Gerardus Mes

Gerardus Mes or Gherardus (fl. c. 1561) was a Franco-Flemish composer. Life and work Little of his work has survived, except the settings for four voices of the Souterliedekens, 150 Dutch Psalm Songs and canticles, possibly written by nobleman Willem van Zuylen van Nijevelt and published in 1540 with a notation of the melody for one voice. Mes’s settings appeared in Antwerp in 1561 as the eighth up to the eleventh volume of the Musijck Boexkens, a collection of Dutch songs edited by Tielman Susato. In this series, Susato had already published Jacobus Clemens non-Papa’s Psalm settings for three voices in 1556-57. As was already the case with the Dutch secular songs from Susato’s Ierste and Tweetste Musijck Boexken (first and second Music Book), performance with human voices as well as with instruments is suggested in the edition of Mes’s Psalm settings. On the title page of the Souterliedekens, Mes is also mentioned as a pupil of Clemens non-Papa, which is the only fact we know about his life. Of his Souterliedekens, no complete copy has survived; the bass voice is missing. In his Souterliedekens, Mes made use of several writing techniques: sometimes, he used the original tune of a