Clemens non Papa(real name, Jacob Clement)

Clemens non Papa(real name, Jacob Clement), eminent Franco–Flemish composer; b. probably in leper, c. 1510; d. Dixmuiden, near leper, 1555 or 1556. He was first called “non Papa” in 1545 when he entered into business transactions with the Antwerp publisher Susato. It was formerly believed that “non Papa” meant “not the Pope,” to distinguish him from Pope Clement VII, but it was also suggested that it was intended to differentiate him from the poet Jacobus Papa, who also resided in leper. The real meaning of the designation has been lost. Nothing is known of his early years. His earliest extant work, the chanson “Le departir est sans department,” was pubi, in 1536. In the records of St. Donaas in Bruges, he is mentioned as presbyter in 1544; that same year he was nominated succentor “per modum probae.” He served as succentor at Bruges Cathedral in 1544—45 and was active with the Marian Brotherhood in ’s–Hertogenbosch in 1550. He was a prolific composer of sacred music, producing 15 masses (two mass fragments are also extant), over 230 motets, two Magnificat cycles, and 159 three–voice souterliede–kens and lofzangen (the first polyphonic settings of the 150 Psalms in Dutch; publ. by Susato in Antwerp, 1556–57). His secular works include 89 chansons (ten are doubtful), eight Dutch songs, and several other pieces. K. Bernet Kempers ed. Clemens non Papa: Opera omnia in Corpus Mensurabilis Musicae, IV/1–21 (1951–76).

Bibliography

K. Bernet Kempers, Jacobus C. n. P. und seine Motetten (Augsburg, 1929).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire