Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1410–1497) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance whose Masses, motets, and chansons set a standard of contrapuntal sophistication for the next generation of European polyphonists. He served three successive French kings as premier chapelain and was mourned at his death in poetic and musical laments by Erasmus, Guillaume Crétin, and Josquin des Prez.

The exact place and year of his birth remain uncertain, though documents place his origin in Saint-Ghislain in the County of Hainaut, around 1410. Nothing is preserved about his parents, a silence usual for Northern singer-composers of his time who began as choirboys.

His name first appears in 1443 as a singer at the cathedral of Antwerp. By 1446 he was in the chapel of Charles I, Duke of Bourbon, in Moulins, and by 1452 he had entered the French royal chapel under Charles VII, where he remained for forty-five years.

Louis XI appointed him treasurer of the church of Saint-Martin in Tours in 1459, a lucrative benefice he held for life. He travelled on royal embassies to Spain in 1469 and to the Low Countries in 1484, meeting younger composers including Josquin. Surviving works include the canonic Missa prolationum, the Missa cuiusvis toni, the requiem mass, and the Missa De plus en plus. He died in Tours in February 1497.

His name Johannes derives from the Latin form of the Hebrew Yochanan, meaning "Yahweh is gracious." Johannes is a masculine name long used in Germanic, Dutch, and Latin contexts as the formal equivalent of John.