Philippe de Monte (1521 - 04/07/1603), a Flemish composer. He was born in 1521 in Mechelen (Malignant), in the low countries in the current Belgium. He is originating in this area of Europe ranging between northern France and southern low countries/Flemish region, from which the singers, musicians and composers came who reigned on the music during two and a half centuries all over Europe and which will be called later the Flemish from the Low Countries. De Monte was almost certainly educated at St. Rombout Cathedral Mechelen until the age of twenty. De Monte which dies in 1603, is the last great representative of this famous Flemish tradition, at the time when the glory turns to Italian and Spanish composers. After having been appointed a probably Vicar with the Cathedral of Cambrai, whereas he was child!, he moves in Italy, where he will live twenty years, like several important Flemish musicians.
He served in Naples the Pinelli family from 1541 to 1551. Some research showing De Monte was a singer at The Cathedral of Cambrai from 1548-1566 with a lot of absence. In Italy De Monte made known as composer of madrigals in a new style. De Monte was scarcely less prominent than Lassus or Palestrina among late Renaissance polyphonic composers and was one of the most prolific composers of that time. In 1554 De Monte had his 1st stay in Rome and a publication of his Madigrali libro primo. After the first Italian period De Monte travels through Europe and travelled to the southern part of the Netherlands/Flemish region, Antwerp 1554, thereafter residing for a short while in England 1554-1555 as a member of Queens Mary Chapel but he returned soon from England to Naples, due to the predominance of Spaniards in Queens Mary Chapel. He befriended in England the 12/13 year old William Byrd. His friends included, apart from Lassus whom he regularly met, of course the mentioned William Byrd, and his students Macque and Regnart.
As written before De Monte returned for the second time to Naples after his England journey and there is in 1567-1568 a 2nd stay in Rome, before being appointed in 1568 choirmaster Kapellmeister in Vienna and Prague at the Court of the emperor Maximilian II, successor of Charles V (emperor 1519-1556) to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire, which included half of current Europe then. This nomination with a so high importance, which Monte will occupy until the end of his long life, will give him a phase of high creativity without precedent in his live.
De Monte was appointed choirmaster Kapellmeister over the largest and most important musical institution in the Bohemian region. The Court Ensemble founded by Ferdinand I (emperor 1556-1564) is a group of singers and musicians with two organs. Under Maximilian II (emperor 1564-1576) several other instruments were added, and the Ensemble reached its richness of development during the reign of Rudolph II (emperor 1576-1612). In 1576 under Rudolph II the Court was moved to Prague. Bohemian membership in the Court Ensemble was very small, as the Ensemble mostly consists out of Dutch/Flemish ( like de Formelis, Paul van Winde, Jacob Buus, Charles Luython, Alexander Utendal), Spaniards, Germans, and Italians. Even in 1507 de Monte went to the Flemish region to acquire talented singers and musicians for the Court Ensemble in Prague.
The thirty-five years (1568 -1603) in Prague and Vienna which followed gave de Monte all the time in producing the essence of his immense sacred work. However, when Rudolph II succeeds Maximilian, de Monte is even seen refusing his duties in joining his family in Cambrai. De Monte is obliged to remain attached to the service of the emperor which is not like his predecessor humanistic and a friend of arts. De Monte finds consolation near his nephew whom adopted him and of the many friends whom he cultivated in all Europe: humanistic musicians, poets, ecclesiastics and among them the most famous. In 1572 he was appointed non residential Treasurer of the Cathedral of Cambrai and thereafter in 1577 appointed Canon of the same Cathedral. De Monte dies in July 1603 in Prague, where the Imperial Court was settled for twenty years.
He is author of about 1700 compositions. Today though ignored the Mass is probably the most valuable polyphonic piece of music of the Renaissance. In the Italian period De Montes oeuvre is highly concentrated and dominated around the Italian madrigal: He wrote some more than thousand (1100) Madrigal settings. With this genre, which appears at the beginning of XVI century, the music enters into the Renaissance.
De Monte is one of the principal Masters of the "second generation" of madrigal composers, among them Monteverdi, the giant of the period Baroque which will follow, Monteverdi stated that De Monte creates a "second practice" to whom himself is the heir!
De Monte develops indeed increased means of the expression of the text, in particular by using dissonances.
De Montes religious/sacred music, consists out of approximately 48 masses, 350 motets (published in VII Liber de Sacrae cantiones/Sacrarum cantiones cum quinque, sex etc. vocibus (1572-1600)), one book de Motettum (1575) and other publications (1564-1631), and of many (145) religious/sacred madrigals (in V Liber de quinque et sex vocibus (1581-1593)). All compositions are impregnated of his development on the expression of the emotions. All masses are illustrative, even richer and more stylish than nevertheless not less important masses composed by his distinguished predecessors and contemporaries. A lot of De Montes work has been rediscovered due to the efforts of Mgr. J. van Nuffel † and Prof Dr. René Lenaerts † from Louvain.
Most of his Masses, written for 4 to 8 voices (about 48 masses are at this moment known of which 24 survived and are published between 1579 and 1590 or in handwritten sources), and motets were written at the Imperial Court, the former being mostly "parody" or "imitation" Masses, rich and impressive in style and of high quality. The same applies for the the Missa de profundis his Mass of the Dead, nevertheless the style is due to the subject somewhat modest. The manuscript of the Missa de profundis is in Vienna. The handling of his vocal disposition in his compositions is superb, as is his flair for sophisticated polyphonic writing. Nevertheless serving the Imperial Court De Monte, comparatively isolated from new trends, declined to follow the fashion for dramatic writing or chromatics. De Monte has today begun to be recognized as one of the most accomplished and most important composers of the late Renaissance, indeed one of the last Flemish but not the least! He is well-known for his Madrigals and his sacred music. On a cupper-plate with a portrait of De Monte made by Raphaël Sadeler in Munich in 1594 I read: "Cernimus excelsum mente, arte, et nomine MONTEM quo Musae, et Charites constituere domum"! that means: "We see here a MOUNT, very raised of mind, art and name in which the Muses and Grace have taken as their home".