Choirbooks of Obrecht's Mass

Jena. Universitätsbibliothek. MS 32.


This manuscript includes fifteen Masses and one Credo by Brumel, Compére, Ghiselin, Isaac, Josquin, Martini, Obrecht, Orto, Pipelare, and anonymous composers, requiring 282 paper folios. It was one of four manuscripts copied by the same scribe for the All Saints Church in Wittenberg between 1500 and 1520, probably early in that time frame. While these four (JenaU 30-34) and JenaU 35-36 came originally from Saxony, those known as JenaU 2-5, 7-9, 12, and 20-22 were from the Netherlands court in Brussels/Mechlin. All were taken to Weimar in 1547 for the court library of Johann Friedrich I, the deposed Elector of Saxony. In 1548, they were brought to Jena for the library of the Hochschule (eventually Jena University) founded by Johann Friedrich.

Although this copy of Obrecht’s Mass for St. Donatian is the later of the two extant copies of the Mass, it nonetheless preserves the superior reading, incorporating most of the Proper texts of the cantus firmi and evincing considerable care in text underlay generally.



Vatican City. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana. MS Cappella Sistina 35.


The VatS 35 manuscript has twenty-seven Masses, Mass sections, and motets by Basiron, Compère, Isaac, Josquin, Martini, Obrecht, Ockeghem, Orto, Prioris, Tinctoris, Vaqueras, Weerbecke, and anonymous composers. Its 207 folios have experienced considerable damage from ink corrosion, and six scribes other than the original added voices to many of the Mass sections included. The manuscript has some decorative initials in ink and watercolor, depicting human faces, animals, and floral designs. The original layer was copied in Rome between 1487 and 1490 for the Cappella Sistina, with additions made most likely between 1492 and 1499; the folios preserving Obrecht’s Mass for St. Donatian belong to the first layer, and were probably copied in 1488.

Despite the fact that this copy of Obrecht’s Mass was made soon after the work’s composition, the reading it preserves is problematic: most of the Proper texts for the cantus firmi were omitted (possibly because they had no significance within the liturgy of the Cappella Sistina), and the Et incarnatus duet is lacking.



Sarah Riskind with M. Jennifer Bloxam


Select Bibliography:

Hamm, Charles and Herbert Kellman, ed. Census-Catalogue of Manuscript Sources of
Polyphonic Music 1400-1550, vol. 1 and 4. Urbana, IL: American Institute of
Musicology, 1988. See in particular 1:295-96 and 4:41.


Hudson, Barton, ed. “Missa de Sancto Donatiano: Critical Notes” in New Obrecht Edition, 3:xvii-
xxii. Utrecht: Vereniging voor Nederlandse Muziekgeschiedenis, 1984.