Restless Beauty
In my last column, I launched an introduction to the work of Nicolas Gombert, who—of all the composers whose work I have discussed over the years—may be the least known. One reason for that obscurity is an accident of history. Music historians sometimes refer to the “lost generation” of Renaissance composers: those who lived between the death of Josquin des Prez in 1521 and the flourishing of Orlande de Lassus in the late 1550s. Gombert—who was born around 1495—is among this cohort, along with better-known (if not to the general public) composers such as Clemens non Papa, Adrian Willaert, and Cristóbal de Morales. Josquin was an unrivaled and pioneering genius at the beginning of an era; Lassus was so prolific and versatile that he became the most famous composer in Europe in the second half of the sixteenth century. Figures who labored fruitfully in the intervening years have been (at least so far) relatively ignored in the revival of interest in music of the Renaissance.
Gombert was certainly better known in his own day. In 1556, near the end of his life, he was singled out as something of a leading light by the music theorist and composer Hermann Finck:
Yet in our very time there are innovators, among whom is Nicolas Gombert, pupil of Josquin of blessed memory, who shows all musicians the way, nay more, the exact path to the desired imitative manner and to refinement; and he composes music entirely different from the past. For he avoids rests, and his composition abounds in both full harmonies and imitations.
Many Voices, Few Rests
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Ken Myers is the host and producer of the Mars Hill Audio Journal. Formerly an arts editor with National Public Radio, he also serves as music director at All Saints Anglican Church in Ivy, Virginia. He is a contributing editor for Touchstone.
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