According to Hermann Finck, Nicolas Gombert would have been a student of Josquin. Finck wrote at least in 1556: "Nicolas Gombert, pupil of Josquin's blessed memory, shows all musicians the way - or rather, the exact path to refinement and technique." Most of Gombert's misses are so-called parody misses, that is, misses that are the extrapolation of an already existing motet. For example, the five-part
… Missa Media Vita (published in 1542) was based on Gombert's own six-part motet Media Vita. "In the midst of life we are enveloped in death," says the ancient antiphon, which was once so popular that the Council of Cologne of 1316 forbade it: the song is said to have magical charges that could be used to curse others. However, the song remained POPULAR: even the accursed heretic Luther made an adaptation in German. All this makes you think involuntarily of Gombert's own Media Vita experience: according to the physician Jerome Cardan, Gombert was banished to the galleys for assaulting a boy at the court of Charles V. However, the composer was pardoned after he managed to move the emperor with two so-called 'swan songs'. This may have involved two settings of the Magnificat. (HJ) This may have involved two settings of the Magnificat. (HJ) This may have involved two settings of the Magnificat. (HJ)more
