Works
Obrecht wrote mainly sacred music: masses and motets. His oeuvre, though, did include some chansons.
Combining elements of modern and archaic, Obrecht's style is multi-dimensional. Perhaps more than those of the mature Josquin, the masses of Obrecht display a profound debt to the music of Johannes Ockeghem in the wide-arching melodies and long musical phrases that typify the music of the older master. Obrecht's style is, indeed, a fascinating example of the contrapuntal extravagance of the late 15th century. He often used a cantus firmus technique for his masses: sometimes he took his source material and divided it up into short phrases; other times he used retrograde versions of complete melodies, or melodic fragments. In one case he even extracted the component notes and ordered them by note value, long to short, constructing new melodic material from the reordered sequences of notes. Clearly to Obrecht there could not be too much variety, particularly true regarding the musically exploratory period of his early twenties. He began to break free from conformity to formes fixes, especially in his chansons. Of the formes fixes, the rondeau retained its popularity longest. However, he much preferred composing in the Mass genre where he possessed greater freedom.
In his Missa Sub tuum presidium, the number of voice parts in the six movements increases from three in the Kyrie, to four in the Gloria, and so on, until there are seven voice parts in the Agnus Dei. The title chant is clearly heard in the top voice throughout the work, and five additional Marian chants are found in movements other than the Kyrie. His late four-voice mass, Missa Maria zart, tentatively dated to around 1504, is based on a devotional song popular in Tyrol, which he probably heard as he went through the region around 1503 to 1504. Requiring more than an hour to perform, it is one of the longest polyphonic settings of the mass Ordinary ever written.
Despite being contemporaries, Obrecht and Johannes Ockeghem (Obrecht's senior by some 30 years) differ significantly in musical style. Obrecht does not share Ockeghem's fanciful treatment of the cantus firmus but chooses to quote it verbatim. While the phrases in Ockeghem's music are ambiguously defined, those of Obrecht's music can be easily distinguished, though both composers favor wide-arching melodic structure. Furthermore, Obrecht splices the cantus firmus melody with the intent of audibly reorganizing the motives; Ockeghem, on the other hand, exercises this treatment to a far lesser extent.
Obrecht's procedures show a startling contrast to the works of the next generation as well (prefigured by some works of his contemporary Josquin), who favored an increasing simplicity of approach. Though he was renowned in his time, Obrecht appears to have had little influence on subsequent generations: most likely he simply went out of fashion along with the other contrapuntal masters of his generation.
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