Goudimel, Claude (c. 1514–1572)

French composer. He contributed chansons for several voices to many collections, also four-part settings to a book of odes by the Roman poet Horace and to another of sacred songs (chansons spirituelles) by Marc-Antoine de Muret (1526–85) in 1555, and settings of French translations of the psalms, including a complete Protestant psalter.

After studying at Paris University, Goudimel then worked with the publisher Nicolas du Chemin as a proofreader and later as a business partner. He first appeared as a composer in Paris in 1549, when he contributed chansons to a book published by du Chemin. About 1557, having become a Huguenot, he went to live in Metz with the Protestant colony there, and composed his first complete psalter in 1564. About ten years later he left for Besançon, and afterwards for Lyon, where he died in the massacre of the Huguenots in August 1572.

Goudimel wrote Masses, motets, and chansons, but it is for his psalm settings that he is remembered. They range in style from motetlike works to simple harmonizations.

Works five Masses, three Magnificats, psalms in motet form and other works for the Catholic Church; psalms, including a complete psalter, for the Protestant Church; sacred songs and numerous secular chansons for several voices.