15th century songs performed in a worldwide première in New York

29th of September 2017

Musicians rarely have the opportunity to perform pieces of music that remained unpublished for half a millennium. This was the privilege enjoyed by the Sollazzo Ensemble when, on July 11th, they interpreted twelve 15th century songs in the Morgan Library and Museum of New York as part of the celebrations of the Flemish Feast day.

The songs, which were totally unknown until recently, were rediscovered in early 2017 thanks to the acquisition of the Leuven Chansonnier by the Léon Courtin-Marcelle Bouché Fund. The King Baudouin Foundation has entrusted this collection of songs from the end of the Middle Ages to the Alamire Foundation in Leuven, the international centre for the study of music from the Southern Netherlands

The exceptional aspect of this collection is that it is complete and the chansonnier still has its original slips and brocade binding.. The work is the smallest polyphonic song book known to date and the unpublished compositions form a particularly interesting document in relation to the history of Belgian music as well as for the music of the 15th century in general.