Nicolas Gombert
(ca. 1500-ca.
1556)
Career Summary
- master of the choirboys in
chapel of Emperor Charles V from 1526-40
- Hermann Finck, a German theorist,
wrote that Gombert, a student of Josquin, showed musicians of his time how
to write in new style which avoided pauses and was filled with harmony and
imitation
- 10 Masses: almost all parodies
of motets or chansons
- over 160 motets: majority
for 4-5 voices
- around 60 chansons
- pervading imitations, long
arching phrases, syncopation keeps motion forward while avoiding metrical
stress, melismas on last stressed syllable of a phrase
- little regard for placement
of text accents: preference for musical design
- harsh dissonances hallmark
his style: "gritty" quality
Motet
Expurgate vetus
fermentum: Responsory for Easter Sunday
- opening point of imitation:
two-motive exposition, one for each half of the opening phrase of text, includes
several appoggiaturas, instances where a suspension sounds simultaneously
with its note of resolution
- follows conventional form
for Responsories, ending both partes with same text and music (aBcB), a device
used in other motets, more often in ones based on Biblical texts, rather
than strictly liturgical texts;
- eschew scaffolding devices
of cantus firmus and canon
- formal procedures typical
for Franco-Flemish composers of post-Josquin generation
Beati omnes:
Psalm 129
- no attempt to arrange music
to accommodate text: misaccents; however, form of psalm determines form of
the music
- each clause of text is
set to separate phrase of music
- in first phrase, point
of imitation is laid out in "classical" manner: successive voices enter with
their significant melodic material after 2-3 bars, sufficient to establish
relationship
- no clear-cut cadence separates
second from first phrase: Gombert instead devises a second short motive which
serves as transition; overlaps
- no full cadence brings
motion to halt at end of the second phrase
- emphasises text relationship
by changing texture
- in general, no clearly demarcated
points of articulation
- texture changes in relationship
with text: some points need abundant time to state material, while others
are extremely compressed
- some points of imitation
exact; in others, only initial characteristic interval or general shape provides
unity
- order of entries nor time
interval between statements of theme is ever fixed
- texture and layout arranged
in infinite number of ways
- complex polyhony relieved
by homophony which give emphasis to individual words and phrases
- music of 2nd-Generation seldom
dramatic
- many motives of different
compositions bear general "family resemblance" to one another
- lack of invention a result
of intention to maintain unity
- Josquin's ideal of clarity,
elegance, balance and symmetry replaced by desire to create continuous
placid flow of sound, not well articulated formally but unified by technique
of imitation
Mass
Missa Beati omnes
- based on his own motet
- parody technique applied