Vox Lucens

Program Notes

Nicolas Gombert was born in the late 1400s, near the thriving city of Lille, then part of Flanders. Something about the air, water, or ales of Flanders gave rise to many generations of influential Renaissance composers. Of his generation, Gombert was possibly the greatest.

At that time, Flanders was part of the far-flung empire of Charles V, a territory based in Spain but including the formerly French Burgundian Flanders, Austria, and the Spanish New World territories. Naturally, a musician of Gombert's talent found employ in the imperial court. He was named master of the choir boys and also may have served as unofficial court composer, the official composer's title being reserved for the court's maestro di cappella. He was granted many remunerative benefices, but was never named to the official top job.

It is clear, however, that Gombert was held in the highest esteem by his peers: Ganassi called him a composer of “divine” talent and Bermudo described him as a “profound musician.” What earned such praise was Gombert’s mastery of all the then-current elements of composition, starting with canonic imitation. Renaissance composers created musical flow and interplay by having voices take up a theme in turn, each voice layering some variant on top of the other voices' statement; modern-day rounds are one version of canonic imitation. Whereas most of Gombert's peers would work out this imitation among four voices, leaving ample time between vocal entrances, Gombert took this imitative style to an extreme. Five, six, and sometimes eight or ten parts cascade in close succession, all stating close variants of the same bit of music. As a singer, to be in the thick of this feels like being surrounded by the ringing of vocal bells, with the same pieces of melody ricocheting among one’s fellow singers.

How did Gombert pull this off? He had a great ear for harmonic motion and planned his music so that the chords implied by all the counterpoint lead from one harmonic state to the next, emphasizing and supporting the text. For large works like Missa quam pulchra es, he further organized each movement according to a common framework, in this case, one derived from Bauldeweyn's motet setting of the Song of Songs text Quam pulchra es. It takes some sleuthing to find the bits of the motet in the mass. Gombert restates the opening and closing motifs, but otherwise does little more than repurpose parts that struck his fancy and suited his needs. The mass ends with another borrowed snippet, the chant Ecce sacerdos magnus ("Behold the great servant"), which Gombert runs simultaneously with all the rest of the music, first in long notes, and then at twice the tempo. The insertion of this text suggests that the mass may have honored a high cleric, possibly the pope. It's further testimony to Gombert's genius that he does all this while expanding from the motet's original four parts to six and even seven parts. For all these reasons, we think of him as the Brahms of the Renaissance.

This edition of the mass was prepared anew by our director, Jay Lane. Modern choirs must make adjustments in Renaissance church music, as women did not sing polyphony in the all-male court cappella (the top part being carried by boys). We have adjusted the pitch upward to match the range of the female voice – a departure from Gombert's original sound, which plumbs the depths by leaning on bass, baritone, and low tenor ranges. Finally, this edition was further proofed against one of the remaining sixteenth-century prints of this music, graciously made available by the Boston Athenaeum.

-- Marc Vilain

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