OKEGHEM, JOANNES (also OCKEGHEM, OCKENHEIM, OKERGAN, JEAN DE) (early 15th cent.—c. 1495), was born early in the 15th century at Termonde, East Flanders. He was a choris ter at Antwerp in 1443 and is generally supposed to have been a pupil of Binchois. The latter part of his life was spent at Tours, where he held the coveted post of treasurer to St. Martin's church under Louis XI. He stands out in the early history of music as one of the greatest of teachers and is by common consent re garded as the founder of the second Netherlands school of con trapuntists, covering the latter half of the 15th century. Josquin des Pres and De la Rue were but two among the many famous pupils who carried his teaching into all countries. His skill and ingenuity in counterpoint were considered extraordinary even in that age of elaboration. He wrote, among others, a transposing mass, the AIissa cujusvis torsi, which could be sung in any of the church modes, and a complicated motet for 36 voices. In fugue
he introduced the stretto, a now familiar device by which the answer follows the subject at a closer interval than in the original statement, and in addition to the usual form of canon in unison he added the canon at the fourth below. Much of his work was destroyed in the wars, or lost, and he lived too early to see his works in print. The masses and motets were not published till after his death. Two masses (Trent codices) have been published by the Gesellschaft stir Herausgabe von Denkmdlern der Tonkunst in Osterreich (Vienna) and 4 Chansons are in A. W. Ambros, Geschichte der 'Wasik (5 vols., Leipzig, 1862-82. The 5th vol. containing examples of music, has not been re-issued).
See also A. de Marv, Un musicien flamand: Jean de Ockeghem (1895) ; Dragan Plauenocz, J. Ockeghem als Motett- and Chansons Komponist (Vienna, 1925).