EX. 12-8C Johannes Ockeghem, Missa cuiusvis toni, Kyrie I, pitched on F (Lydian)EX. 12-8D Johannes Ockeghem, Missa cuiusvis toni, Kyrie I, pitched on G (Mixolydian)As noted above, Ockeghem’s historical reputation rests disproportionately on these Masses “for better
or worse,” because not everyone is equally impressed with an elaborate technical apparatus that is
seemingly constructed and exercised for its own sake. Charles Burney, the great eighteenth-century
historian, captured well the appeal of the high style at its most hermetically “learnèd” when he wrote of
the Missa Prolationum that “the performer was to solve canonical mysteries, and discover latent beauties
of ingenuity and contrivance, about which the hearers were indifferent, provided the general harmony was
pleasing.”^3 For Ockeghem’s clique of singers, as for all lovers of puzzles (or, more broadly, the members
of any in-group), the notational complexities were not so much perceived to be a burden as their solution