CLEMENS, JACOB, called NON PAPA. - Musician, b. in Flanders toward the end of the 15th century or the beginning of the 16th, d. at Dixmuiden in 1555. He was called Non Papa in order to distinguish him from a contemporary, the poet Jacobus Papa, who lived at Ypres, where C. J. stayed for some time.
He composed many works of sacred music in which he proves himself a worthy continuator of the glorious tradition of Josquin Després and a precursor of the great Palestrinian art: works of clear, harmonious, pure style, revealing themselves as powerfully expressive in the counterpoint of the voices and in the thematic elaboration of melodies. They are numerous: masses for 4, 5, and 6 voices, printed in 10 volumes at Louvain by Phalese from 1558 to 1560; Cantiomum sacrarum for 4 voices; motets in various collections of the time, down to works reprinted in modern (Commer and Maldeghem) and recent collections (a motet for 5 voices, O Maria, edited by H. B. Collins at Chester in 1933). Numerous manuscripts are found in various libraries in Europe: Berlin, Basel, Dresden, Kassel, London (British Museum), Leiden, Regensburg, Cambrai, Wolfenbüttel, Lübeck, Briga, Vienna, etc., as well as in Rome (the Sistine Chapel and S. Cecilia). Luisa Cervelli