Johannes Regis

Registered as serving Cambrai Cathedral, Notre Dame in Antwerp and Soignies, Regis was Dufay's secretary at Cambrai for at least ten years. In musical importance, Regis was considered to be in the company of Ockeghem. He used both tempus perfectum and tempus imperfectum effectively in his compositions though he was occasionally criticized for this practice; however, even those who criticized him lauded his diversity. Characteristically, Regis employed the use of cantus firmi and some imitation as well as sequences and dissonances of short duration in his compositions. He avoided intervals in horizontal harmonies of parallel perfect consonance and third inversion chords were rare. His mass "Dum sacrae mysterium" used various texts simultaneously in different voices and in an antiphonal manner. Textual material came from the Ordinary of the Mass and the Magnificat while the melodic lines were from "L'homme arme." In the scoring of the mass "Ecce ancilla," also an antiphonal piece, Regis based the tenor on "Ecce ancilla domine" and the bass on "Ne timeas Maria." His motets are considered to be more advanced because of his implementation of V-I cadences, livelier rhythms and scoring for five voices. ~ Keith Johnson, Rovi