Johannes Ockeghem

Born around 1410, Ockeghem rose to prominence in the second half of the 15th century alongside Antoine Busnois as a leading figure of the early Franco-Flemish School. He spent most of his career in the service of three French kings - Charles VII, Louis XI, and Charles VIII - moving through the royal court as both composer and singer. His surviving output is small, likely a fraction of what he created: around 14 masses, 20 chansons, and fewer than 10 motets, with exact counts clouded by attribution debates. The works that remain show a composer drawn to structural puzzles - the canon-dense Missa prolationum, the mode-flexible Missa cuiusvis toni, the chanson Fors seulement. When he died on 6 February 1497, the loss reverberated: Erasmus, poets Guillaume Crétin and Jean Molinet, and Josquin des Prez himself mourned him, Josquin composing Nymphes des bois in his memory.