Current research is considering the possibility that Kempis was never in Italy and that he only came into contact with the then new Italian violin music through the migration of other musicians caused by the wars of religion.
[2] The earliest extant piece of biographical information about him is his nomination as organist of the cathedral of Saints Michael and Gudule in Brussels around 1626.
[2] They comprise solo sonatas for strings with basso continuo as wells as multi-part compositions, some with additional parts for wind instruments.
They combine instrumental cantabile with virtuoso features, especially in the violin solos, and contain chromatic-rhetorical elements in the early Baroque Stylus fantasticus.
[3] Nicolaus à Kempis was the first musician to introduce the Italian viol style and techniques of Girolamo Frescobaldi, Marco Uccellini, Giovanni Battista Fontana and Dario Castello into the Habsburg Netherlands.