In the Footsteps of Alamire

The Mass, the motet, the chanson. These three genres make up the lion’s share of the polyphonic works in the Alamire manuscripts, a body of fifty often opulently illuminated manuscripts of Flemish origin; these were compiled between 1490 and approximately 1530 as a result of the contacts of the Burgundian-Habsburg princes with foreign rulers and religious brotherhoods. They were named after their copyist, one Petrus van der Hove, alias Alamire — his pseudonym spelt out in note names that he often used as his signature on a stave. Seven of these manuscripts are to be found in Belgium: one in the Archief en Stadsbibliotheek of the city of Mechelen, the only one of the seven that is still kept in the city of its creation, and six in Brussels in the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, including the splendid chansonnier or song-book compiled by Margaret of Austria of works by herself and others (Ms. 228). The remaining manuscripts are valued just as highly abroad as in Belgium and are preserved in eleven other European libraries, principally those of Jena, Munich, the Vatican and Vienna.

It can be seen from the above how much store the composers of the Renaissance set by their combining beauty of sound, expression and symbolism with expert and highly skilled compositional techniques. Polyphony was known at that time as the ars perfecta, the perfect art: the word ars here still has its original meaning as the Latin translation of the Greek word technè, meaning learning or skill. Here it signifies the mastery of an extremely difficult technique of combining several vocal lines with each other in such a way that they form a perfect whole and are yet imparted with a deeper significance that goes beyond the simple experience of the senses. It is precisely thanks to this unique combination of reason and emotional power that this music remains timeless.