Put simply, Johannes Ockeghem was the freaking man. If anyone had mad chops, it was him. Sure, Bach improvised a 6-part fugue for Frederick the Great (at least that's how the story goes), but did he write the Missa Prolationum where every voice part is in a different meter? I think not. And did he write another mass that could be performed in any mode whatsoever? Nope. Nobody did that. Except J.O.
Sorry. Didn't mean to sound like I was bashing big daddy Bach. We all know he was the freaking man, too. But it's not like he invented counterpoint; he just rocked it. And in order for him to have rocked it, it took dudes like Ockeghem to show him the ropes. Figuratively speaking, at least. Having died nearly 200 years prior to the Fugue King's birth, it would have been tough for Ockeghem to have given baby Bach a lesson or two. But I digress. The renaissance was a crazy time. Back then, music was still considered a science (can I get a what what!!) and the name of the game was Contrapuntal Trickery. You were nobody until you could write a 36-part canon and have it not sound like mush. At some point in the history of western civilization, people had the brilliant idea that if music was formalized, composers could do amazing things with it. Music has existed for as long as people have been on the Earth, but until there was a way to write it down and get at the meat of what it really is, there remained practical limits. Imagine getting an orchestra to spontaneously improvise Mozart's 40th symphony (in g minor, K. 550) every time it needed to be performed. Ha. Right. So, not long after a notation system was developed in the middle ages, people started to experiment.
"Hey Jacopo! Check out what I can do," shouted Lorenzo da Firenze. He had just figured out how to write a Caccia, that curious genre that came out of 1300s Italy (the Trecento) where two or three voices literally chase around one another in canon, usually while singing a text about, oh, hunting and chasing. Caccias, along with all the other music from the trecento, form a really cool body of literature and sort of helped get this idea going about counterpoint enabling composers to write increasingly more intricate works.
Perhaps I'm glorifying the position of this Italian music, but I'll be the first to admit some bias. Nevertheless, this stuff was being done, and eventually, we got to Ockeghem. By the time he came around, counterpoint was no longer big news. Instead, it was standard practice and it was the composer's task to master it and indeed, make it one's bitch. You had to master the notes, not let them master you. Such a challenge was met head on by all the great musical minds of the 15th and 16th centuriess. You could even argue that we're still challenging ourselves in such a manner, only now we've got a couple other resources to pull from. What sets Ockeghem apart is actually a number of unique qualities. First off, he was just generally good. His music is gorgeous, whether you know what's going on or not. This is a good start. Second, he used a rather unique timbral palette. We don't know a whole heck of a lot about his life, but we do know that he was a mighty fine singer. And a pretty low bass, on top of it. So, since he would have had to sing all his stuff, he set it all very low in the voice and wrote some of the funkiest bass lines this world has known. This immediately gives his work a totally unique sound that sets it quite apart from the rest. And third, the kind of experiments with polyphony he engaged himself in were simply awesome. As alluded to at the beginning of this diatribe, he tried doing the wackiest things imaginable, and succeeded! Remember the mass where each voice is in a different meter? Well, the whole thing is also a double canon. Yeah - two canons happening at once, simultaneously, together, for the whole 40-minute piece.
Granted, the musical language of his time wasn't quite as ridiculously complicated as it is now. Chromaticism didn't so much exist and when you started in one "key" (those didn't really exist yet, either), you tended to stay there. But don't be fooled into thinking this simplifies things. No no no no no. Rules back then were perhaps even more complicated than they are now and let me assure you - composers did NOT feel like their material was limited. They utilized it to the max, and even when it seemed like Ockeghem had done the impossible, the younger Josquin came along and did even more.
Conclusion: Ockeghem was the freaking man. He (and Josquin, but he's a heck of a lot more famous, ergo, not the subject here) totally exemplified the renaissance ideals in music and wrote music that keeps theoreticians and musicologists busy even as I'm typing this. So yes, we should all continue showering praise onto J.S.B. for all the wond'rous works that flowed forth from his quill, but let us not forget that others did stuff that was just as awesome, if not more so, during a time somewhat prior to the grand baroque. If you haven't done so, take a listen. If you have, do it again now knowing that you're hearing some of the most finely crafted material that has ever left the mind of man. And the amazing thing is that even with all that technical voodoo, it still sounds like some gorgeous mosaic of pitches plucked out from the æther. Awesome.
PS - he wore glasses.