Editorial Reviews

The front cover of this Hyperion disc, Nicolas Gombert: Tribulatio et angustia featuring the Brabant Ensemble under Stephen Rice, is decorated with a very striking and violent image, that of a scroll-bearing demon standing amid hellfire with the souls of the damned in torment beneath as they are vomited up by some sort of fire-breathing dragon. The image comes from the painting The Triptych of Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation by early Dutch master Hans Memling, and indeed, the mood of the souls and their suffering are well reflected in Gombert's depressive, deeply penitential music. This collection consists of 11 of Gombert's four- and five-voice motets, some of which appeared in his first two motet collections, printed in 1539 and appearing not long after his return from exile on the high seas. Gombert was sent on this arduous journey to do penance for an act of priestly pederasty for which he was ever repentant and by which his music is often judged -- and dismissed without the hearing -- to this very day. Another reason for his relative neglect is the long held perception that Josquin des Pres' music so dominates the early sixteenth century that Gombert's -- and that of most of his contemporaries -- cannot be anything but less worthy. This is nonsense; Gombert's music would be great even if there had never been a Josquin -- it is moving, intense, and extremely sober in tone.

Gombert's music is very different from Josquin's, even though there is evidence he studied with Josquin early on. He bears more kinship, though, with his more direct contemporaries like Jacob Obrecht and Pierre de la Rue in that he folds together periods in a way that keeps his music moving forward in a continuous stream. Harmonically, Gombert can be rather tough and bitter, particularly at points in the texts that deal with pain, humiliation, and sadness. In the motet "Aspice Domine," which deals with the sack of Rome in 1527 -- Gombert's king was on the "winning" side -- there is a chain of dissonant figures that spiral downwards at the words "and there is none to console her…," meaning Rome. The recording, made in the chapel at the Queen's College in Oxford, is spacious and expansive, and the singing of the Brabant Ensemble is luscious and transparent, though at times one wishes the voices were a little closer just so that Gombert's pungent dissonances could render with more strength. Nevertheless, Hyperion's Nicolas Gombert: Tribulatio et angustia is the perfect music when you just want to turn your face to the wall and shut everything out, or need something to help endure an unceasingly rainy day. Uncle Dave Lewis, All Music Guide

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