Another sample from my Final Master Recital on 23 June 2014 (Tilburg, The Netherlands). This time only sound because you wouldn't see anything on the video anyway.
Performed by:
Johanna Földesi, Esther Kronenburg, Dóra Sereginé Németh, Jan Janovcik, Karel Barten, Bram Trouwborst

Jean Ockeghem (c.1410-1497) was a Franco-Flemish composer, he spent most of his carreer at the French royal court – his name is first mentioned among the royal chapel’s singers in 1453. Next to Binchois, Du Fay, Busnoys and Josquin, he is considered one of the greatest composers of 15th-century. Judging by the amount and the diversity of laments on his passing by poets and composers of the time he must have been a respected man; for example Crètin’s déploration in French, or Compère’s famous motet Omnium bonorum plena where he is also mentioned among the musicians for whom obsecration is made to the Virgin Mary. Francesco Florio writes the following about him long before Ockeghem’s death:

„I am sure you could not dislike this man, so pleasing is the beauty of his morals and his graciousness. He alone of all the singers free from vice and abounding in all virtues.”

His setting on the Marian antiphon, Alma redemptoris mater is one of the few motets he composed. The antiphon melody is clearly present in the altus and the whole composition represents his brilliant ingenuity. This exceptionally beautiful motet by Ockeghem proves very well the description of his personality by his contemporaries: honest, virtuous, kind, generous, charitable and pious.

Alma Redemptoris Mater, quæ pervia cæli
Porta manes, et stella maris, succurre cadenti,
Surgere qui curat, populo: tu quæ genuisti,
Natura mirante, tuum sanctum Genitorem
Virgo prius ac posterius,
Gabrielis ab ore sumens illud Ave,
peccatorum miserere.

Loving Mother of the Redeemer,
gate of heaven, star of the sea,
assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again.
To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator,
yet remained a virgin after as before.
You who received Gabriel's joyful greeting,
have pity on us poor sinners.
Loving Mother of the Redeemer,
gate of heaven, star of the sea,
assist your people who have fallen yet strive to rise again.
To the wonderment of nature you bore your Creator,
yet remained a virgin after as before.
You who received Gabriel's joyful greeting,
have pity on us poor sinners.

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