OBRECHT (HOBRECHT), JACOB. — Flemish musician, b. in Utrecht c. 1430, d. in Mantua in 1505.
He was first a singer at the court of Ercole d'Este in Ferrara; then he went to Utrecht, where he was tutor to Erasmus of Rotterdam; later he was in Cambrai in 1483, then in Bruges, then in Antwerp, and in 1504 he returned to Italy. O. is one of the greatest composers of his time, and his music, though often studied and recherché, is distinguished by an elevated style and a marked tendency toward the imitative, while counterpoint is treated severely. Some of his masses survive, the *Misse Obrecht*, printed in Venice in 1503 by Petrucci: *Il ne demande, Grecorum, Fortuna desperata, Malheur ne bat, Salve diva Parens*. Other masses are found in various collections of the period, in manuscripts of the Vatican Library, and in those of Munich, Milan, Modena, and Vienna. Many of his motets are scattered through the collections of the same Petrucci and others. A complete edition of O.’s music was published in 1908 by S. Wolf at the initiative of the “Vereinigung voor Nederlandsche Muziekgeschiedenis.”