In 1504 the great polyphonist Jacob Obrecht traveled from his home country Flanders to Ferrara, where he was appointed composer in the musical chapel of Duke Ercole d’Este. On the way, Obrecht stopped in Innsbruck, where he must have got to know the German devotional song for the Virgin Mary, “Maria zart.” The sweet notes of this simple song inspired the composer to produce one of his greatest works: the Missa Maria zart. With a dazzling series of compositional achievements and pure joie de vivre, this mass is a monument of the flamboyant Gothic style, and at more than an hour it is the longest mass in the Renaissance repertoire.
Just a year later, Obrecht died in the outbreak of the plague, so this mass can be seen as his musical testament.