The music of this period is singers’ music – intricate, clever, at its best unaccompanied and demanding an intelligent as well as an emotional response. Many of the composers of this period were ordained, working in abbeys and cathedrals and fully alert to the liturgical and theological significance of their texts; some worked at court, in a context of political rivalry that demanded excellence. They were also mathematicians, with a fascination for rhythmic pattern and proportion, leading to complex imitative polyphony often in many parts, sometimes halving, doubling  or inverting one part against another. And they seem to have been aware of themselves as artists, doing something important, learning how to weave together horizontal lines of song into a new kind of music. They were certainly aware of one another and the tradition to which they belonged, Ockeghem composing a lament on the death of Binchois, Josquin on the death of Ockeghem, acknowledging their masters. Performers need to be alert to all these facets of the composers’ craft and intention.