Musicatlas
Music
Sales is considered a member of the fifth generation (starring Lassus, qv.) of the so-called Flemish Polyphony (composers born in the Low Countries, essentially the present Benelux plus a part of northern France, but often also working abroad, attracted to wealthy courts and churches).
Only in 1593 he published his first collection of Motets, a dominant form of (mainly church) polyphony, which also contains the only preserved Motet by the more important Antwerp-born composer Georges De la Hèle (qv.).
Contribution endebted to KULeuven’s musicology professor Ignace Bossuyt’s book “De Vlaamse Polyfonie”.
Life
Franciscus Sales was born in Namur, the capital of the countship of the same name, one of the minor principalities (at the time collectively known as “Flemish”) of the Habsburg dynasty in the Low Countries (now in Belgium). At a ripe age (circa 36; presumable he would have been a chorister closer to home before) he became a tenor in the court chapel of the Habsburg dynasty in Prague (the capital of Bohemia — now in the Czech Republic — which was one of the Central European principalities ruled by the Austrian house) for the remaining eight years of his life.