Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1420–1497) – a Mystic?

Bardzo często sugerowano, że wyjątkowa twórczości Johannesa Ockeghema była być może odbiciem mistycyzmu łączonego w XV w. z ruchem religijnym znanym jako devotio moderna. Ponieważ jednak trudno to twierdzenie udowodnić, bardzo często zgłaszano do tej teorii zastrzeżenia. Artykuł jest próbą ukazania, że muzyka Ockeghema – mimo swojej oryginalności – ma również wiele cech występujących w utworach innych kompozytorów działających w XV w. Podobnie jak jego rówieśnicy Ockeghem hołdował idei różnorodności jako wiodącej w tamtym czasie zasadzie estetycznej. Stosował także tzw. ukrytą imitację i eksperymentował z niskim rejestrem głosu basowego. Patrząc zatem na twórczość Ockeghema przez pryzmat dzieł innych kompozytorów działających w XV w., jego twórczość wydaje się być dobrym przykładem wszystkich ważnych tendencji i zmian, które były tak charakterystyczne dla kultury muzycznej tamtych czasów.

The Savior, the Woman, and the Head of the Dragon in the Caput Masses and Motet

God's dramatic curse of Adam, Eve, and the serpent, as recorded in Genesis 3:14–15, contains a theological ambiguity that played out in the visual arts, literature, and, as this article contends, music of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Translations of this passage leave in doubt whether a male, a female, or both, will defeat sin by crushing Satan's head (“caput”). This issue lies at the heart of the three Caput masses by an anonymous Englishman, Johannes Ockeghem, and Jacob Obrecht, and the Caput Motet for the Virgin by Richard Hygons from the Eton Choirbook. Fifteenth-century discussions of the roles of Christ and Mary in confronting sin, often called the “head of the dragon,” help unravel the meaning of these works. The Caput masses are Christ-focused and emphasize the Savior or one of his surrogates suppressing the beast's head, as seen in illumination, rubric, and canon found in the masses. Folklorically based rituals and concepts of liturgical time are similarly built around the idea of the temporary reign of the Devil, who is ultimately trodden down by Christ. Hygons's motet appears after celebration of the Immaculate Conception was authorized in the late fifteenth century. This feast proclaimed Mary's conquest of sin through her own trampling on the dragon; the motet stresses Marian elements of the Caput theology, especially the contrast between the Virgin's spotlessness and Eve's corruption. Features of the Caput tradition mirror topics discussed in astrological and astronomical treatises and suggest that the composer of the original Caput Mass may also have been an astronomer. The disappearance of the Caput tradition signals its lasting influence through its progeny, which rise up in yet another renowned family of polyphonic masses. Together, the Caput masses and motet encompass the multifaceted doctrine of Redemption from the late middle ages under one highly symbolic Caput rubric.

““Singende Seele”” or ““unsingbar””? Forkel, Ambros, and the Forces behind the Ockeghem Reception during the Late 18th and 19th Centuries

ABSTRACT In 1868, Wilhelm Ambros lauded a number of compositions by Johannes Ockeghem, including the triple canon Prenez sur moy. Emphasizing the expressive qualities of this music, he suggested that its composer had breathed into it a ““singing soul.”” Some decades earlier, Johann Forkel also focused on Prenez sur moy, dismissing it, however, as ““unsingable.”” The present study examines the cultural and intellectual forces that gave rise to these strikingly contradictory assessments. Enlightenment historians are generally thought to have charted the flow of history according to a progressive paradigm. Late medieval music often fared poorly viewed from this perspective, drawing criticism for its failure to reflect the refinements of modern music. Initially, Forkel toed this line, but his comments about examples of 15th-century music in the Allgemeine Geschichte der Musik also reveal his capacity to strike a relativist pose regarding some of them, and even to offer unqualified praise. The changes in Forkel's position are traced to philosophical writings known to have been part of his library, and to his conviction that the music of Johann Sebastian Bach was superior to that of his own time. Taking that stand surely must have raised questions in his mind about his earlier commitment to the progressive view of history. Forkel's openness to new historiographical approaches suggests that he, of all Enlightenment writers on music, might have found value in Ockeghem's music, all the more so because he was better informed about Ockeghem's preeminent stature in his own day than anyone else at the time, and owing to his awareness of a current German tradition that regarded Ockeghem as ““the Bach of his day.”” Yet Forkel's deprecation of Ockeghem's music is among the strongest in the literature. His negative stand can be traced to his admiration for a 16th-century tract on teaching music, the Compendium musices by Adrian Petit Coclico, who demonizes Ockeghem as an icon of the scholastic approach to music. Forkel's own commitment to a humanistic orientation in music pedagogy surely led him to view Coclico as a kindred spirit.