Marbrianus de Orto

Marbrianus de Orto (Dujardin; also Marbriano, Marbrianus) (c. 1460 – January or February 1529) was a Netherlandish composer of the Renaissance (Franco-Flemish school). He was a contemporary, close associate, and possible friend of Josquin des Prez, and was one of the first composers to write a completely canonic setting of the Ordinary of the Mass.

The illegitimate child of a priest, Orto was probably born in Tournai, and spent the early part of his life there. While his original surname was Dujardin, he used "de Orto" (the Italian translation of Dujardin) throughout his life. In June 1482, in the household of Ferry de Clugny, Cardinal-Bishop of Tournai (who died 7 October 1483), he went to Rome, where he became a singer in the papal chapel; he may have become an accomplished composer around this time, since his Missa ad fugam seems to have been written in response to the similar composition by Josquin des Prez, tentatively dated to the early 1480s, and Orto's mass was copied for the Capella Sistina between 1487 and 1490.

While he served in the Sistine Chapel choir until at least 1499, during the papacies of Innocent VIII and Alexander VI, he began to acquire other posts and benefices. He was particularly popular with Innocent, who awarded him benefices and allowed him to rise in the hierarchy in spite of his illegitimacy. During this time he and Josquin worked closely together, even seeking similar positions at Cambrai in their mutual homeland. One of the things he may have done in collaboration with Josquin was a revision of a cycle of hymns by Guillaume Dufay, composed around 1430, which had fallen out of use. At some time in the early 1490s Orto acquired the post of dean at the Collegiate Church of St. Gertrude of Nivelles, present-day Belgium; he was to remain closely associated with this institution for the rest of his life. It is not known exactly when he moved there, but he left Nivelles in late 1504 in order to join the choir of Philip the Handsome, la Grande Chapelle, a distinguished musical body which included Pierre de La Rue, and which went to Spain in 1506.

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