Biography
Nicolas Gombert ranked among the preeminent composers of his time, earning recognition as one of the most technically sophisticated figures in the long tradition of Western polyphonic vocal writing. Born in a rural settlement of Flanders near Lille, an area later absorbed into France, he eventually secured the post of chapel master at Europe’s foremost court—that of Emperor Charles V in Spain. The appointment enabled extensive travels across the continent in the emperor’s retinue. Peers at the time proposed that he had studied with Josquin Des Prez, yet any concrete details of that connection have vanished.
Every surviving piece by Gombert is vocal, with several scored for as many as twelve independent voices. In contrast to Italian contemporaries who were cultivating a livelier, more chord-driven style, he remained committed to rigorous counterpoint and appears to have regarded the emerging trends with scant interest. His imitative technique took Josquin’s language as its foundation yet carried it to a higher degree of density. A considerable body of his music has come down to us, among them masses, numerous motets, secular chansons, a cycle of eight magnificats—one in each mode—and several standalone movements. In the years immediately after his death he was widely lamented as the final great master of vocal polyphony; his idiom continued to mark the outer limit of imitative counterpoint until the fugue was fully elaborated in the baroque era.
Every surviving piece by Gombert is vocal, with several scored for as many as twelve independent voices. In contrast to Italian contemporaries who were cultivating a livelier, more chord-driven style, he remained committed to rigorous counterpoint and appears to have regarded the emerging trends with scant interest. His imitative technique took Josquin’s language as its foundation yet carried it to a higher degree of density. A considerable body of his music has come down to us, among them masses, numerous motets, secular chansons, a cycle of eight magnificats—one in each mode—and several standalone movements. In the years immediately after his death he was widely lamented as the final great master of vocal polyphony; his idiom continued to mark the outer limit of imitative counterpoint until the fugue was fully elaborated in the baroque era.