Philippe Rogier

• Illustration — Polyphone mass by Rogier in Museo Parroquial, Pastrana More of Rogier's music remains than that of his compatriot Géry de Ghersem. While most was destroyed in 1755 when the enormous library of John IV burned during the Lisbon earthquake, some had successfully been disseminated through publication or manuscript transmission; some of his work appears in manuscript in places as distant as Mexico (some manuscript psalm settings survive in the archives of Puebla Cathedral). Rogier wrote both sacred and secular music, but as expected for a composer active in the royal chapel of a deeply religious monarch during the Counter-Reformation, the majority of it is sacred. Two instrumental pieces, possibly arrangements of vocal works, have survived as well. Of the 243 compositions listed in John IV's library catalogue (compiled in Lisbon in 1649), 36 motets, 7 masses, 4 chansons, 4 psalm verse settings, and two presumably instrumental compositions (since they are textless, and appear in collections for instrumental performance) have survived. His published masses are for from four to six voices; one in manuscript exists in two versions, with one for eight and the other for twelve independent voice parts. Stylistically they recall music written fifty years before, particularly the elaborate polyphonic style of Nicolas Gombert, another member of the Habsburg chapel. Rogier's motets are also in the Franco-Flemish style of mid-century. His secular music, on the other hand, shows some progressive features that anticipate the Spanish music of the early 17th century, for example with their frequent use of syncopation. Rogier was long a highly regarded composer, as shown by a laudatory reference in a poem, Laurel de Apolo by Lope de Vega, written in 1630 – more than three decades after his death. His music was published in places as distant as Madrid, Antwerp, and Naples.