Nicolas Gombert (1495 – 1560)

Nicolas Gombert was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was one of the most famous and influential composers between Josquin Desprez and Palestrina, and best represents the fully-developed, complex polyphonic style of this transitional period in music history.

Details of his early life are sketchy, but he was likely born around 1495 in southern Flanders, probably between Lille and St. Omer, possibly in the town of La Gorgue. He is said to have studied with Josquin during the renowned composer's retirement in Condé sur l'Escaut, which probably would have been between 1515 and 1521.

Gombert was employed by the emperor Charles V as a singer in his court chapel in 1526, and possibly as a composer as well. Most likely he was taken on while Charles was passing through Flanders, for the emperor traveled often, bringing his retinue with him, and picking up new members as he went. In 1529 Gombert is mentioned as magister puerorum ("master of the boys") for the royal chapel. He and the singers certainly traveled with the emperor, since there are records of their appearances in various cities of the empire throughout the period. At some point in the 1530s Gombert became a cleric and probably a priest; he received benefices at several cathedrals, including Kortrijk, Lens, Metz, and Béthune. He remained in the Imperial chapel as maistre des enffans until some time between 1537 and 1540.

According to contemporary physician and mathematician Girolamo Cardano, writing in Theonoston in 1560, Gombert was convicted of molesting a boy in his care and was sentenced to hard labor in the galleys. Most likely he was pardoned sometime in or before 1547, the date he sent a letter along with a motet from Tournai. The Magnificat settings preserved uniquely in manuscript in Madrid are often held to have been the "swansongs" that according to Cardano won his pardon, though an alternative hypothesis (Lewis 1994) is that Cardano was referring to the highly penitential First Book of four-part motets. It is unclear how long Gombert lived after his pardon or what positions, if any, he held. In 1556, the German writer and music theorist Hermann Finck mentioned that he was still living, and in 1561 Cardano wrote that he was dead.