In the summer of 1503, Jacob Obrecht left his position of vicar-singer at the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp on a journey that would soon take him to Italy. He had spent nearly his entire 45 years close to his place of birth.
During the previous hundred years, as far back as Johannes Ciconia, many of the most renowned musicians of the Low Countries had found their fortune in Italy, where the courts of minor princes vied for their services.
As a composer, Obrecht was one of the most admired and famous of all his contemporaries, for his music circulated widely, even while he had remained close to home.
Ironically, on his journey to Italy he found not fortune but death, a victim of the plague in Ferrara in the summer of 1505. He was only 47 years old. |
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