Weerbeke Gaspar van

Weerbeke (also Weerbecke, Werbecke, Werbeke, Werbeck), Gaspar van , significant Netherlandish composer; b. Oudenaarde, c. 1445; d. after 1517. By 1471 he was active at the Sforza court in Milan. He was in Flanders and Burgundy in 1472-73 to recruit singers for the court choir of Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza, whom he served as vice-abbate of the cantori de camera. After serving as a member of the papal choir (1471-92), he was again active in Milan at the court of Duke Ludovico Sforza, “il Moro.” He also held benefices in the Utrecht and Therouanne dioceses and was associated with the court choir of Philip the Fair, Archduke of Austria and Duke of Burgundy. From 1500 to 1509 he was again a member of the papal choir; however, he was referred to as “Cantor capellae papa-lis” as late as 1514; in 1517 he was listed as canonicus of the church of S. Maria ad Gradus in Mainz. Weerbeke was an outstanding composer of liturgical and non-liturgical sacred music. His extant works include 8 mass ordinaries, 2 credos, 22 motet cycles, and 21 other motets. Five chansons attributed to him remain doubtful. See A. Smijers, ed., Van Ockeghem tot Sweelinck (Amsterdam, 1949-56) and G. Tintori, Gaspar van Weerbeke: Messe e mottetti, Archivum Musices Metropoli-tanum Mediolanense, XI (Milan, 1963).

Bibliography

G. Croll, Das Motettenwerk G. v.W.(diss., Univ. of Göttingen, 1954).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire