Text and Context: Obrecht’s Missa de Sancto Donatiano in Its Social and Ritual Landscape

This essay is the fifth and final segment of the multi-media project The Sounds of Salvation: A Re-creation of the Mass for St. Donatian by Jacob Obrecht, a collaboration between the author and Stratton Bull, the Artistic Director of Cappella Pratensis. Building on Reinhard Strohm’s 1985 discovery linking Obrecht’s polyphony to the foundation of a commemorative mass for a Bruges fur merchant, this project began with a filmed recreation of the mass service in which Obrecht’s ordinary settings were resituated within the local liturgy for St. Donatian and the historical context of the event explored in onlocation interviews (CD/DVD, FineLine Classical, FL72414, 2009). This was followed by a lecture/concert tour with workshops, and the creation of a website with film clips, animated and annotated scores, and content pages expanding on the historical background of the occasion (). In a co-authored essay (this Journal 2 [2010], 111-25) Bull and Bloxam then described and reflected on the challenges and rewards of their collaboration. Here, the threads of the project are drawn together in an analysis of Obrecht’s Missa de Sancto Donatiano that places the determining role of the work’s function at the centre of the analytic process. After establishing the social context of the occasion for which the polyphony was created, the analysis begins with an examination of the specific ritual framework of plainsongs, prayers, and readings for the mass within which Obrecht’s ordinary setting was experienced. It then explores the profound impact that the social context, the ritual framework, and the theology expressed in that ritual had on the inner musical workings of Obrecht’s polyphony, and how Obrecht’s music in turn interacted with the dramatic narrative of the commemorative ceremony. By considering his choice and treatment of pre-existent material (four plainsongs, a Dutch song, and a quotation from Ockeghem’s Missa Ecce ancilla Domini) as well as details of counterpoint and text-setting, the analysis reveals how profoundly Obrecht’s compositional decisions were informed by the social and ritual function his polyphony was meant to serve. Links to the website enable readers to see and hear animated scores of the plainsong and polyphony of the Mass for St. Donatian, as well as view clips from the re-creation of the ceremony.