Nicolas Gombert (c. 1490-1556); NLD

Nicolas Gombert (c. 1495–c. 1560) was a Franco-Flemish composer and one of the leading figures of the generation between Josquin des Prez and Palestrina. Details of his early life are uncertain, though tradition holds that he may have studied with Josquin. By the 1520s Gombert was associated with the imperial chapel of Charles V, eventually becoming master of the choirboys and traveling extensively with the emperor’s court. His career was interrupted after he was convicted of an offense against a choirboy and sentenced to the galleys; contemporary testimony suggests that he later received a pardon, possibly after composing a series of especially accomplished works that pleased the emperor.

Gombert’s sacred music represents one of the most densely contrapuntal styles of the Renaissance. In his masses and motets, overlapping points of imitation create an almost continuous polyphonic fabric, with fewer sharply articulated cadences and less textural contrast than in the music of Josquin. His eight settings of the Magnificat, one in each church mode, are traditionally associated with his pardon and rank among his most admired works. He also wrote chansons and other secular pieces. Gombert’s seamless polyphony exerted a strong influence on later sixteenth-century composers and represents a high point in the development of Franco-Flemish imitative counterpoint.

###

Read biography at allmusic.com.