Nicolas Gombert

[Mandryka]

What I find so special about this recording of the Mass M. Media Vita by Hilliard Ensemble is this strange and moving combination of very complex, very serious counterpoint, and a sort of glowing  mystical quality - like a ray of moonlight casting its glow on Castle Gormenghast. The sense of transcending is achieved not through ecstasy, but rather through very vivid shades of darkness.

Well, that proves that I can't dance about architecture.

[Mandryka]

This CD of early Belgian music by Egidius Kwartet contains just about 15 minutes of music by Gombert - a motet and a song - but the music making is at a very high standard: great control and feeling. Particularly in A Bien Grand Tort.



This Josquin CD by Hilliard contains a Gombert motet, maybe his most well loved, Lugebat David Absolon. The music is so deeply felt that really every performance of it is moving. But there's something special about this one by Hilliard. Part of it is just that I like the voices. Part of it is that the performance is controlled, expressive and transparent. I also think they get the tempo right: it's quite slow (more than 9 minutes) and I'm beginning to see that that's a good thing in this type of complex music.



This one from Orlando Consort, which includes just one Gombert mortet (Flos Campi) is less successful than Hilliard or Egidius because it's too matter of fact. This is a common problem for me with Gombert performance. Bringing his music off the page needs more than technical skills, it needs a feeling for both mysticism and emotion, I just don't think Orlando rise to the challenge. They're too cool.



I'm inclined to say the same about the half dozen Gombert numbers from Currende Consort here.



There's an Agnus Dei by Gombert on this CD by Bo Holten which has choir and brass - it is so beautiful, the combination of instruments and voice, that I find all my sense of judgement is completely disarmed. Wonderful.

[Mandryka]

This recording of mostly motets by Brabant Ensemble has been a great favourite of mine for a long time, in fact I like it more each time I hear it. It's slowly becoming clearer to me why: Brabant Ensemble sing ficta in a way which gives the music short term interest through dissonance, but they do so in a way which doesn't distract from the continuity of the music's flow. The result is extremely penitential, bitterly so in fact.

[JCBuckley]

Thanks Mandryka - have just ordered the Brabant CD after reading this. Any view on the Beauty Farm motets recording? On the music, I mean, rather than on the group's godawful name and cover art.

[Mandryka]

Any view on the Beauty Farm motets recording? On the music, I mean, rather than on the group's godawful name and cover art.

I'm a glass half full person, so I'll say that there are some lovely things in the CD which are otherwise unrecorded as far as I know. Domine Non Secundum Peccata, for example.

[Artem]

Henry's Eight vocal group recorded several Gombert disks for Hyperion. I have their first release and I enjoy it a lot. Together with the Hilliard's disk they are some of my favorite music from that period.

[HIPster]

Have yet to hear this recording, but this thread is really crying out for this cover:

[asin]B00XWVIYE8[/asin]

Reviews of the music are excellent.

[Mandryka]

A side by side comparison of the O Beata Maria from Henry's Eight and the performance by Beauty Farm is interesting, and it helped me get clearer about Beauty Farm's art. Beauty Farm are faster, passionate and extrovert. In Henry's eight there's a sense of the music resulting from the expression of a sustained and profound inner reflection; in Beauty Farm there's more a sense of the music resulting from a passionate  outpouring.

It's impossible to say which style someone will prefer, though I have a preference for Henry's Eight: as usual you have to suck it and see.

[Mandryka]

A comparison between A Bona Suscepimus from Beauty Farm and The Sound and The Fury is also revealing. Beauty Farm are passionate and extrovert and fast. Sound and Fury are more intimate and reflexive. But I think their phrasing, dynamics and ficta makes the music more interesting to hear. With Beauty Farm I felt slightly browbeaten by a slightly macho and slightly glib performance.

But I can imagine that there will be others who enjoy the panting passion of it.

[Mandryka]

There are four Gombert songs on this CD of Rabelaisian music by Ensemble Clément Janequin, about 10 minutes worth, the singing has great interiority and beauty. 

[Mandryka]

     

I know two recordings of the Magnificat 6th and 1st tones -- Tallis and this one Cappella Mariana. The former is vigorous and incisive rhythmically, there are more singers than necessary and the lowest part is occasionally a bit muddy on the recording, which is a shame. The latter is more fluid, they use less singers, maybe one to a part, and  harmonies seem more embellished at cadences -- comparative listening reveals Peter Philips's conservative policy to musica ficta.  The Tallis Scholars is an old recording but sounds fine and clear if your hi fi is up to it; the Cappella Mariana I've only heard on spotify, which is far from ideal, I've just ordered the CD.

Cappella Mariana seem to me in the spirit of The Sound and the Fury and Beauty Farm.

[Mandryka]

.   

I just want to make a note that I've revisited these two recordings by Henry's Eight over the past month a lot, and to come to the point, I can't get enough of them. They're fluid, intense, harmonically interesting (dissonances at the ends of phrases), sensitive to the text, voice production isn't large and boorish, responsive in the counterpoint, well enough recorded and balanced, I prefer them to Beauty Farm for sure, and probably to Sound and the Fury too.

The sort of seamless imitation that characterises Gombert lends itself to an approach which is in constant gentle changing motion, with the articulations dissolving and giving birth to new phrases, more like waves than pulsations.  Henry's Eight seem to me to get close to this idea, even if they're not perfect.

[Mandryka]

What I find so special about this recording of the Mass M. Media Vita by Hilliard Ensemble is this strange and moving combination of very complex, very serious counterpoint, and a sort of glowing  mystical quality - like a ray of moonlight casting its glow on Castle Gormenghast. The sense of transcending is achieved not through ecstasy, but rather through very vivid shades of darkness.

Well, that proves that I can't dance about architecture.

Interesting to see this old comment of mine on the Hilliard recording. I just played a track, not from the mass but the lament for Josquin, Musae Iovis, and I find myself in complete agreement with my former self, I'm a genius.

I've been listening to a lot of this lament today, it's been recorded by many many people in many many different ways. I think the austerity and intensity and pace of the Hilliard approach makes it very much my cup of tea.

It's a shame that this motet was poopooed by Beauty Farm and Sound and Fury, unless I've missed it, maybe because it's not a liturgical setting. But still, it's one of his better motets I think.

[Carlo Gesualdo]

Bonsoir Mandryka j'adore vos posts!

My friend I'm convinced the closer you get from Nicolas Gombert like I said on another site is Dominique Phinot, Listen again and again to his works, I have all that was record by this composer and it reek Gombert all over, is there a correlation between the these two composers.

Since, both composer darwn similar pattern in there work , the same blue-print, the same melancolic sadness is there, the sweet gentle touch in sounds, the same use of contrapuntic polyphony, thee motets are similar, from what I here same emotional touch,, delicate and very harmonic. Perhaps more so than Pierre de Manchicourt, all i can says is the following to listener that were please wwhit the Gombert on Brabant ensemble , puurchase Dominique Phinot and see for yourself, there is something very similar to be found here or try ensemble Scandinus.

By the way I havee all the released you shown of Gombert I'm a fan of Gombert I heard it all, what you like and seek in Gombert, sweet complex harmo ny and the way the work are built akin, same format, do you think these composers ever met or discuss there music.The only Gombert release I don't have is The sound and the Fury Gombert 1-2, but there hard to find and expensive on the market.One more thing dear Mandryka have you heard the great Claudio Monteverdi rendition of a Gombert work missa in illo tempore, I think It a great Homage or tribute to the Franco-Flemish master.

What I find amazing is the facts none are almost  any composer sounds like Gombert, exception made Phinot like I said, I agree whit you Gombert Magnificat done by Tallis Scholars lack something but not so bad.

I warmly recommended Bongiovani release Gombert a la Incoronation this is a very great album, a well put, an incredible recording I hope you heard iitt and like it sir...

Take care good sir, keep on the good review you're a passionate in your review I truely respect this.

One more thing I almost forgot Huelgas Ensemble Regina Coeli is a fabulous work of art and music, never heard such a melodic piece in middle renaissance, iit really astonishingly brilliant, the progression of the work Flabbergast me, what do you think?

[Mandryka]

I warmly recommended Bongiovani release Gombert a la Incoronation this is a very great album, a well put, an incredible recording I hope you heard iitt and like it sir...

Yes, I just listened to their Regina Caeli, which is Gombert's largest motet. I like it very much for its grandeur and nobility. A very different approach from Paul Nevel's. My only reservation about the Bongiovanni release is that the sound is a bit hard, but that may be deliberate.

[Mandryka]

The sound and the Fury Gombert 1-2, but there hard to find and expensive on the market.

Gombert 2 has an amazing thing, my favourite Gombert motet in a way, Salvator Mundi - as far as I know no one else has recorded it. The reason it's so successful is that Gombert frequently thins out the voices and contrasts high and low registers, so the through composed polyphony has relief. It is a prayer of intercession and it sounds like a plea, a good example of how Gombert used music expressively. Here it is in the score

https://issuu.com/arsubtilior/docs/pages_from_gombert_salvator_mundi_6

[Carlo Gesualdo]

Born in La Gorge 1495-1660-65(according so some he was still alive in 1965),  northern France, Gombert is also call the quasi-Baroque Franco-Flemish composers for innovation and complexity, sophistication, refinement..


Etreme use of theme like melancolia & sadness,, his exploit would be to use vocal dissoncance more and better than anyone else, and the focus on double counter point in polyphony something J.s Bach would use only later on 250 years  after Gombert.

If we forgive about his frasque , getting himself in trouble for sexual assault,  there is thaman we have a hard time liking and his music witch we like for it'S distinct blue print, he the most important composer inn mid renaissance, thus said after Josquin and after him Palestrina, I would agree on that.

Here on GmG people explored  some side of his work :french chanson, magificat, motets, that are all great, but you forgot an excellent part of his music, The Villancicos sspanissh ssongs in a different mole as French chanson, I got a formidable album of Nicolas Gombert Villancicos called : Cancioneros de Upsala 1554 direction Pater Pontvik and Stockholm Ensemble villancica a lovely album.



What about it folks  I bought something neww to Gombert output people left out on, and what about is ''instrumental song will there be a completeee ssong''ss album beside very Talented Parisian guitarist virtuoso, Noel AKchoté wwhich is a guitar rendition, not that it'S not good but I like a version whit all his ssongg  ssingging noot just acoustique songg rendition on guitars.

By the way I llike Beauty Farm ensemble motets vol 1-2,
ORF trree  surreal album m::missa pulchra es , missa mille regrets ,, gombert motets (super flumina babylonis  excellent the whole album excellentt).

Don't like the man personal life but Really dig his music, he was in his  on league in mid polyphony era of Franco--Flemish. So like I said iit tough to love Gombert but easy to get into his great music...

Any comment pertinents worth saying?

[T. D.]

I don't know much about Gombert, but he is the composer who got me interested in Renaissance polyphony.

I hadn't really heard any R. p.  until purchasing the first Sony Vivarte box, which included this:


I loved it and started collecting R. p. recordings. I have several additional Gombert discs, but haven't listened lately because I branched out more into the works of other composers (Obrecht, Josquin, Dufay, Ockeghem, Byrd, Brunel, Tallis, etc).
Will take some Gombert recordings back off the shelf ASAP.

[Carlo Gesualdo]

I don't know much about Gombert, but he is the composer who got me interested in Renaissance polyphony.

I hadn't really heard any R. p.  until purchasing the first Sony Vivarte box, which included this:


I loved it and started collecting R. p. recordings. I have several additional Gombert discs, but haven't listened lately because I branched out more into the works of other composers (Obrecht, Josquin, Dufay, Ockeghem, Byrd, Brunel, Tallis, etc).
Will take some Gombert recordings back off the shelf ASAP.

Thanks for you're interest in Gombert a fantastic composer, I encourage you to seek recording of him, he really bold for a composer,, avant-garde of mid renaissance, his polyphony is quite complex and pretty. I would subject If you can grab the ORF CD from Austria or Germany there fabuleous, and also the LP's of NON-SUCH and lyricord label, people criticized  Beauty Farm for his Motets I find em fantastic, but if you want spectacular Gombert try on Bongiovani label(italy) Gombert a la coronation  this is my favorite ever.

[Mandryka]

 Bo Holten is interesting in Gombert, in the magnificats. Too many singers really, but he lets the music breathe. All the others push it forward too much for me, so it becomes more virtuoso polyphony than expressive.