PRESS PACK
Petrus Alamire – Polyphony in the picture
 Laus Polyphoniae Festival, 19 - 30 August 2015
 Exhibition in Antwerp Cathedral, 19 August - 22 November 2015
 International conference New Perspectives on Polyphony, 18 - 23 August 2015
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INTRODUCTION
Who is Petrus Alamire (ca. 1470 – + 1536)?
Peter Imhoff, also known as Petrus Alamire, was born around the year 1470 into a well-known merchant family in
Nuremberg, where he was presumably trained as a musician and music copyist. Following family members
travelling on business, he journeyed to the Low Countries, where he was commissioned by the collegiate
churches of Antwerp and ’s-Hertogenbosch to produce music manuscripts.
Shortly afterwards he entered into service at the court of Margaret of Austria and Archduke Charles (later
Emperor Charles V) in Mechelen. Alamire created luxurious music manuscripts for the use of his patrons, but also
as gifts for their political or business associates and other European leaders. We also have evidence that he
worked as a businessman, a courier for Erasmus and other humanists, and even a spy for Henry VIII.
The project ‘Petrus Alamire – Polyphony in the Picture
The magnificently illuminated music manuscripts made 500 years ago by the calligrapher Petrus Alamire in his
workshop in Mechelen has provided the starting point for a unique project. A collection of 51 manuscripts, now
scattered across Europe and brought together by the Alamire Digital Lab in 15 500 images, contain a treasure
trove of music dating from Alamire’s time in the style known as polyphony.
The brilliant miniatures illustrate political or religious themes or refer to the monarch, a powerful patron or the
recipient of the manuscript. Many choirbooks – usually intended to be sung from in a church choir – have richly
decorated frontispieces, the margins bursting with flowers and animals. Even more prevalent are the decorative
calligraphic initials that indicate the beginning of a piece of music or show where a voice (soprano, alto, tenor or
bass) begins.
However the manuscripts are dominated by the musical notes themselves which, when sung, open up a universe
of sound that touches the hearts of many. The polyphony (music composed with several relatively independent
melodic lines) composed in the Low Countries conquered the whole of Europe in its day and was held in
particularly high regard.
We will put this rich musical heritage, which made our region so famous 500 years ago, into a broader context.
The exhibition
Antwerp Cathedral
Seven fascinating music manuscripts from Petrus Alamire’s workshop, conserved in Belgium, will steep you in the
culture of Flanders and Europe as they were in the year 1500. Meet the rulers, composers and musicians of the
time and discover their outlook on the world and their perspectives on art. You will be able to admire the
Mechelen Choirbook and the six Alamire manuscripts from the Royal Library of Belgium collection, including
Margaret of Austria’s chansonnier and the Occo Codex.
These choirbooks and chansonniers, used by the singers themselves when performing, will be brought to life with
sounds and images. Besides admiring the craftsmanship with which they were made, you will be able to access
the entire manuscript with digital images of the most beautiful pages and most exquisite details. The Royal
Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp will illustrate more of the story behind the manuscripts with works of art dating
from that period. And of course the polyphonic music itself is part of that story: put on your headphones and step
into the world of five hundred years ago.
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After that you can immerse yourself completely in the sound of early 16th century polyphony. Take a walk through
the installation by sound and video artist Rudi Knoops and experience the polyphonic texture of the music – as a
whole or as a multiplicity of individual musical lines – and watch the musicians at work.
Laus Polyphoniae Festival
AMUZ and various historical venues in the centre of Antwerp
Petrus Alamire’s music manuscripts are among the most beautiful illuminated manuscripts of the late Middle
Ages. Discover their particular symbolism, unique detail and rich palette of colours in dialogue with stunning
works by the Flemish Primitives from the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp at the exhibition
“Petrus Alamire – Polyphony in the Picture” in Antwerp Cathedral.
The manuscripts are not only important for the history of art, but also extremely valuable to the history of music,
as these choirbooks offer a unique overview of music production in the Low Countries and northern France. They
contain both religious and profane music composed over a period of seventy years. Masses, motets and songs
by three generations of composers form the heart of the repertoire, from Johannes Ockeghem and Johannes
Regis, through Josquin des Prez and Pierre de la Rue to Jean Richafort and Adriaan Willaert.
Laus Polyphoniae 2015 brings Petrus Alamire’s world back to life with more than a hundred musical activities at
different venues in the historical areas of the city. You will be able to hear world premières of masterpieces that
have been gathering dust for centuries. Embark on a twelve-day voyage of musical discovery from 19th to 30th
August, with walks, lunch concerts, evening concerts and nocturnes. There are about twenty top ensembles from
Belgium and abroad on the programme: Huelgas Ensemble, Zefiro Torna, Cappella Pratensis, BL!NDMAN &
Collegium Vocale Gent, Mezzaluna & Lute Consort Paul O’Dette, The Tallis Scholars, Stile Antico, Cut Circle and
many more.
Continue your journey into the world of polyphony with workshops at the International Petrus Alamire Lab and
open lecture performances by a host of international specialists including Raquel Andueza, Jennifer Bloxam,
Fabrice Fitch, Jesse Rodin and Paul Van Nevel.
We extend a warm welcome to Antwerp for Laus Polyphoniae 2015, the summer festival where images and
sound come together and reveal the world of five hundred years ago.
International conference: Petrus Alamire – New Perspectives on Polyphony
KU Leuven, Carolus Campus, Antwerp
Musicologists, performers of polyphonic music and organisers of early music festivals from all over the world will
attend the opening of the exhibition and the start of Laus Polyphoniae. They will be in Antwerp for a five-day
international conference to discuss the latest musicological insights into the Alamire manuscripts and their history,
meaning and repertoire, and to debate the challenges of late mediaeval polyphony in performance practice.
Never before have so many people from different backgrounds come together for an academic conference on
Alamire.
Link to the programme: http://alamirefoundation.org/en/activiteiten/international-conference-petrus-alamire-newperspectives-polyphony
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PETRUS ALAMIRE EXHIBITION – FOCUS ON SEVEN CHOIRBOOKS
Seven particularly interesting choirbooks form the focus of the exhibition. They were made in Mechelen, where
Alamire had his workshop, and are still preserved in Belgium. They include the imposing and magnificently
illuminated Mechelen Choirbook (stored in Mechelen City Archive) and six manuscripts from the Royal Library of
Belgium in Brussels.
1. Mechelen Choirbook (B-MEa, Ms., s.s)
B-MEa Ms. S.s, opening miniature, fol. 1v
B-MEa Ms. S.s, fol. 34v
This large choirbook from Petrus Alamire’s workshop is the only one to have remained in Mechelen. It has been
preserved in particularly good condition and contains exquisite miniatures, some of which were probably painted
by miniaturist Gerard Horenbout. This prestigious book was probably made for Emperor Charles V’s coming of
age (at the age of 15) in 1515-1516 and his coronation as King of Spain in 1516.
2. Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium, Ms. 9126
Choirbook for Philip the Fair and Joanna of Castile (ca. 1505)
This music manuscript opens with a beautifully illuminated
frontispiece depicting the patrons and/or recipients of the manuscript:
Philip the Fair, the Duke of Burgundy who had just become King of
Spain, and Joanna of Castile, later known as ‘Joanna the Mad’,
Charles V’s parents. The choirbook begins with a mass by Josquin
des Prez, the leading composer of the time and the most famous to
date. This hefty volume also contains masses and motets by
composers who all had a connection with Philip’s court chapel, such
as Alexander Agricola and Pierre de La Rue. The book has many
similarities with the famous Chigi Codex that is now in the Vatican
library.
B-Br KB Ms 9126, fol. 2r
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3. Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium, Ms. 215-16
Seven Swords, Seven Sorrows: Marian devotion around 1500
B-Br KB 215-216, fol. 33v
As small as this parchment choirbook is, it is noteworthy for being entirely devoted to the ‘Seven Sorrows of
Mary,’ a popular festival at the time. The manuscript belonged to Charles de Clerc (+1533) and his wife Anne
Annoke, a high-ranking court official. His coat of arms, combined with that of his wife, adorns the pages of Pierre
De La Rue’s Missa de Septem doloribus, written especially for this ceremony, which is the first piece of music in
the manuscript.
The motet Memorare Mater Christi, written by Pipelare especially for the occasion, features a miniature of Mary
with seven swords in reference to her seven sorrows. The motet itself also has seven voices.
4. Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium, Ms 228 – The Chansonnier of Margaret of Austria
The emotions of the ‘grande dame’ Margaret in secular songs
The ‘great lady’ and ‘dear aunt’ Margaret was also known as the
‘grieving lady.’ Her unhappy married life and grief over the premature
death of her brother Philip and her stillborn children left their mark on
her life. She was ‘great’ as a lover of art, literature and music, who
also attracted a circle of scholars and played an important role in
politics. Her melancholy disposition lay at the root of a new genre of
French songs: the regretz-chanson. Many of these mournful songs
have been passed down to us in two chansonniers that were
probably put together under Margaret’s expert supervision. One of
them, the larger and more magnificent of the two, was created in
Petrus Alamire’s workshop. It is an unusually personal book almost
entirely composed of secular songs, many of which make reference
to Margaret’s personal life.
B-Br Ms 228, fol. 2
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5. Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium, Ms. IV 922
A manuscript for Pompejus Occo, a rich banker in Amsterdam, for use in his private chapel ‘Heilige
Stede’
KBR, Ms. IV 922, fol.42v
vv42v42v
The Occo Codex, dedicated to the rite of Holy Communion, was probably commissioned by the Dutch banker
Pompejus Occo. He worked in Amsterdam for a branch of the bank belonging to the Fuggers, the Emperor’s
financiers, and had his own chapel. Occo had personal contact with Petrus Alamire. The manuscript he
commissioned included masses, mainly by composers who had connections to the French court (such as
Mouton, Gascogne and Forestier). This luxurious book is characterised by its many beautifully coloured,
grotesque initials.
6. Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium, Ms. 15075
A choirbook for the royal wedding of Catharine of Austria and John III of Portugal
Another sumptuous choirbook, with seven masses by composer-inresidence Pierre de La Rue, was commissioned by Margaret of Austria for
Catharine, the youngest sister of Charles V, presumably as a wedding gift
for her marriage to John III of Portugal in 1524. The miniatures and initials,
combining religious tableaux and grotesque figures, are unique. They bear
witness to a somewhat later style.
KBR, Ms. 15075, fol. 1v, detail Maria- miniatuur
miniatuur
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7. Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium, Ms. 6428
A Choirbook for Emperor Maximilian of Austria that has fallen prey to the ravages of time
This manuscript is not only the largest but one in the entire Alamire complex, but
unfortunately also the most badly damaged. All the heraldic references, initials and
illuminations have been cut out of it. This large choirbook was most probably made
for Emperor Maximilian, the father of Philip the Fair and Margaret of Austria. It
contains seven masses, six of which were composed by Margaret’s court composer
Pierre de La Rue and the seventh by Heinrich Isaac, Maximilian’s court composer.
KBR, Ms 6428, fol. 62v
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ALAMIRE MEDIA INSTALLATION – RUDI KNOOPS
Concept
Rudi Knoops’ media installation invites visitors to take a physical walk through the rich polyphonic fabric of the
music in Petrus Alamire’s manuscripts. In a spatialised setting, each musician is projected individually and the
sound and images are presented together. In the centre of the installation, the multiple auditory layers coalesce
into a surround sound. However approaching one of the performers makes a more analytic listening mode
possible. For the visual layers, Rudi Knoops used the technique of cylindrical anamorphosis: a distorted image
that can be observed in its reconstituted form through reflection in a cylindrical mirror. Observing a single
anamorphosis brings the visitor closer to the projected image (and sound) of an individual musical performer and
amplifies the analytical listening mode. The multiple use of anamorphosis obliges visitors to make choices and
invites them to explore and experience the polyphonic texture of the music spatially and physically. In this multilayered universe, visitors choose for themselves which individual musical lines to emphasise. They go in search
of interesting perspectives – whether auditory, visual or a combination of the two – to create their own unique
perspective on the polyphonic music performed.
Concept drawing of the installation
Anamorphosis
For the visual aspect of the Alamire media installation, Rudi Knoops has opted for the technique of
anamorphosis. This is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as “A distorted projection or drawing of an object which
appears normal when viewed from a particular point or with a suitable mirror or lens.”
Anamorphosis is a technique developed in the Renaissance as an undercurrent – or corruption – of the rules of
linear or central perspective. It is an optical curiosity that plays with the laws of linear perspective and
simultaneously exposes those laws. The most famous example of the use of anamorphosis is probably The
Ambassadors, painted by Hans Holbein in 1533 (National Gallery, London). Looking at the painting from the
correct angle is the key to decoding the distorted image in the foreground of this painting and seeing it as the
depiction of a skull.
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This is an example of perspective or oblique anamorphosis, which does not require a physical tool to see the
image. Standing at an extremely oblique angle to the surface of the painting is the key to seeing the distorted
image correctly. In a second type of anamorphosis – catoptric anamorphosis – physical tools are required.
Special mirrors, in the form of a cone, pyramid or cylinder, are used to reconstruct the image. For example, a
cylindrical mirror is used for cylindrical anamorphoses. The reflection in the cylindrical mirror shows the
reconstructed image.
Jean-François Niceron’s drawing of St. Francis of Paola in La Perspective Curieuse (1638) illustrates the principle
of distortion in cylindrical anamorphosis. It is a transformation of a Cartesian coordinate system to an almost polar
coordinate system.
Layers and reflections: a listening experience
Each musician is filmed separately from head to toe against a black background. The images are then projected
in a distorted form onto various screens. There is a cylindrical mirror in the middle of each distorted image. The
recording can only be seen in its original form by looking into the mirror from a specific point. These layers of
visual imagery are countered in the sonorous polyphony of the recording: where each image is projected, the
corresponding sound can be heard. The ideal ‘listening angle’ is always exactly the same as the spot where the
visual anamorphosis can be perceived.
The way in which these manipulated auditory and visual layers influence interaction with the installation is
remarkable. This is because the sound can always be perceived best from the centre of the installation, where
the various auditory layers come together to create a ‘surround sound’. Visually, however, there is no ideal
perspective from which visitors can fully comprehend all the images. It is possible to find an ideal perspective on
each of the individual anamorphoses, but the fact that there are many of them invites – or even forces – the
viewer to make choices. The search for a good visual perspective pushes the observer out of the centre of the
installation. It is this tension, the friction between sound and image, that sends the observer in search of
interesting perspectives, whether auditory, visual or a combination of the two.
In this way, the installation invites the visitor to walk among the layers of Renaissance polyphony as they were
notated by Petrus Alamire. Viewers and listeners are challenged to find a personal perspective and emphasise
individual lines in the music for themselves: an interactive game that allows people a glimpse of contemporary
research into polyphony and audiovisual techniques.
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PETRUS ALAMIRE – POLYPHONY IN THE PICTURE: PLAN OF THE EXHIBITION
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INFORMATION ON THE DIGITALISATION OF THE MANUSCRIPTS (article in Staalkaart 2013)
A musical breakthrough
The digitalisation of Petrus Alamire’s manuscripts
Bart Demuyt, a familiar face in early music, is a man of many houses and organisations: the
Alamire Foundation, Huis van de Polyfonie, AMUZ, Laus Polyphoniae. As the artistic leader of
these organisations, he has set up a large-scale project based on the corpus of manuscripts by
Petrus Alamire, the illustrious 16th century music calligrapher.
Bart Demuyt knows better than anyone what cooperation and networking mean. Even the doors of
the prestigious Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana were opened for him. The fruits of this unusual
collaboration on Alamire will lead to a genuine breakthrough in the world of music, he assures us,
after a long conversation in the Huis van de Polyfonie at the glorious Park Abbey site in Heverlee,
near Leuven.
A man with a mission
Bart Demuyt is also a man with a mission: that much is clear. Full of enthusiasm, he gets straight to the
point: "The Alamire Foundation, the International Centre for the study of music in the Low Countries, is
actually best known for its research into polyphony, with a specific focus on the work of Petrus Alamire
and his workshop. The foundation, a joint venture between the Musicology Research Unit at Leuven
University and Musica, Impulse Centre for Music, has already been going for twenty years. Its mission
was clear from the start, academic research, but always with the intention of putting its findings to good
use in terms of practical and social impact. This is also why I deliberately transferred five years ago from
artistic leadership of the Concertgebouw in Bruges to the research centre in Leuven, because it offered
me so many possibilities to convert research into practice. I am a great proponent of breaking down the
barriers, in whatever way, between the world of performers and that of researchers.
“For this reason, I accepted the offer from Antwerp some time later to take on the artistic leadership of the
music centre AMUZ, which I had already been involved with for quite some time for the early music
festival Laus Polyphoniae. My condition for doing so, admittedly, was that it would lead to close
cooperation between Leuven and Antwerp. After all, it is a real benefit for a study centre with a clear
mission based on research and enhancing value to actually have an international stage on which to put
that mission into practice. And St Augustine’s Church is not just any old platform. It is beautifully restored
heritage that has gained a new lease of life as a concert hall. It is an absolutely excellent venue, in both
architectural and acoustic terms. It allows us to develop activities in which the material we are studying in
Leuven can be performed at international level.”
Bart Demuyt is an old hand in the early music business. Previously, he ran the Concertgebouw and
directed the early music festival Musica Antiqua in Bruges, and before that he was an educational worker
at Muziekactief and Musica, places where he gained the experience he needed.
"What has struck me throughout my career is the need to bridge the gap between research and music
practice. And that does not so much mean creating a physical space as a way of working. To give a
simple example: when I worked as a festival organiser, if I heard that a certain musicologist was studying
a topic that was interesting to include in a festival context, I would try and get the musicologist and
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performer to work together on that theme. That led to plans for a concert that we programmed a year
later. After that, the partnership was put on hold for an entire year until a few days before the concert. I
always found it such a shame that the time in between was left more or less unused. It meant that the
maturation process was lacking that we needed for the tiny seeds of ideas to grow at their own speed. We
did not have a meeting place where musicologists and musicians, and people from other disciplines as
well, could find room and breathing space to think about and work on something together. And then
equally well to be able to decide after a while that they were on the wrong track. That is not possible if a
concert is scheduled. I believe we missed a lot of opportunities by working that way in the past.”
Now a meeting place of that kind does exist, in the form of the Huis van de Polyfonie, located in the newly
restored Mariapoort in Park Abbey.
"This magnificent place more or less fell into our laps. All at once the mayor of Leuven asked me if we
wanted our organisation to have a presence in the abbey grounds. Of course we were delighted to
accept. The Huis van de Polyphonie has an important function as a laboratory and space to collect
instruments. Let me give two examples. Polyphony is often seen as purely vocal. However we know, for
example from iconographic material, that keyboard instruments were also used. To date that is
unexplored terrain. But we will soon be able to invest in a gothic organ with support from the Province of
Flemish Brabant. The instrument will then be available to musicians and researchers involved with this
subject.
“Another music lab is investigating ‘page design.’ An illuminated music manuscript would be placed on a
music stand in front of the singers. They would all focus on that one book, which contained the notes but
the many illuminations that formed a kind of shared, coded language. We wondered what would happen if
we put a printed version of the same piece of music, without illuminations, beside it on the music stand.
We are now researching whether the page design has a fundamental influence on the resulting sound.”
All roads lead to Rome
Commuting between Antwerp and Leuven is all part of the
job. And recently Demuyt has added a third workplace:
Rome. Researchers at the Alamire Foundation and Leuven
University have obtained permission from the Vatican to
digitalise all the manuscripts of music from the Low
Countries in various collections in the Vatican library and to
provide them with metadata. These collections contain the
most important manuscripts from the late 14 th to early 17 th
centuries, including the manuscripts by Petrus Alamire.
"Rome is part of a far larger story, which we have now been working on for more than four years. It all
began with an evaluation of our activities at the Alamire Foundation. What were we doing? What did we
want to focus on in the future?
“One of our great strengths is the study of the extremely valuable corpus of manuscripts by Petrus
Alamire. This calligrapher brought together the work of leading composers of his time in around sixty
precious choirbooks. Almost all of these codices have survived, but they are scattered all over Europe.
There are five in the Vatican, and others in Munich, Jena, London, Montserrat, Oxford, Verona, Florence,
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Vienna, and of course in the Low Countries as well, in Brussels, Mechelen and ’s-Hertogenbosch.
“We had already done considerable research into the Alamire codices in the past. But at the same time
we realised how much potential Alamire’s work still held for research. A large proportion of it has not yet
been made accessible. So we intend to commit completely to this musical heritage in a very
contemporary way. This is the rationale behind the plan to digitalise all the manuscripts. It can only
benefit research into these unique sources and the conservation of these precious books. Oxford
University, where researchers are also involved with the Alamire corpus, has become a research partner
that was prepared to join us in digitalising the entire corpus within a foreseeable period. "
So much for the story behind the research. All that remained to be done was to find the means and
necessary funding to do it.
“It was very important to us to have the tools for making the digital images in our own hands. With my
colleague David Burn, professor of musicology at Leuven University, I applied for funding from the
Hercules Foundation, which finances infrastructure for academic research. Their support allowed us to
get started with the Alamire Digital Lab, a mobile laboratory with the best equipment available in the
world. We use scanners that can digitalise images in extremely high resolution: up to 100 million pixels.
This enables us to zoom right in on details that cannot even be seen with the naked eye. This has led to
the observation, for example, that some decorations have been painted over. What is more, several
different scribes often worked on a single codex. These extremely sharp images now make it possible to
determine with far more precision what work was done by a given scribe. The transcription of these digital
images into contemporary scores can also be done with a technological tool. All this has led us to
numerous new elements and insights that we can use in our research.
“Since it was set up, we have already used this mobile laboratory at various places in Europe and we are
more or less finished with digitalising the entire Alamire corpus of around 17 500 images.”
That does not include the manuscripts in the Vatican though. The Vatican did not initially welcome the
request from Leuven with open arms. But Demuyt does not give up easily. It took a good year of
negotiations before the doors of the Bibliotheca Apostolica were opened to him.
“It’s fairly understandable that they weren’t overenthusiastic to begin with. There are tens of thousands of
manuscripts in there waiting to be digitalised. They understand our needs, but our Alamire project was
absolutely not a priority for the library itself. So I took a risk and made it resolutely clear to them how
important our high-tech lab and the academic expertise of the Alamire Foundation are, not just for Alamire
but also for the polyphony of the Low Countries. We finally agreed that we would not only digitalise the
six Alamire manuscripts, but also the entire corpus of music manuscripts from the Low Countries owned
by the Vatican. That comes to a total of 14 000 pages that all still need to be analysed and described
right down to the last detail.
“We went to Rome with a huge truck carrying all our equipment at the beginning of November and set up
camp there for six months. It is not exactly camping, of course! Three of our staff (rotating from a pool of
seven people) are almost constantly at work there. After all, the work is extremely painstaking and
requires great concentration.
“To finance all this, I went to speak to Joke Schauvliege, the Minister of Culture, who soon realised what
an enormous opportunity this presented to make this valuable heritag e from our region known around the
world. Making all these manuscripts from the Vatican library accessible is of course incredibly good news.
If you have any idea what they contain, and if you consider how difficult they were to access before we
arrived, you will realise it is a major breakthrough. We hope to be able to publish all the material from the
digitised manuscripts at the end of this year. All these things that were largely inaccessible will then be
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available to everyone through the new digital database IDEM (Integrated Database for Early Music). I can
assure you that something like this will make huge waves in the music world.”
Collective memory
In all this euphoria, of course, Bart Demuyt has not forgotten his mission.
“This result is not only significant to academics or musicians involved with early music: it also has a
considerable social impact. Take education, for example. We are convinced that the polyphonists of the
Low Countries are in the same league as the Flemish Primitives. Nonetheless, we find that painters like
Jan van Eyck are widely taught in education, whereas the name of a great master like Josquin des Prez is
not known to the general public at all. So we still have a long way to go.”
We also applied for funding from the Agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) and
obtained a substantial grant – in fact we were the first organisation in the cultural sector to do so – to do
further research into the Alamire corpus and to put that research to practical use. The main premise of
the IWT’s SBO (Strategic Basic Research) programme is that you share your research findings in as
many ways as possible with all groups in society who can use it. These groups are highly diverse:
ordinary schools and colleges, part-time arts education, organisations for arts education, professional
music ensembles and dance companies including amateur groups, and even pre -school education and
crèches. We need to consider how to share our knowledge with all these groups. Obviously this is easier
with Paul Van Nevel’s Huelgas Ensemble than with toddlers and small children. In the latter case, for
example, it might be a question of developing ways of playing with the children that introduce them to the
musical language of the sixteenth century, which might make early music more accessible to later
generations. Compare it to a creative jigsaw of a painting by Van Eyck.”
Fortunately Bart Demuyt can count on the support of loyal partners in all this: staff at Leuven and Oxford
universities, AMUZ, and last but not least, his own Alamire Foundation.
“I am lucky to have a very strong board of directors behind me, under the stimulating chairmanship of
Prof. Emer. Herman Vanden Berghe. Finally, we also involved the University of Antwerp to supervise the
social implementation process. And we have consulted the department of electrical engineering (ESAT) at
Leuven University as well. They are now working on a programme which can print out a con temporary
transcription of an early music manuscript at the touch of a button, as it were. Transcribing is presently an
extremely time-consuming chore. If they succeed, it will turn the entire world of musicology upside down.
“The last partner to come into the spotlight is AMUZ (Flanders Festival – Antwerp). That will be where
everything comes together in 2015. The Laus Polyphoniae festival will focus entirely on the music from
the Alamire manuscripts. We are also organising a world conference. And Laus Polyphoniae will be the
starting point for a travelling exhibition in which we will present Alamire’s treasures to visitors using the
latest technology and most recent research findings. After Antwerp, the exhibition will travel to Rome,
then 's-Hertogenbosch, followed by London and York and then all around the world. In this way we will
make this rich musical and artistic heritage accessible to people far beyond our national borders .”
And who knows, Demuyt muses, maybe the music history of the Low Countries will soon look quite
different. “Every stylistic period has its canon that is shared by a wide audience. I expect everyone can
name Bach in connection with the Baroque or Mozart and Beethoven for the classical period. We can
rightly speak of a canon here, because there is a lot of baroque and classical music available. We do
have a canon of polyphonic music already, but actually it is based on far too small a field. We also have a
huge amount of anonymous work from the period. Once everything has been made accessible, we might
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be able to attribute anonymous pieces to specific composers. I would go as far as to claim that we can
only say for sure that Josquin belongs to the polyphonic canon once the Alamire corpus and the many
other works of that period have been digitised and researched. This digitisation project is providing us
with new material and information, bit by bit, that will generate new projects in turn.”
(Leen Boereboom - © Staalkaart, 2013 http://www.staalkaart.be/?q=artikels/een-muzikale-doorbraak)
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PRESS CONTACT FOR AMUZ
Klaartje Heiremans
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You will find image material in the press section of the AMUZ website:
www.amuz.be/pers
Password: Pers-W8chtwoord
CONTACT FOR ALAMIRE FOUNDATION
Klaartje Proesmans
+32 (0)16 32 37 46 | klaartje.proesmans@kuleuven.be
www.petrusalamire.com
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PARTNERS
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