Come hear a monumental work by Jacob OBRECHT, his Missa Salve diva parens.

By the last quarter of the 15th century, a "new art" of music had been established, already embodying many classical elements of harmony and counterpoint that lasted into the 19th century.  This early Renaissance style, perfected by Dufay, Ockeghem, Josquin, Isaac, Obrecht, and many others, imposed restrictions Obrecht was not always willing to follow.  In the manner of Beethoven, who would not bind himself by all the conventions of classical music around 1800, Obrecht did things no other did, even breaking newly established rules, in order to achieve extraordinarily beautiful and exciting musical effects.  His Missa Salve diva parens exemplifies this daring originality perhaps better than any other composition of the period.  Who knows how differently the history of classical music might have developed if Obrecht hadn't been struck down by the plague in 1505, over a decade before the death of his most famous contemporaries?

Saturday, December 20, at 3:00 p.m.

St. Joseph's Church
in Greenwich Village

371 Sixth Avenue 

at Washington Place

(One block north of 4th Street;
two blocks south of 8th Street)