Le corps s’en va et le cueur vous demeure
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€ 22 - check our reductions
The Leuven Chansonnier manuscript was probably created near the Loire valley around 1470-75. The manuscript is remarkably small in size and raises the question what function it had: was it used directly by groups to make music, or was it intended for personal use, or to be able to follow the music as it was played? After all, it is not much bigger than an iPhone. Its size, exceptionally good condition and the selection of chansons seem to suggest that this was a special personal object.
Universal themes such as love, hope and loss are sung about in a courtly, sometimes artificial language, and provide an intimate insight into the 15th-century chanson culture. The body, and in particular the heart, plays an important role in this third chapter of the marathon series.
Rare songbook continues to inspire
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Voices of Passion
The Leuven Chansonnier: 50 gems in 4 concerts
Leuven and polyphony have long been closely connected. Together with the Alamire Foundation, we put this tradition and the contemporary knowledge and performance practice in the spotlight during the Voices of Passion festival. The 2024 edition will focus entirely on the Leuven Chansonnier, the Flemish masterpiece from the late fifteenth century which contains a treasure trove of polyphonic music.
When an old, unknown book was presented to the Alamire Foundation in 2015 for examination, the manuscript exceeded all expectations. With the help of various disciplines, such as musicology, heraldry, art history, textile history and linguistics, researchers have gained an insight into the manuscript’s provenance and history in recent years. It turned out to be a late fifteenth-century songbook containing a treasure trove of polyphonic music: forty-nine French chansons, preceded by Walter Frye’s religious motet Ave regina caelorum.
The extraordinary find caused a stir in the arts and heritage world; with the chansonnier recognised as a Flemish masterpiece in 2018. The songs embody the pinnacle of fifteenth-century Franco-Flemish polyphony to French medieval lyrics, an exceptional discovery.
The small songbook was named Leuven Chansonnier, after the city where the Alamire Foundation resides and the chansonnier is kept. After a world premiere in New York and conferences, lectures and performances in Tokyo, Ambronay, Rome, Berlin, York and Antwerp, the Sollazzo Ensemble led by vielle player Anna Danilevskaia and the Sollazzo Ensemble will bring all fifty compositions from the songbook in various line-ups to conclude this major research and recording project.
The musicians of the young vocal-instrumental Sollazzo - the ensemble currently mesmerizing the international music world - will be in residence at the House of Polyphony with the Alamire Foundation during the Voices of Passion festival and will perform all fifty chansons in an exceptional concert marathon.
Four unique concerts that allow you to discover a fifteenth-century musical gem note-by-note. A once-in-a-lifetime experience!
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artistic direction Anna Danilevskaia with Carine Tinney (soprano), Andrew Hallock (countertenor), Jonatan Alvarado (tenor), Christoph Sommer (lute), Johanna Bartz (flute) and Anna Danilevskaia (vihuela de arco)
