Jacob Obrecht and Jacobus Barbireau

Obrecht and Barbireau, two prominent representatives of Franco-Flemish polyphony with connections to the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp around 1500 (today’s Antwerp Cathedral), come together in this concert. In his masses and motets Obrecht was an innovative user of the cantus firmus technique in which polyphonic fabric weaves around an existing melody, as in his celebratory Missa Sub tuum praesidium. Osculetur me, Barbireau’s only surviving motet, completes the programme.