Ockeghem: Missa Prolationum for String Quartet - Score Only by Johannes Ockeghem String Quartet - Digital Sheet Music

INSTRUMENTATION: 1 Violin, 1 Viola, 2 Cellos

INSTRUMENTATION: 1 Violin, 1 Viola, 2 CellosJohannes Ockeghem’s Missa Prolationum is a landmark of Renaissance polyphony, composed in the second half of the 15th century. It is a setting of the Ordinary of the Mass for four voices. It is renowned for its extraordinary use of mensuration canons—a type of canon where each voice sings the same melody but at different speeds and in different meters.Key features:Entirely based on mensuration canons: Each movement employs pairs of canons, with each voice singing in a different mensuration (comparable to modern time signatures), such as 2/2, 3/2, 6/4, and 9/4 in the Kyrie.Progressive canonic intervals: The interval of imitation between canonic voices expands with each movement, starting at the unison, then moving to the second, third, and so on, up to the octave in the Osanna section.Freely composed melodies:Unlike most masses of the era, which were based on preexisting chant or popular tunes, Ockeghem’s canonic themes appear to be original.Notational ingenuity:Only one voice is entirely written out for each canon in the score, with mensuration marks indicating how the other voices should perform the same melody at different speeds. The positions of the C clefs indicate the intervals between voices.Significance:The Missa prolationum is often described as "perhaps the most extraordinary contrapuntal achievement of the fifteenth century". It may be the first multi-part work to use a unifying canonic principle throughout all its movements, and Ockeghem was the first to compose canons at the second, third, sixth, and seventh intervals—so-called "imperfect" intervals. Its structure, with expanding intervals of imitation, prefigures later works like Bach’s Goldberg Variations, though there is no evidence that Bach knew this mass.Historical context:The mass survives in two principal sources: the Chigi Codex (copied shortly after Ockeghem’s death) and a manuscript in Vienna.The precise date of composition is uncertain, but it is generally dated to the mid-to-late 15th century.