Son of a town trumpeter, Jacob Obrecht became one of the most prominent composers in Europe in the late fifteenth century. In Born for the Muses, Rob Wegman enlarges our picture of the social and cultural conditions that framed his world, drawing on a wealth of new archival sources and a newlydiscovered dated portrait that sheds light on his development as a composer. Obrecht's greatest contribution lay in the field of mass composition. In a penetrating sylistic analysis, Wegman treats each of the thirty-odd surviving masses as a historical record, tracing influences and establishing arich context for the development of Obrecht's musical language. This new assessment of his creative achievement and historical significance entirely changes the face of Obrecht studies and of late fifteenth-century music in general. | Born for the Muses by Rob C. Wegman, Paperback | Indigo Chapters