A Meeting of Two Masters

Ockeghem, the fifteenth-century Franco-Flemish guru of spiritual counterpoint,
and Arvo Pärt, eighty this year, the Estonian magus of mystic minimalism.

Although they generally use very different methods to create their sound-worlds, 
yet they usually seem to arrive at the same place.
Ockeghem's Missa Mi-Mi is named for its opening melodic motif, 
but beyond that, Ockeghem always seems to do the unexpected, 
and no-one has yet really explained how or why this music achieves such inevitable beauty. 
Pärt's music is almost easy to explain, at one level, but no-one has yet really explained why, 
by doing the expected, he always creates the unexpected. 

Our program interweaves motets by Pärt among the movements of Ockeghem's great Mass.