Johannes Ockeghem

Johannes Ockeghem was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of the early Renaissance, the leading European composer between Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez. Probably born in Saint-Ghislain in the County of Hainaut, he is first recorded as a singer at Antwerp's cathedral in 1443, and from around 1452 spent most of his career at the French royal court under Charles VII, Louis XI and Charles VIII. Some 14 masses, five motets and 21 chansons are reliably attributed to him, among them the canon-based Missa prolationum and the earliest surviving polyphonic Requiem. His death in 1497 was lamented by Erasmus, Jean Molinet and Josquin, who wrote Nymphes des bois for him.