Mikołaj Gomółka

Mikołaj Gomółka (* around 1535 in Sandomierz , † after 1591 , probably 1609 ) was a Polish musician and composer.

He can be considered one of the first composers seriously looking for a national Polish art style. His four-part setting of texts that Jan Kochanowski wrote on the basis of psalms deserve special mention .

Life

At a festival in the city, King Sigismund II. August noticed the young Gomółka and took him to his court in 1545. After only three years he became a student of a royal fistulator (outstanding instrumentalist of the king) named Jan Klaus , with whom he spent 10 years. Then Gomółka also became a member of the chapel as a fistulator. He spent 12 years at court. He was appointed to the so-called Italian fistulators.

In 1563 Mikołaj Gomółka left the court and worked in some extra-musical fields in his native town for 15 years. In 1578 he found a powerful protector in the person of Bishop Piotr Myszkowski , an outstanding humanist and patron of artists and writers. Myszkowski had previously asked Jan Kochanowski for a translation of the Psalms of David , which were printed in Krakow in 1579 . Gomółka's musical arrangement appeared next. This closeness suggests that Kochanowski and Gomółka were most likely in close contact or could even have worked together. From the dedication address it is clear that it was Myszkowski's support that made the printing of Gomółka's psalms possible. There is also an epigram by Andrzej Trzecieski who praises the collaboration between Kochanowski and Gomółka.

From 1590 at the latest, Gomółka was at the court of Chancellor Jan Zamoyski , who in turn was also a generous patron. The last news about Gomółka came from 1591. This was probably also the year of his death. It is difficult to assume that the Psalms of David were the composer's only work. Polish music researchers such as Oskar Kolberg (19th century), Zdzisław Jachimecki (turn of the century) and Kosela provided information about two masses and two other songs, but these works have either disappeared in the meantime or this is an error because all later ones Studies have not confirmed these statements.

literature

• Mirosław Perz: Mikołaj Gomółka. Monograph. Warszawa 1969, 2nd edition Kraków 1981.
• Schwider, D. Nicolaus Zielenski Munich 2006.

Web links

• Works by and about Mikołaj Gomółka in the catalog of the German National Library