Robert Hacomplaynt

The opening item of the annual Christmas concert by Concentus MN in 1990 at St. Olaf Catholic Church in downtown Minneapolis was ‘Salve regina’ by Robert Hacomplaynt. It is a long composition of elaborate 5-part vocal polyphony presented in a form of considerable abstraction and complexity that must have been quite difficult for the average listener to comprehend. Nobody walked out.

The ‘Salve regina’ is the only composition by Hacomplaynt that has survived . It is found in the Eton Choirbook, a remarkable manuscript that preserves an amazing flowering of English music of the decade before and after 1500. Hacomplaynt seems more of a “management” type than generally is seen in composers . . . in 1475? he was a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, in 1483 he was proctor at King’s, in 1488 he was bursar at King’s, and in 1509 he was elected Provost of King’s. It is not known at what point in this “ladder-climbing” the “Salve regina” actually appeared. He died in 1528 and bequeathed a lectern bearing his name in the College chapel, he is buried with a memorial brass in the 2nd chantry on South side of the ante chapel. This may be the only instance of a major college provost composing a piece of such magnitude and complexity.