The landscape of the polyphonists

In 2018, Paul Van Nevel wrote a book - ‘The Landscape of the Polyphonists’ - about these more than two hundred composers who, for more than one hundred and fifty years, left their mark on the style of vocal polyphony across the continent of Europe. Their style is based on two structures: the technique of imitation; and melody that is bathed in a haze of melancholy. In his book, Van Nevel defends the hypothesis that the Franco-Flemish landscape, with its gentle slopes, its omnipresent horizon, and its never-ending and visible seasonal changes, has left an indelible emotional impression on the children who, between the ages of six and ten, left the safe havens of this landscape and explored beyond their horizons for the first time, entering the colleges and cathedral singing schools of Cambrai, Douai, Arras and elsewhere. Often these children never returned to their birthplaces and became singers and composers at the musical centres of Europe, such as the Burgundian Court, the Habsburg courts and the Sistine Chapel.

This recording is a representation of the Franco-Flemish School in all its varied aspects and links them to images of the regions in which these composers spent their childhood. Repetitions in the landscape (the imitations) and the melancholy of expectation, lying beyond the horizon, are never far away.