Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 14 - Fifteenth-century humanism and music outside Italy

  • from Part III - Humanism
  • Edited by Anna Maria Busse Berger, University of California, Davis, Jesse Rodin, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Fifteenth-Century Music
    Published online:
    05 July 2015
    Print publication:
    16 July 2015, pp 263-280

  • Summary

    Jean d'Ockeghem is praised widely for his graciousness, his Christian virtues, and his skill as a singer. Jean Molinet, who singles out the music of Gilles Binchois, Antoine Busnoys, Guillaume Du Fay, and Ockeghem as the best of its day, lists Ockeghem as the first among these masters. The role of imitation in Ockeghem's music has been the object of a great deal of commentary. Ockeghem's approach to melody appears to be among the most elusive aspects of his music, to judge from the level of subjectivity that permeates various attempts to describe his melodic design. Ockeghem's textures gain clarity from the sense of unification provided by imitation, but the imprecise character of that imitation often leaves the listener wondering if it is adequately real to foster a genuine perception of such unity. Long, serpentine melodies abound in Ockeghem's music, inevitably resulting in a sense of unpredictable meandering.