he played the cello in public (e.g. with Döhler, at the Musical Union) and private. In 1866, when his Belle Hélene was running at the Adelphi, he made no public appearance. [App. p.734 "Add that he died of gout on the heart, at his residence on the Boulevard des Capucines, Oct. 5, 1880. His posthumous works include 'La belle Lurette,' composed within a short time of his death, and 'Les Contes d'Hoffmann,' opéra comique. The former was revised by Léo Delibes, and produced at the Renaissance, Oct. 30, 1880, with Jane Hading, Milly Meyer, Vauthier, Jolly, etc. (in English at the Avenue Theatre, March 24, 1883). The second opera was the composer's most cherished work, on which he had been working for years. For some time Offenbach had felt his end approaching, and said to M. Carvalho, 'Make haste, make haste to mount my piece; I am in a hurry, and have only one wish in the wrld—that of witnessing the premiére of this work.[1] 'It was finally revised and partly orchestrated by Guiraud, and produced at the Opéra Comique, Feb. 10, 1881, with Adele Isaac, Marguérite Ugalde, Talazac, Taskin, Grivot, etc. It was played no less than 101 nights in the year of its production. It was given in Germany, and at the King Theatre, Vienna, at the time of its conflagration. Some of the music was adapted to a one-act farce by Leterrier and Vanloo, 'Mlle. Moucheron,' produced at the Renaissance, May 10, 1881. Offenbach's widow died April 10 1887."]
[ G. C. ]
OFFERTORIUM (Fr. Ofertoire). A portion of a Psalm, or Verse from some other part of Holy Scripture, sung by the Choir, at High Mass, immediately after the Credo, during the time occupied by the Priest in making ready the Oblations, and offering them upon the Altar.
A proper Offertorium is appointed for every Festival and Feria in the year, except Good Friday and the Saturday in Holy Week; and the Plain Chaunt Melodies adapted to the entire series are contained in the Gradual. As these Melodies are rarely long enough to fill up the interval which must necessarily elapse before the priest is ready to begin the Sursum Corda, they are usually supplemented, either by a Motet—as in the Pontifical Chapel—or by a grand Voluntary on the Organ. Palestrina provided for this contingency by setting the special forms for all the Sundays and most of the principal Festivals in the year in the Motet style, for five Voices, and publishing them in the year 1593 in two books, entitled 'Offertoria totius [1]anni.' But when the appointed words have already been sung in Plain Chaunt, it is not at all de rigueur that they should be repeated in the Motet which follows, provided this be an appropriate one for the Festival. It is, indeed, in this part of the Mass that the Motet, properly so called, finds its strongest raison d'étre; and a rich store of compositions, well adapted to the end in view, has been bequeathed to us by the Great Masters of the 15th and 16th centuries. [See Motet.]
Among the so-called Motets of the modern school, a few are specially entitled Offertories; but these differ in no respect from the ordinary 'Motet' with Instrumental Accompaniment. Many very popular Offertoires, in the form of Organ Voluntaries, will be found among the works of modern French Composers. Among the best are those of Lefebure Wely, Batiste, and Mons. Widor, the talented organist of S. Sulpice.
The Sentences appointed to be used at the Offertory, in the Book of Common Prayer, were printed by John Marbeck in his 'Booke of Common-Praier, noted' in 1550, with Plain Chaunt Melodies, evidently adapted from antient sources; but the best English Composers of the Polyphonic School do not seem to have thought it desirable to harmonise them.
[ W. S. R. ]
OGINSKI. A noble and distinguished Polish family, (1) Prince Michael Casimir, who died at Warsaw in 1803, resided at Slonim in Lithuania, where he maintained an establishment of orchestra and singers. He is said to have invented the addition of pedals to the harp, and to have proposed the Creation to Haydn as the subject of an oratorio. He formed a canal between two rivers at his own expense—a national work, which connected the Baltic with the Black Sea. (2) His nephew, Michael Cleopas, born Sept. 25, 1765, at Gutzow, near Warsaw, was grand treasurer of Lithuania and Senator of the Russian Empire. Of his diplomatic and literary achievements we need not speak. In the matter of music he was a pupil of Kozlowski's, and was known for his Polonaises. Of these 14 are published, one of which became very widely celebrated owing to its merit and to a romantic story attached to its origin. It is printed in the Musical Library, with the story referred to. Twelve others are printed in the Harmonicon of 1824. He also wrote songs to French words. During his residence in Paris in 1823 Prince Oginski was well known in the best musical circles. He died at Florence, Oct. 31, 1833, and is buried in Santa Maria Novella. (3) Prince Gabriel, born in 1788, though a musician and violin-player, left no compositions. He was driven from home by the revolutions of 1831, but was forced to rereturn by nostalgia, and died in Lithuania in 1843.
[ G. ]
OKEGHEM, Joannes, born early in the 15th century, probably at Termonde in East Flanders, where a family of that name then resided. The form Ockenheim was introduced by Glarean, and has been very generally copied, but Okeghem (with such slight variations as Okenghem, Okekem, etc.) appears on his compositions and in all important documents relating to him. As he belonged to the college of singers in Antwerp cathedral in 1443, we may place his birth as early as 1415 or 1420. There is some reason for supposing Binchois to have been his master, but in any case there was no lack of excellent musicians at the time when he was a boy. He gave up his place at Antwerp in 1444, and soon afterwards entered the service of the king of France. In 1461, the year of Charles VII's death, he is mentioned as head of the chapel. With Louis XI he appears to have been in great favour, and was by him appointed treasurer of the church of St. Martin's at Tours, where he resided the greater part of his life. He is said to have served three kings of France for forty years, and resigned his position at Tours soon after the year 1490. He then lived in retirement for many years and died about the year 1513 nearly 100 years old.
No wonder if by this time he was somewhat out of fashion, and that the invention of music-printing at the beginning of the 16th century was more to the advantage of his distinguished pupils than to his own. In the earliest of Petrucci's publications five French chansons are given; but no mass or motet bearing Okeghem's name was printed till many years after his death, and even then the mass which Petreius published, 'Missa cujusvis toni,' seems to have been chosen on account of its special scientific interest, and no others were printed entire. Extracts from the 'Missa Prolationum' were given in various theoretical treatises, but both these masses exhibit Okeghem as a great teacher, rather than a great church composer. The Brussels library possesses two MS. masses, 'Pour
- ↑ They form the 5th vol. of Alfieri's edition and the 9th of Breitkopf's. Burney has printed one of them—'Exaltabo te Domine,' the Offertory for the 11th Sunday after Pentecost—in vol. iii. p. 191.
