Jacob Obrecht: Beata es, Maria

In 1480, the Neapolitan theorist Johannes Tinctoris listed Jacob Obrecht (1450-1505) among the contemporary composers who had elevated the practice of music virtually to artistic perfection. In Obrecht’s lifetime, the transmission of his music carried his fame across Europe: when the composer was only thirty, and before he had even set foot in Italy, two of his masses were in the repertoire of the Pope’s Sistine Chapel choir. In 1487, the powerful Duke Ercole I of Ferrara mounted a strong campaign to recrui