In the 15th and 16th centuries, singers and music from the Low Countries were in high demand all over Italy. Guillaume Du Fay is sometimes considered the first of the ‘oltremontani’ (‘the ones from over the mountains’), but it’s time to update that assumption: the earliest musical contacts between the Low Countries and Italy date back to about 1400! Clerics such as Johannes Engardus from Bruges, or Hubertus de Salinis and Johannes Ciconia – both of whom worked in the principality of Liège – crossed the Alps to carve out a career. Ciconia is doubtless the most famous among them. The Dutch ensemble Diskantores, founded in 2015 by students, alumni and staff of the conservatoire in The Hague, takes a deep dive into history, presenting work that has survived in an incomplete or anonymous form but is attributed to Ciconia by researchers. These compositions, seldom performed because of their incompleteness, can now be heard live in new reconstructions with thanks to the research project Lacunae Ciconiae.
Program
Motets, chansons and ballate by Anon., J. Engardus, H. de Salinis, B. de Padua & J. Ciconia
Performers
Andrew Hallock, Oscar Verhaar, countertenor | Benjamin Jago Larham, Vincent Chomienne, tenor | Cristina Alís Raurich, keyboard instruments | Niels Berentsen, tenor & artistic leader
