Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index

Nicolas Gombert

Nicolas Gombert (c.1490–c.1560) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most famous and influential composers between Josquin Desprez and Palestrina, and best represents the fully-developed, complex polyphonic style of this transitional period in music history.

Table of contents
1 Life
2 Style and influence
3 Sources and Further Reading
4 Recordings

Life

Details of his life are sketchy, but he was likely born around 1490 in southern Flanders, probably between Lille and St. Omer. He is said to have studied with Josquin during the master's retirement in Condé.

Gombert was employed by the emperor Charles V as a singer in his court chapel in 1526, and possibly as a composer as well. Most likely he was taken on while Charles was passing through Flanders, for the emperor traveled often, bringing his retinue with him, and picking up new members as he went. In 1529 Gombert is mentioned as magister puerorum ("master of the boys") for the royal chapel. He and the singers certainly traveled with the emperor, since there are records of their appearances in various cities of the empire throughout the period. At some point in the 1530s Gombert became a cleric and probably a priest; he received benefices at several cathedrals, including Courtrai, Lens, Metz, and Béthune. In or before 1534 he was appointed chorus master at Tournai, and probably he spent much of his life there.

According to the evidence of the contemporary physician and mathematician Girolamo Cardano, Gombert was convicted of molesting a boy in his care and he was sentenced to hard labor in the galleys; at any rate he vanished from the cathedral records in 1540. Most likely he was pardoned sometime in or before 1552, the date of publication of his Magnificat settings; he probably returned to Tournai, but it is unclear how long he lived after his pardon or what positions, if any, he held.

Style and influence

Gombert is perhaps the most most representative composer of the generation between Josquin and Palestrina, especially in the area of sacred music. He brought the polyphonic style to its highest state of perfection; if imitation is a common device in Josquin, it is pervasive in Gombert. Extended homophonic passages are rare in his sacred works, and he is particularly fond of imitation at very close time intervals, a technically very difficult feat. There is an unusual amount of dissonance in his music, especially compared to the other Franco-Flemish composers working at the same time; in this way he is more closely related to the contemporary English composers such as John Taverner. Dissonance he uses for expressive effect, for example as an expression of grief in his six-voice motet on the death of Josquin, Musae Jovis.

One of his most popular compositions is his cycle of eight Magnificat settings, which Cardano called his "swansongs" — according to Cardano, he composed these pieces for Charles V as an offering and a request for pardon, and Charles was so moved by them that he pardoned Gombert, releasing him from forced labor in the galleys, and he returned to Tournai.

In his secular music—mostly chansons—he writes music of great simplicity, shunning the contrapuntal complexities of his motets and masses. Many of these appeared in lute and guitar arrangements with a wide geographical distribution, showing their immense popularity.

His surviving works include 10 masses, more than 160 motets, and about 70 chansons.

Sources and Further Reading

Recordings