Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem served the kings of France for the better part of fifty years. Born around 1420 in the region of Hainaut, in present-day Belgium, he sang in the French royal chapel under three successive kings and held the well-paid post of treasurer of the church of Saint Martin at Tours. Contemporaries described him as a fine bass singer and an unusually kind man; when he died in 1496, composers and poets across Europe wrote laments in his memory.

His music is built from interweaving voice parts, each singing its own long line while fitting the others exactly. The Missa prolationum takes this to an extreme: pairs of voices sing the same melody at different speeds at once, a technical feat that somehow sounds serene rather than clever.

Start with the Missa pro defunctis, the earliest surviving Requiem mass written for choir in parts, then the Missa prolationum.