(b Harelbeke, nr Kortrijk, 1542/3; d Antwerp, 30 July 1591). Flemish composer. On 21 January 1563 he was appointed choirmaster of St Salvator, Bruges, and on 22 September of the same year he was named to a similar post at Onze Lieve Vrouwkerk, Kortrijk. He remained in Kortrijk until 1577 although he held a prebend at St Willibrordus in Hulst in 1564. In 1578 Kortrijk fell briefly to Calvinist rule. By the following year Pevernage had secured the position of choirmaster at St Jacob, Bruges. This city too fell to the Calvinists and Catholic services were suppressed there from May 1581 until 1584. On 1 October 1584 he was reappointed to his former position at Kortrijk and less than a year later became choirmaster at Antwerp Cathedral where he remained until his death. He was buried by the cathedral’s altar of St Anne. Antwerp archives confirm that Pevernage rebuilt the music library destroyed by the Calvinist rebellion and that he was active in humanist circles surrounding the Plantin press.
Pevernage’s sacred output includes Laudes vespertinae (Antwerp, 1604), a posthumous collection of 14 Marian antiphons and sacrament hymns intended for Antwerp confraternity services, and six masses, also published posthumously. The Cantiones sacrae (1578), a collection of sacred and secular motets, includes 25 occasional works written in honour of such notable contemporaries as Margaret of Parma, Louis de Berlaimont (Archbishop of Cambrai), and seven princes of Kortrijk’s St Cecilia guild. A seven-voice hymn to the patroness of music, O virgo generosa, was reportedly sung at concerts held at the composer’s home.
Pevernage’s four books of chansons include over 100 works that appear to be planned according to the type of text set (whether spiritual or profane), voicing and mode. They are mostly for five voices and set texts by poets such as Clément Marot and Philippe Desportes. The first book (1589) includes an epitaph for Plantin, Pleurez muses, attristez vos chansons, while book 3 includes more madrigalistic chansons characterized by picturesque and dramatic text expression. Pevernage was awarded a stipend of £50 by the city of Antwerp for the publication of book 4 and the volume opens with a musical tribute to the city, Clio, chantons. In addition to his work as a composer, Pevernage also edited the popular and influential anthology Harmonia celeste (1583). The volume includes seven of his own madrigals. Four additional madrigals appear in other Italian music anthologies issued in Antwerp by Phalèse and Bellère.
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[6] Missae, 5–7vv (Antwerp, 1602); inc. |
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[39] Cantiones aliquot sacrae, 6–8vv, quibus addita sunt [25] elogia nonnula (Douai, 1578, 2/1602 omits elegies and incl. 1 new motet); 1 ed. F. Commer, Collectio operum musicorum batavorum, viii (Berlin, n.d.) |
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4 motets, 15643-5 |
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5 motets: Dignus es Domine, 4vv; Gloria in excelsis Deo, 9vv; Laude pia Dominum, 5vv; Nata et grata polo, 6vv; Osculetur me, 5vv: engraved in devotional prints by J. Sadeler and A. Collaert (for P. Galle) (n.p., 1587–90); ed. I. Bossuyt and J. van Deun, Andreas Pevernage (1542/43–1591): Beeldmotetten (Bruges, 1985) |
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14 motets, Laudes vespertinae B. Mariae Virginis (Antwerp, 1604, 2/16292, 3/1648) |
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3 motets, A-Ws |
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Chansons … livre premier, contenant chansons spirituelles, 5vv (Antwerp, 1589); Chansons … livre second, 5vv (Antwerp, 1590); Chansons … livre troisième, 5vv (Antwerp, 1590); Chansons … livre quatrième, 6–8vv (Antwerp, 1591): all ed. in RRMR, lx–lxiv (1983) |
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Chansons … tant spirituelles que prophanes, 5vv (Antwerp, 1606) |
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Chansons … a six, sept, et huict parties (Antwerp, 1607) |
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5 works in 158314; 1 in 158315; 2 in 15899; 2 in 159110; 3 in 159710 |
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2 bicinia, 159019 |
G. Caullet: Musiciens de la collégiale Notre-Dame à Courtrai d’après leurs testaments (Kortrijk and Bruges, 1911)
L. Willems: ‘A. Pevernage’s Cantiones sacrae, 1578’, Tijdschrift van het boek - en bibliotheekswezen, ix (1911), 3–18
J.A. Stellfeld: Andries Pevernage: zijne leven, zijne werken (Leuven, 1943)
G.R. Hoekstra: The Chansons of André Pevernage (1542/43–1591) (diss., Ohio State U., 1975)
R. de Man: ‘André Pevernage en Kortrijk (1543–1591)’, Handelingen van de Geschied en Oudheidkundige Kring Kortrijk, xliv (1977), 3–42
G.R. Hoekstra: ‘An Eight-Voice Parody of Lassus: André Pevernage’s “Bon jour mon coeur”’, EMc, vii (1979), 367–77
R. Rasch: De cantiones natalitiae en het kerkelijke muziekleven in de zuidelijke Nederlanden gedurende de zeventiende eeuw (Utrecht, 1985)
B. Bouckaert and others: ‘Andreas Pevernage (1542/3–1591) en het muziekleven in zijn tijd’, Musica antiqua, x/4 (1993), 161–75
G.R. Hoekstra: ‘The Reception and Cultivation of the Madrigal in Antwerp and the Low Countries, 1555–1620’, MD, xlviii (1994), 125–87
KRISTINE FORNEY