Born in c1510–15
Died in 1555/6
- Jacobus Clemens non Papa (also called Jacob Clement) was one of the most prolific musical figures of the early 16th century. He is best remembered today for his polyphonic settings of the psalms in Dutch called the Souterliedekens.
- Musicologists know little-to-nothing about the early life of the composer. The first public record of Clemens is in the late 1530s with the publication of several chansons.
- *Regarding the “non Papa” distinction in the composer’s name – there’s a theory that the suffix was meant to be a joke as a play on the similarly-named Pope Clement VII, i.e., Jacob Clemens… not the pope ;).
- One of the unique features of Clemens’s music is the fact that it is largely melody-driven rather than led by counterpoint (as was the standard of the time).
- Clemens’s surviving 500ish manuscripts include 15 masses, two mass fragments, ~233 motets, two cycles of Magnificat settings, 159 souterliedekens and lofzangen, and just over 100 secular works.1
Learn More
Sources
- Willem Elders, Kristine Forney, and Alejandro Enrique Planchart, “Clemens non Papa, Jacobus,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed March 6, 2023, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000005930.