Huelgas Ensemble & Paul Van Nevel - The Music Prints of Christophe Plantin (2018) [Hi-Res]

The Antwerp based French printer Christophe Plantin (1520-1589) achieved international renown through his epic bible editions (e.g. the eight part “Biblia Regia”) and elaborate humanistic works by the likes of Justus Lipsius and the mathematician Simon Stevin. On the other hand, his fame as a publisher of ground-breaking music prints of esteemed sixteenth century composers, often presented as monumental choir books, seems today to have gone relatively unnoticed.

This programme illustrates the great musical quality of his publications. Works, indeed, that without doubt contributed to the wider dissemination of European polyphony. The concert consists of mass movements by Jacobus De Kerle (1531-1591) – printed in a sumptuous choir book – and the chapel master at Vienna, Philippus De Monte (1521-1603). To contrast we have the extensive chanson repertoire of Andries Pervenage (1542-1591), music master at Antwerp Cathedral, published by Plantin in four consecutive volumes. Plantin was well connected to a variety of European musical establishments, hence his broad artistic range, from his unique edition of works by the French Huguenot Claude Le Jeune (Livre de melanges, 1585) to the multi-voiced “papal” hymnal of Catholic church music by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525 - 1594).

The listener is transported to an unjustly neglected sound world of diverse radiance, courtesy of one of the greatest music publishers of the Renaissance.

Huelgas Ensemble
Olivier Coiffet, Tenor
Achim Schulz, Cembalo
Axelle Bernage, Sopran
Paul Van Nevel, Leitung