Cosmas Alder

(1497 - 1550)


Swiss composer. A chorister at Bern cathedral till 1511 and a singer there till 1524, he stayed in the city as town clerk after the Reformation. He was one of the few post-Reformation Swiss composers to write polyphony, a volume of hymns à 3 - 5 appearing posthumously in 1553.





IVK: Orlandus Lassus and Catholic Polyphony in late 16th Century Germany