Jacob Obrecht was born in 1450, the son of a professional trumpeter for the city of Ghent. His early education at a choir school, followed by priestly ordination and the completion, by 1480, of the Master of Arts degree, placed him on an ecclesiastical career track. His first appointment (in 1480) was Choirmaster for the Guild of Our Lady at Bergen op Zoom, followed in 1484 by an election as succentor for the influential Cathedral of Cambrai. But Obrecht returned under a cloud to the Netherlands, hired by the church of St. Donatians in Bruges while still technically working for Cambrai. His career became a rotating cycle of employments (and some firings) in Flemish churches of Bruges (1485-1491; 1498-1500), Antwerp (1492-1498; 1501-1503), and Bergen op Zoom (1497-1498). Though his music was being performed across the breadth of the Continent, it may be that Obrecht himself had a truly poor singing voice as well as a habit of neglecting his administrative and teaching duties, which together comprised the actual responsibilities of professional musicians in the church. Owing to Obrechts compositional prowess, however, the Duke of Ferrara finally gave him more lucrative employment in Italy, in 1504; unfortunately, the composer died of the plague there less than a year later. https://youtube/watch?v=NcJhqv8S4e0
Posted on: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 12:23:32 +0000
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