Collegium Vocale Gent

Laus Polyphoniae 2026, Antwerp

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Laus Polyphoniae 2026
Voices of Europe circa 1600: continent of counterpoint
Antwerp
21 – 29 August 2026


Laus Polyphoniae is the annual summer festival organised by AMUZ (Flanders Festival Antwerp), dedicated to the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Since its inception in 1994, the festival has become the largest festival dedicated to the western heritage of polyphony following a focus on Historically Informed Performance (HIP). Following last year’s festival devoted to “Polyphony from the age of cathedral builders (1140-1440)”, this year the focus was on music of the decades around 1600 with Voices of Europe circa 1600: continent of counterpoint reflecting a period when music was at a defining moment of change as the polyphony of Palestrina gave way to the early Baroque gestures of Monteverdi. Music that would later be called Renaissance or Baroque existed in parallel, as demonstrated by the festival’s portrait of this many-voiced Europe as music printing opened the transmission of new ideas, as composers and scores migrated. Laus Polyphoniae also focuses on young up-and-coming talent through the International Young Artist’s Presentation (IYAP), reviewed here, held on the first Saturday of the Festival.

Continue reading →

Bach: Johannes-Passion

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

J S Bach: Johannes-Passion
Collegium Vocale Gent, Philippe Herreweghe
Outhere/PHI LPH031. 2CDs 107’08

 

Cover of CD of Herreweghe Bach Johannes Passion

I can often predict the way in which a performance of the Johannes-Passion is going to develop by the manner in which the opening instrumental bars are performed. The texture appears simple. Swirling low strings underpinned by the repetitive pulse of continuo bass, with two oboes slowly intertwining dissonance-laden melodic lines above them. It is one of those passages of music that can be interpreted in many ways, resulting in differing moods ranging from sinister, threatening, mysterious, to gently calming. Continue reading →

Laus Polyphoniae 2015 – Antwerp

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ 1 Comment

Laus Polyphoniae – Antwerp

WP_20150825_19_32_43_ProThis year, Antwerp’s annual Laus Polyphoniae festival, now in its 22nd year, celebrated one it can claim as its own (at least for a period): the music copyist Petrus Alamire, creator of some of the most extraordinary music manuscripts in the decades around 1500. Born in Nuremburg, Alamire (a musical alias of Peter Imhof: A-la-mi-re)  soon moved to the Low Countries and quickly established himself as compiler of beautiful scores of music of Franco-Flemish composers, then at the peak of their importance. His clients included many of the crowned heads of Europe. His choirbooks contain more than 800 pieces, composed over a period of around 70 years, with the emphasis on masses, motets and chansons. Collectively they represent the development of the important Renaissance polyphonic style in the Low Countries and northern France. Continue reading →

Bachfest Leipzig: 2015

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ 2 Comments

Bachfest Leipzig
“So glorious you stand, dear city”
12-21 June 2015

WP_20150612_16_47_43_ProThe festival motto reflects the fact that 2015 is the millennium of the first documentary record of Leipzig, when the Bishop of Merseburg mentioned the town of “urbe libzi” in his chronicle in 1015. The phrase So herrlich stehst du, liebe Stadt! is taken from Bach’s cantata Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn (BWV 119), written in 1723 in honour of the Leipzig city council, the ‘dear city’ clearly referring both to Jerusalem and Leipzig. It was performed by the Thomanerchor and the Händelfestspielorchester Halle at the opening concert of the festival (held, unusually, in the Nikolaikirche rather than the Thomaskirche, on 12 June, 5pm) where it followed Max Reger’s arrangement for organ of Bach’s Chromatische Fantasie und Fuge d-Moll, played by Stefan Kießling with commendable restraint.

Written within a few months of his arrival in Leipzig, Bach’s large scale Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn (one of many such ‘Ratswahl’ cantatas Continue reading →