| Gombert belongs to the so-called "forgotten generation" of composers who followed Josquin and preceded Palestrina. He spent most of his life in the service of the Hapsburg-Burgundian Emperor Charles V as a singer, choirmaster and court composer. He profoundly influenced 16th century musical developments in territories controlled by his patron, most notably Spain, and in countries that had close political ties with the Habsburg court such as England and Germany. Regarded as an innovator in his day, Gombert composed music, according to the 16th century German theorist Hermann Finck, "altogether different from what went before...for he avoids cadential pauses, and his work is rich with full harmonies and imitative counterpoint." The musicologist Richard Crocker explains: "Gombert's style was an extreme; hardly anyone else in the 1500s wrote music of such urgency. His ideal was an overall expressiveness brought about by heightening the purely musical intensity." |
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