Sanctus and Benedictus strikingly so. The Requiem is also superbly sung, if with the rough edges smoothed off. The Intemerata Dei Mater opens the programme. It is sung with considerable feeling and immediately shows the splendid inner blend commanded by this group.

– Penguin Guide

More than any others of the time, the works of Johannes Ockeghem are considered to have marked the summit of the entire development of polyphonic structures during the Middle Ages. His works, although few in number, are supreme examples of creative thought. An undisputed master of his musical materials, certain of his Masses are structured around his own reflections on the art of composition. This is the case with the Missa Mi-mi: its title comes from the initial motive in the bass line, this consisting of the notes E and A which, in the system of solmisation in use at that time, can be read as mi-mi. Together with a Gregorian proprium, it is integrated here into the Office for Maundy Thursday. Cappella Pratensis, founded in 1987, mainly sings music from the period between 1450 and 1600. During that time, the polyphonic Franco-Flemish composers such as Josquin Desprez, Jean Mouton, Pierre de La Rue Jacob Clemens non Papa, Johannes Ockeghem and Guillaume Dufay were world leaders. Cappella presents ongoing special programs and original designs.

A landmark recording does full justice to Ockeghem's famed Mass

"This," says Fabrice Fitch in his review, "is a recording that was waiting to happen." Ensemble Musica Nova presents various complete versions of the Ockeghem Mass alongside each other. So if you can’t get enough of this Mass, here is your ideal answer. As variations on a theme, as it were, it’s a fascinating and rewarding exercise. The performances are excellent; one for the collection.

-- Gramophone [2/2008]

OCKEGHEM Missa cujusvis toni. Missa prolationum • The Sound and the Fury • FRA BERNARDO 1302202 (2 CDs: 107:54)


Johannes Ockeghem (c.1420–1497) served in the French royal chapel from 1451 until his death. He became Trésorier of the abbey of St. Martin in Tours in 1458 or 1459, and was highly favored by King Charles VII and his successors (who were the titular abbots of St. Martin), being renowned as a basso profundo and as a composer of rare originality. His date of birth, cited as anywhere from 1410 to 1430, is no more than guesswork, for there is simply nothing from his early life to specify it. The standard dating is 1410, now regarded as unrealistically early, while 1425 and 1430 have been cited much less often; 1420 has become more widely accepted in recent decades (but not in The New Grove II ). He wrote 15 Masses, at least four motets, and enough secular songs to fill two CDs on L’Oiseau-Lyre ( Fanfare 6:5 for the three LPs). A dozen of his Masses were composed on a chant cantus firmus , but the two Masses heard here are speculative Masses not based on a pre-existing model.


The “Mass in whatever mode” has no clefs, so it may be sung in any mode. In 1992 George Houle published a set of four editions of the Mass, using the four maneria or pairs of modes—Dorian or mode 1 (on re ), Phrygian or mode 3 (on mi ), Lydian or mode 5 (on fa ), and Mixolydian or mode 7 (on sol )—to yield four renditions that each sound different because the half-steps ( mi/fa and ti/do ) occur at different points in the melodies. Houle allowed that the Phrygian works best, the Mixolydian well enough, the Lydian and Dorian more poorly. The reason is the need to avoid tritones (both linear and harmonic) and mi contra fa by adding accidentals, which the singers must improvise as they sing, not an easy task now and probably not then either. This idea was not original with him, for it was implicit in the early recordings by Claude Panterne and Daniel Meier, both using the Phrygian mode, and explicit with Siegfried Heinrich (5:2) and Edward Wickham (23:1). Heinrich also sang the Mass in the Mixolydian mode, and Wickham added two movements in fa-ut to his recording, calling them Mixolydian as well. It reached its fulfillment in the recent versions by Lucien Kandel (32:2), who provided for the first time four full performances of the Mass.


Another solution, proposed by the 16th-century Swiss theorist Glarean in his Dodecachordon (1547), indicated that the Mass could be realized on ut ( do ), re , or mi . Jaap van Benthem followed his approach when he published this Mass in his edition of all of Ockeghem’s Masses in 1994. The version on ut was recorded by Peter Urquhart in 1996 (not reviewed here), and this new version by The Sound and the Fury, annotated by van Benthem, offers all three possibilities, re (Dorian), mi (Phrygian), and fa-ut , which he calls “a combination of Lydian and Mixolydian.” This phrase would be hard to understand, but fa , which should be Lydian, transposed to ut sounds more like Mixolydian because of all the accidentals. This alone makes the discs by Kandel and The Sound and the Fury complementary issues, each a complete presentation of one approach. There is one more recording, of Clytus Gottwald performing his own arrangement of the Mass in the Dorian mode, a 1981 broadcast issued in 1998.


The other disc in this set is very short, since it has only the Missa prolationum . The name refers to prolation, or time signature. Prolation is the medieval manner of dividing the semibreve into either three or two minims, while tempus is the division of the breve into either three semibreves ( tempus perfectum ) or two semibreves ( tempus imperfectum ). The music is written in two parts but each part is sung in a different tempus and a different prolation, making a double canon in four parts. The Mass begins with the Kyrie I as a double canon in unison, the Christe as a double canon at the second, the Kyrie II at the third, and so on up to the liturgical climax of the Mass at the consecration of bread and wine, when the double canon at the octave is sung to the Hosanna. (Hair-raising, I called it last time.) The magical effect on the hearers did not depend on knowing or understanding the technical feat—it was simply a profound musical effect. Later commentators found it irresistible to discuss Ockeghem’s techniques, detracting from an appreciation of the beauty of his music. This performance is practically identical in tempo to Edward Wickham’s (19:2), but both are much faster than Lucien Kandel’s stunning version (36:6).


In the last seven years, The Sound and the Fury has made a dozen recordings of early Renaissance Masses for ORF and this related label, many of them first recordings. The familiar names among the five singers are tenors John Potter and Hans Jörg Mammel. Note that Kandel also recorded both Masses in separate issues and Wickham included both on separate discs of his complete sacred music of Ockeghem. (Gottwald’s radio broadcasts of both Masses have also been issued.) The new group sings one voice to a part, unlike the other two, with two voices to a part. This group has a countertenor on top and sings a tone lower than Wickham and a tone and a half lower than Kandel. (It is not clear how the four vocal parts of these Masses are assigned to the five singers, including three tenors.) The voices are captured up close, with countertenor Alessandro Carmignani rather prominent, while Kandel and Wickham both have a warmer sound. Kandel’s broader tempos in this Mass confer an added solemnity that is realized completely in the Hosanna.


In a salient point that will be found hidden in tiny type, these performances were all recorded live (no date or place given), a rather remarkable feat for such complex music, the Missa prolationum having been recorded five years ago for the ORF Edition Alte Musik series. The note adds that a CD-ROM track on the second disc has scores, texts, and biographies, but my iMac shows nothing but the five tracks of music. Now that Naxos has imported the two latest issues of this ensemble, I hope to hear the earlier entries in this series. For now, we have a useful foil to the different approach taken by Kandel in these two fascinating Masses.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

This is The Sound and the Fury's second album with masses by Johannes Ockeghem. The composer develops his art from the contrast between different modes as well as the contrapuntal combination of identical melodies. Despite the complicated compositional techniques used, the overwhelmingly emotional experience of Ockeghem's music continues to fascinate even after 500 years. The Sound and the Fury was founded in 2005. An Anglo-German vocal group convening in Brixen and Vienna, the ensemble specializes entirely in performance of renaissance polyphony of the Franco-Flemish school.

Intimacy, intensity, passion—this album explores the unfamiliar idea that fifteenth-century songs might cause us to sigh, weep, or laugh out loud. In bringing to life a world in which crying in public was not just acceptable but required, we have to take seriously the crushing despair of a line like “My only sorrow is that I am not dead,” or the undisguised sarcasm of “This is how she chopped and cooked me up.” In Johannes Ockeghem’s roughly two dozen songs we find not only unparalleled compositional prowess, but feelings that range from happiness to loss, anger to despair, and bitterness to merriment. The album’s all-vocal, fully texted, close-mic’d performances are rooted in a flexible, full-blooded vocal technique that aims to capture the music’s technical brilliance and emotional depth.