Nicolas Gombert (around 1495 – around 1560) was a composer from France and Flanders during the Renaissance. He was one of the most well-known and important composers during the time between Josquin des Prez and Palestrina. He best shows the highly developed and intricate polyphonic style of that time in music history.

Life

Details about his early life are unclear, but he was likely born around 1495 in southern Flanders, possibly between Lille and Saint-Omer, and maybe in the town of La Gorgue. A German writer and music theorist named Hermann Finck wrote that Gombert studied with Josquin, which would have happened during Josquin’s time in retirement in Condé-sur-l'Escaut between 1515 and 1521.

In 1526, Gombert was employed by Emperor Charles V as a singer in the emperor’s court chapel, and possibly as a composer as well. He was likely hired while Charles was traveling through Flanders, as the emperor often moved around, bringing his staff with him and adding new members along the way. A document from 1529 lists Gombert as magister puerorum, or “master of the boys,” for the royal chapel. He and the singers traveled with the emperor across his empire, leaving records of their performances in various cities. These trips had a musical influence, partly because of Gombert’s skill as a musician. Thus, the emperor’s travels, like those of his predecessor Philip I of Castile with composer Pierre de la Rue, helped spread the Franco-Flemish polyphonic tradition to the Iberian Peninsula.

At some point in the 1530s, Gombert became a cleric, possibly a priest, and received positions at several cathedrals, including Courtrai, Lens, Metz, and Béthune. He remained in the Imperial chapel as maître des enfants, or “master of the children,” until between 1537 and 1540, when Thomas Crecquillon and later Cornelius Canis took over. Although he held this role, he never officially became maître de chapelle, the title for music director, which was given to Adrien Thibaut and Crecquillon. While in this position, he also unofficially served as the court composer, arranging many works to celebrate important events in Charles’ life.

In 1540, during the peak of his career, Gombert disappeared from chapel records. A contemporary physician and mathematician named Jerome Cardan wrote in 1560 that Gombert was condemned to serve on triremes, or galleys, for violating a boy in the emperor’s service. The exact length of his time in the galleys is unknown, but he continued composing for at least part of that time. He was likely pardoned by 1547, the year he sent a letter and a motet from Tournai to Charles’ gran capitano, Ferrante I Gonzaga. The Magnificat settings preserved in Madrid are often believed to have been the “swansongs” that earned his pardon, as Cardan claimed Charles was moved by them and released Gombert early. Another theory suggests Cardan may have been referring to the First Book of four-part motets, but it is unclear how Gombert could have composed while serving as a prisoner.

It is unknown how long Gombert lived after his pardon or what roles, if any, he held afterward. His career faded into obscurity after his release. He may have retired to Tournai, spending his final years as a canon there. His likely death dates range from 1556 to 1561. In 1556, Finck noted he was still alive, and in 1561, Cardan wrote he was dead, without providing further details.

Music and style

Adrian Willaert and Nicolas Gombert are widely regarded as leading figures of the late Franco-Flemish school of music before the center of Renaissance art-music shifted to Italy. Willaert, a Fleming, moved to Italy and, along with the originally Flemish composer Orlando di Lasso, introduced the Franco-Flemish style of complex and expressive counterpoint to Italy. Like Willaert, Gombert perfected the polyphonic style, which is a type of music where multiple independent melodies are combined. While imitation, a technique where one melody is repeated by other voices, was common in the work of Josquin des Prez, it became a central feature in Gombert’s compositions.

Gombert’s music is known for its dense, tightly woven polyphony. His sacred works rarely use simple, unified melodies, and he often used imitation with very short time intervals between the repeating melodies, a highly challenging technique. He preferred using lower vocal ranges, such as five or six voices in male registers, instead of the more common four-voice (S A T B) arrangements. Unlike Josquin, Gombert avoided precise divisions of musical phrases, creating a smoother, more continuous sound. His rhythmic style included syncopations and cross-accents, which added rhythmic variety to his otherwise flowing lines.

Harmonically, Gombert’s music relied on traditional musical scales, but in pieces with six or more voices, he sometimes used sections where different groups of voices sang notes from different scales. For example, one group might sing notes from a D major scale while another sang notes from a D minor scale, creating simultaneous major and minor chords. To maintain harmony with other voices, Gombert often used notes outside the basic scale, a practice called musica ficta. He also used dissonant intervals, such as between F and F♯ or B♭ and B, to create emotional effects while following traditional rules of counterpoint.

One of Gombert’s most notable works is his six-voice motet Musae Jovis, which honors Josquin’s death and features clashing semitone intervals and triads a tritone apart. Another example is his six-voice chanson Tous les Regretz.

Out of the ten masses Gombert composed, nine have survived completely. While the exact order of these masses is unknown, stylistic clues suggest an approximate sequence. Earlier masses, such as Quam pulchra es and Tempore paschali, include rare elements like sequences and ostinatos, which became less common in his later works.

Gombert preferred the motet as his primary form. His motets were highly influential and showed a wide range of techniques. Unlike many other Flemish composers, Gombert rarely used features like ostinato, canon, or double texts, except in works that paid homage to earlier styles, such as Musae Jovis. He often based his motet texts on Scripture, such as the Psalms, rather than on the Roman Catholic liturgy. He focused more on creating expressive sounds than on ensuring clear textual placement.

Gombert’s eight settings of the Magnificat are among his most famous works. Each setting uses one of the church modes and includes a series of short motets based on verses from the Magnificat text. These works may have helped Gombert gain a pardon and a priest’s position after he was imprisoned.

Some of Gombert’s works were written for unusually large vocal groups, including eight, ten, and twelve voices. These pieces did not follow the Venetian School’s polychoral style, where voices were separated spatially. Instead, the groupings of voices changed throughout the music. Examples include an eight-voice Credo, a twelve-voice Agnus from Missa Tempore paschali, and ten- and twelve-voice settings of the Regina caeli. Compared to the northern Italian cori spezzati style, Gombert’s large ensemble works used more repetition, sequences, and ostinatos.

Gombert’s secular music, mostly chansons, was less complex than his motets and masses but more intricate than most contemporary secular works. He was credited with several Parisian chansons, but later research suggests that many of these were actually written by other composers named Nicolas, such as Nicolas de La Grotte or Guillaume Nicolas. The texts of his chansons were often anonymous and based on older folk-style verses about themes like unrequited love, farewells, and infidelity. Many of these chansons were arranged for lute and vihuela, showing their widespread popularity.

Gombert’s surviving works include 10 masses, about 140 motets, about 70 chansons, a canción (likely written in Spain), a madrigal, and a few instrumental pieces.

Influence

After Josquin des Prez died, Gombert became one of the most famous composers in Europe. His music was widely shared, and other composers, such as Orlando di Lasso and Claudio Monteverdi, used his work as a foundation for their own compositions. Printers gave special attention to Gombert, producing editions that included only his music. This was unusual because most printed music collections at the time included works by many different composers. Although Gombert was highly respected by his peers, the next generation of Franco-Flemish composers often used a simpler style. This change was partly because the complex way Gombert used melodies had become too difficult to follow, and partly because the Council of Trent required that sacred music, especially in religious ceremonies, have clear and understandable words. This was very hard to achieve in music with many overlapping melodies.

While many composers of the next generation stopped using Gombert’s method of having many melodies copy each other in vocal music, they continued to use this style in instrumental music. Musical forms like the canzona and ricercar were directly influenced by Gombert’s vocal style. Later, during the Baroque period, forms such as the fugue developed from these earlier styles. Gombert’s music is considered one of the most complex examples of vocal music ever created, with many melodies working together in a highly intricate way.

Recordings

• Nicolas Gombert, Music from the Court of Charles V, Huelgas Ensemble, Sony Vivarte SK 48249
• Nicolas Gombert, Missa media vita, etc., Hilliard Ensemble, ECM New Series 1884 [3]
• Nicolas Gombert, Gombert: Motets, Beauty Farm, Fra Bernardo FB 1504211 [4]
• Nicolas Gombert, Gombert: Motets II, Beauty Farm, Fra Bernardo FB 1612457
• Nicolas Gombert, Gombert: Masses, a la Coronatione, Media Vita, Philomena Previa, Beati Omnes. Motets, Media Vita, Beati omnes, Beauty Farm, Fra Bernardo FB 2005329
• Nicolas Gombert, Magnificat 1, etc., Oxford Camerata, Naxos 8.557732
• Nicolas Gombert, Magnificats 1–4, Tallis Scholars, CD Gimell Records CDGIM 037 [5]
• Nicolas Gombert, Magnificats 5–8, Tallis Scholars, CD Gimell Records CDGIM 038
• Nicolas Gombert, Eight-part Credo, etc., Henry's Eight: Hyperion CDA 66828
• Nicolas Gombert, Missa Tempore paschali, etc., Henry's Eight, Hyperion CDA 66943
• Heavenly Spheres, CBC Records, MVCD 1121, performed by Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal. Includes two motets by Gombert, including his elegy for Josquin, Musae Jovis.
• Flemish Masters, Virginia Arts Recordings, VA-04413, performed by Zephyrus. Includes Gombert's motet, Lugebat David Absalon, the Obrecht Missa Sub tuum presidium, as well as motets by Willaert, Clemens non Papa, Ockeghem, Des Prez, and Mouton.
• Christmas to Candlemas, Ensemble Gombert, Tall Poppies TP192. Includes Gombert's motet "Hodie nobis caelorum" and seasonal works by Mouton, Josquin, de Silva, Clemens non Papa, Tallis, Victoria, Lassus, She