Presenting the first complete recording of the Leuven Chansonnier!

In 2015 the Alamire Foundation, the International Centre for the Study of Music in the Low Countries, was approached by an art historian working on behalf of an art dealer, seeking musicological advice about a small music manuscript. Subsequent research quickly unveiled its significance: the manuscript was identified as a previously unknown fifteenth-century chansonnier. Since the original owner could not yet be ascertained, it was named the “Leuven Chansonnier”, reflecting its new location in the Library of Voices, one of the buildings that the Alamire Foundation occupies on the historic Park Abbey site in Leuven (BE). The songbook is of exceptional value. It transmits 50 compositions, consisting of one religious work and 49 French chansons, 12 of which survive in no other source. Although no composers’ names are mentioned, other sources identify the composers of 26 of its works; these include such leading fifteenth-century Franco-Flemish polyphonists such as Johannes Ockeghem, Antoine Busnoys, and Firminus Caron. The creators of the other 24 chansons remain anonymous for the time being.

Sollazzo Ensemble is a critically acclaimed group dedicated to the performance of Medieval and Renaissance music. Founded in 2014 by Anna Danilevskaia, the ensemble is known for its highly expressive delivery and its distinctive sound and approach, shaped by the diverse musical backgrounds and personalities of its members. Drawing on historical repertoires and informed performance criteria, the group aims to convey emotions they have personally experienced or to express ideas that hold meaning for them. This process of appropriating historical artifacts through layers of rigorous creative work forms the basis of their communication with the public, as they seek to give each piece a voice that reflects the historical roots of the material as well as the ensemble’s unique vision

Booklet: EN, FR, NL

Johannes Pullois was probably born in Pulle, a village in the Kempen region near Antwerp. From 1443 to 1447, Pullois was a singer and then the singing master at the Church of Our Lady, where his colleagues included Johannes Ockeghem. He applied in vain for a job at the Burgundian court chapel, but he had more success at the papal music chapel in the Vatican: from December 1447 until August 1468, he served under no fewer than four popes (Nicholas V, Callixtus II, Pius II and Paul II). During his stay in Rome, he received several benefices from the dioceses of Cambrai and Utrecht. Pullois returned to Antwerp in 1468 and worked at the Church of Our Lady for another ten years.

Like Ockeghem, Pullois experimented in the 1440s with the new principle of the cyclic mass, in which the same thematic material recurs in the different parts of the mass. The principle was already established in English music. Did Pullois have access to the same English sources that inspired Ockeghem to compose his Missa Caput? Motets and chansons by Pullois have also been preserved, along with the oldest known polyphonic songs in Dutch. His work was also distributed in Italy, and much of Pullois’ work is now found in Italian manuscripts. Incidentally, the Christmas motet Flos de spina is also included in a Czech source. Instrumental adaptations of two chansons (Pour toutes fleurs / Sutoutes and De ma dame / De ma dame) are included in the German Buxheimer Orgelbuch. The ballad La bonté du Saint-Esperit was written in honour of one of the popes under whom Pullois served.

Booklet: EN, DE, FR, NL

The Leuven Chansonnier (1470–75) includes not only fifty compositions by such leading 15th century FrancoFlemish names as Johannes Ockeghem, Antoine Busnoys and Firminus Caron but also twelve newly rediscovered works that exist in no other source. The Ensemble Sollazzo here brings a selection of this music to life in an interpretation that is both brilliant and refreshing. With the present Volumes 3 and 4, the final instalment of the complete recording of this fascinating manuscript is now available.

Booklet: EN, FR, NL

Lyrics: FR, EN

The Leuven Chansonnier (1470–75) includes not only fifty compositions by such leading 15th century Franco-Flemish names as Johannes Ockeghem, Antoine Busnoys and Firminus Caron but also twelve newly rediscovered works that exist in no other source. The Ensemble Sollazzo here brings a selection of this music to life in an interpretation that is both brilliant and refreshing.

Booklet: EN, FR, NL

In 2015 the Alamire Foundation in Leuven was approached by an art historian working on behalf of an art dealer, seeking musicological advice about a small musical manuscript. Research immediately revealed it to be not simply an old music book, but a previously unknown 15th-century chansonnier. Since the original owner could not yet be identified it was named the “Leuven Chansonnier”, reflecting its new location. The book is of exceptional value. It includes 50 compositions, consisting of one religious work (Ave Regina celorum by Walter Frye) and 49 French chansons. Although no composers’ names are mentioned, thanks to concordances with 38 chansons in contemporaneous chansonniers, the composers of 26 chansons have been identified; these include such leading 15th-century Franco-Flemish names as Johannes Ockeghem, Antoine Busnoys, and Firminus Caron. The rest of the chansons have remained anonymous. 

Booklet: EN, FR, IT, NL

Lyrics: FR, EN, NL