Though little concrete information survives concerning the life of Hayne van Ghizeghem, he appears to have been quite a celebrated chanson composer in his lifetime. As a young person, he entered the service of the Burgundian court as early as 1457, serving as valet de chambre, singing, and playing the lute; in his lament for the 1497 death of Ockeghem, Guillaume Crétin envisions van Ghizeghem playing his lute in heaven. His surviving compositions are all chansons in the courtly fixed form of the rondeau. One of the most popular was his three-voiced rondeau, De tous biens plaine. It survives in a relatively large number of early manuscript copies, it was printed by Ottaviano Petrucci in his Harmoniae Musices Odhecaton, and it enjoyed an extensive later life in "cover" arrangements. As with much of van Ghizeghem's writing, De tous biens plaine places its conventional love song text ("My mistress is formed of every good virtue") in a well-balanced and elegant setting. The melodies of both superius and tenor voices proceed in largely syllabic fashion, with phrases that lucidly explore the characteristic intervals of the mode. The composer's dissonance treatment is quite careful, and cadences are well-prepared. The chanson as written was poised to become an instant classic. Indeed, De tous biens plaine played a profound role in late fifteenth century composition, spawning an astounding number of derivative compositions, with over 50 of them surviving. Loyset Compère used van Ghizeghem's tenor voice as a foundation for his motet Omnium bonorum plena, which was possibly used in the dedication service of Cambrai Cathedral. De tous biens plaine also appears in Compère's Au travail suis, and as the cantus firmus for his Missa De tous biens plaine. Josquin Desprez, Jacob Obrecht, Franchinus Gaffurius, and others all used the chanson as foundation for mass compositions. All told, as many as ten masses or mass movements, four motets, and nearly 40 secular reworkings of various types (adding or replacing voices, crafting counterpoints around a cantus firmus, etc.) use melodies from van Ghizeghem's chanson. It became almost a compositional rite of passage to compose a re-working of De tous biens plaine, much as jazz musicians would later wrestle with "I've Got Rhythm" or "Cherokee." ~ All Music Guide
