An area that includes the present-day Kingdom of the Netherlands (familiarly but imprecisely known as ‘Holland’), Belgium and Luxembourg. These countries have a long history of changing boundaries and political organization. The term ‘Netherlands’ itself has also changed meaning several times. Initially it was a general geographical name covering the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and some northern parts of France; after about the mid-15th century it became increasingly a politico-dynastic designation which referred to the northern domains of the Duke of Burgundy.
Only after the mid-16th century did the word ‘Netherlands’ appear in official documents. Stronger links were forged and there was a greater unity between the various provinces under the rule of the dukes of Burgundy. During the reign of Emperor Charles V this tendency towards centralization was continued and, except for the prince-bishopric of Liège, which maintained its independence until 1794, all parts of the present Kingdom of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and even areas of northern France (French Flanders with Arras, Hesdin, Douai and Lille and parts of southern Hainaut with the cities of Cambrai and Avesnes), the sizes of which varied according to the prevailing political climate, were united under the jurisdiction of a single prince in 1543. This political unity was disrupted during the religious upheavals and their aftermath towards the end of the 16th century and culminated in the Union of Utrecht (1579); the northern provinces united in 1588 to form the ‘Republic of the Seven United Provinces’ and for a long time they were governed by a Stadtholder or hereditary Stadtholder from the House of Orange-Nassau. Meanwhile the southern provinces, the so-called ‘Spanish’ and from 1714 the ‘Austrian’ Netherlands remained under Habsburg rule. After the French Revolution and the ensuing occupation of both the Republic of the Seven United Provinces and the Austrian Netherlands (1794–1813), the ‘United Kingdom of the Netherlands’, was created in 1815: under that arrangement the Netherlands, with the exception of a few parts of northern France, comprised the old politico-geographical unit established by Charles V. This political union was also dissolved in 1830 and it was divided into the two present states: the kingdoms of Belgium and the Netherlands.
Because of their cultural and, in part, political unity, it is proper to combine in one article the history of the musical developments until 1600 which occurred in the territories of these two states. During the era of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815–30), which regarded itself in a Romantic nationalist sense as the heir to a general cultural legacy of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the musical golden age of the area from about 1430 to the close of the 16th century was felt to be typically ‘Netherlandish’. A scholarly basis for that view was argued in the essays by Kiesewetter and Fétis which were submitted as entries in the open competition of the Koninklijk Nederlandsch Instituut van Wetenschappen, Letterkunde en Schoone Kunsten. Even after the collapse of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands the period continued to be called (by Ambros, among others) the ‘Age of the Netherlanders’. Attempts made by modern research to label parts of the period or the period as a whole ‘Burgundian’, ‘Flemish’ or ‘Franco-Flemish’ emphasize too often only a partial aspect or fail to recognize the cultural unity and independence which was centred at that time in the Netherlands as a whole. Moreover, such attempts show the embarrassment of scholarship when faced with the conceptual interpretation of a variable national-geographical name.
It should be added that the name ‘Holland’ is misleading because it strictly applies to only one province of the Netherlands of that time (still in the Kingdom of the Netherlands). The English word ‘Dutch’ should be used only with reference to aspects of the present-day Kingdom of the Netherlands. The confusion is increased when it is realized that 15th- and 16th-century documents use ‘Fiammingo’, ‘Belga’ or ‘Batavus’ and similar terms as pars pro toto for ‘Netherlander’.
ALBERT DUNNING (I, 1, 2), JAN L. BROECKX/R (I, 3), JOS WOUTERS/ LEO SAMAMA (I, 4), CORNEEL MERTENS/ HENRI VANHULST (I, 5), PAUL ULVELING (I, 6), WIM BOSMANS (II)
2. Northern Netherlands, 1600–1830.
3. Southern Netherlands, 1600–1830.
4. Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The earliest evidence of the widespread cultivation of music in the Netherlands dates from the end of the Carolingian era. A planctus mourning the death of Charlemagne (d 814), supposedly by Colomban, abbot of St Truiden, has been regarded by older schools of research as the earliest evidence. The indigenous tradition of Gregorian chant is more fruitful; as in music theory, musicians from Liège led the way. Important composers of Office melodies include Bishop Stephen of Liège (c850–920), educated in the important music centres of Metz and Aachen, who composed three Offices. The antiphon Magna vox laude sonora from the Office of St Lambert remained in use as the ‘hymn’ of the prince-bishopric of Liège until the French Revolution. Office settings by composers at the abbey of St Laurent in Liège and at neighbouring St Truiden are also extant: an Office for St Maria Egyptiaca by Brother Joannes (a composer at St Laurent in Liège) and a night Office by Abbot Rodolfus of St Truiden (d 1138) survive. The sequences of the Office for the Festival of the Holy Sacrament (which had been celebrated since 1246 in Liège even before it had been generally recognized by the papacy) composed by Brother Joannes (not the above-mentioned) show a melodic inventiveness indebted to the corpus of sequence melodies currently in vogue.
The Netherlands was extremely important in the early development of liturgical drama. An Easter play originated under north-east French influences in the 12th century or the early 13th in Maastricht: the earliest surviving manuscript (NL-DHk 76.F.3) calls it the Dutch Easter Play of Maastricht. A 15th-century manuscript, a hymnary from Egmond (DHk), contains the text and music of this same drama originally performed by the monks at Egmond on Easter morning. The play, in seven scenes using 11 soloists, is among the most comprehensive of all Latin Easter plays; in addition it is the only one which incorporates the journey of the apostles to Emmaus (scene vi), which was normally an independent play. In Delft this particular drama, with many ornamentations and some secular additions, outlived the tradition of the Easter play, which died out at the end of the 15th century.
From the 12th century and especially from the 13th, a neumatic notation developed in the area around Maastricht between the Rhine, Maas and Moselle rivers, which was influenced by developments at Aachen, Liège and Cologne. Although it owed much to Germanic and Messine notations, its distinctive character was maintained and through the travels of ecclesiastics it became very widespread and is found even in Finland.
The obvious middle position of the Netherlands between French and Germanic influences can be seen in the secular monophony of the Limburg epic poet Hendrik van Veldeke, who was closely associated with the group of trouvères at the court of Marie, Countess of Champagne. His creative writing comprises the legends of Aeneas and St Servatius and many poems. From a literary point of view he seems to have stood at the beginning of the romance phase of German Minnesang: both the form and melody of his songs show strong French influence. The art of the trouvères in the 13th and 14th centuries spread chiefly through the southern Netherlands, and in this process the neighbouring area of Artois, which was extremely important for the courtly lyric, played a significant role. Jeux-partis, pastourelles and courtly songs, which became popular at the larger and smaller courts in Hainaut, Flanders, Brabant and Cambrésis, reflect this southern influence both in their literary and musical components. The most important representatives of this courtly art-form (though not all of Netherlandish origin) include Conon de Béthune, Gillebert de Berneville, Jacques de Cysoing, Jocelin de Bruges, Mahieu de Gant, Pierre le Borgne, Henri III (Duc de Brabant), Adenez, Erart and Gontier de Soignies.
The Liedgesang, which used Netherlandish texts, is frequently documented both in the northern and southern Netherlands. The corpus of songs surviving from this period can in no way correspond to the original number. The earliest source is the famous and comprehensive Gruuthuse Manuscript from the second half of the 14th century, in which a melody is appended to 147 Middle Netherlandic poems, and eight melodies are given for the allegorical poem at the end of the manuscript; the five-line notation, also found in several other contemporary manuscripts, represents an indigenous notation of Flanders.
The leading position of Liège and its surrounding area in music theory is undisputed; the various abbeys of the bishopric were involved from the 10th century and produced important works from the 11th century until the early 14th (e.g. the progressive treatises of Aribo, of Bavarian extraction, and of Johannes Cotto, Coussemaker’s Anonymus 9, Rodolfus of St Truiden, the putative anonymous compiler of the Quaestiones in musica and Magister Lambertus). This activity in music theory reached a climax with the writings of Jacobus of Liège (c1260–c1330), whose massive, encyclopedic Speculum musice (which had incorrectly been attributed to Johannes de Muris) summarizes the polarity of speculative and empirical musical thought dominant at that time. Franco de Colonia, an important Netherlandish medieval theorist whose name appears between 1215 and 1224 in the records of St Servatius, Maastricht, is probably the same person as Franco of Cologne, the mensural theorist who taught in Paris.
The small amount of polyphony surviving from the Ars Nova period which can be shown to be of Netherlandish origin does not correspond with the extensive cultivation of sacred and secular polyphony of which there is evidence. The number of works by local composers in a manuscript from the end of the Ars Antiqua (now in I-Tr vari 42, but possibly originating in the abbey of St Jacques in Liège) is uncertain. It is more certain, however, that an early 14th-century polyphonic setting of the Ordinary, the so-called Tournai Mass, is of Netherlandish origin despite the existence of concordances in Spanish, southern French and Italian sources.
The polyphonic works with Netherlandish texts in several manuscripts of Prague University Library (CZ-Pu XI.E.9) and in the Strasbourg manuscript F-Sm 222.C.22 (now lost) have been proved to be Netherlandish reshapings of originally French works. A three-part ballade in Netherlandish in the Reina Manuscript (F-Pn n.a.fr.6771) is found between Italian and French works: written in motet style, it gives a vivid picture of a Netherlandish fish market. It presumably dates from the 14th century and may have originated on the coast of northern Flanders or Zeeland. Another manuscript, in Leiden (NL-Lu BPL 2720), is probably from the first decades of the 15th century but may contain works dating from the end of the 14th century from the area of the province of Zeeland and perhaps even from Dordrecht; two composers, Martinus Fabri and Hugo Boy Monachus, are named. Its small repertory includes Latin, French and Netherlandish songs in ballade, rondeau and motet form. These short works, rooted in popular culture, do not seem to be on a par with those of international stature, yet they provide a more complete picture of the everyday cultivation of music in the Netherlands. Two manuscripts from Leiden (Lu BPL 2512, LTK 342A) and one detailed manuscript from Utrecht (Uu 6 E 37) have become the objects of scholarly attention; the existence of polyphonic Netherlandish songs alongside similar ones in French and Italian leaves no doubt that the Utrecht manuscript is of Netherlandish origin. The extensive repertory of Netherlandish manuscripts has only been described; the music itself awaits evaluation.
The picture of musical life in the Netherlands during the Middle Ages is extensively described in numerous literary documents which reveal an intense preoccupation with the various forms of music-making. The organization of music chapels in churches, cathedrals, monasteries, abbeys and fraternities (e.g. the Marian Brotherhood at ’s-Hertogenbosch, which played a decisive part in the history of Netherlandish music from the early 14th century), the recruitment of choirboys (Maastricht and Liège) at a comparatively early date, information about music instruction, the role of processional music, the employment of town musicians, the purchase of instruments and music books, the appearances of jongleurs and other itinerant musicians, all attest the inherent part which music played in daily court, religious and urban social life.
The dissemination throughout Europe of Netherlandish musicians as early as the 14th century is a remarkable phenomenon awaiting systematic study. The great emigration of Netherlandish musicians in the 15th and 16th centuries seems to have had its origins, or perhaps its counterpart, in the 14th century. Thus during the Ars Nova the court of Aragon had already attracted several singers from the Netherlands, and minstrels were sent from Spain to Flanders for their musical education; even the popes, both during their exile in Avignon and after they had returned to Rome, had Netherlandish musicians in their services, as did the dukes of Burgundy in the 14th century. By the end of the 14th century this propagation had become so advanced (the most remarkable axis was Liège to Italy, especially Rome) that it can be identified as a significant phenomenon of cultural history which later became even more intensive. Even if no satisfactory explanation can be found for the golden age of Netherlandish music (which had begun in the 14th century) its prime cause may certainly have been the emphasis and value placed on instruction in music theory.
Johannes Ciconia is by far the most important representative of Netherlandish composers of polyphonic music in the late 14th and early 15th centuries. He was born in Liège and had moved to Italy by 1393, the date of his lament on the death of Francesco de Carrara. He was employed from 1400 in Padua, and in numerous works for state occasions praised the city and its rulers; he exerted a decisive influence on his musical contemporaries both in the Netherlands and in Italy. His works show elements of the French Ars Nova combined with those of the waning Italian trecento; he revived the fading interest in the madrigal, but above all devoted himself to the popular form of the ballata, in which two upper voices tend towards a concept of harmonic sonority despite the vocal intensity of the other parts. Ciconia wrote almost equally often for three and four voices in his polytextual motets. In some of his motets he imitated the caccia type, but this canonic rigidity soon relaxed into free imitation, which set the pattern for the motet form of the ensuing period. The varied character and polytextuality of the upper voices occasionally make way for the new ideal of assimilation; the tenor, divested of its cantus firmus character and transformed into a free contrapuntally and artistically developed harmony line, became especially prominent in his later motets. He occasionally retained isorhythmic technique as a remnant of the French tradition. His settings of parts of the Ordinary are somewhat less important than his motets and are all settings of the Gloria and the Credo, which sometimes appear to be linked by isorhythmic technique, head-motifs or a common tenor; in some sections the motifs of the three melodically equal voices are linked. Thus Ciconia anticipated to some extent the development of the 15th-century Netherlandish cyclic mass and the momentous and fundamental change to homogeneous choral polyphony. The tradition of his works, in which the synthesis of French Ars Nova with the trecento is realized, shows him as the central composer of the late 14th and early 15th centuries; the term ‘Epoch Ciconia’ thus honours him as the chief exponent of this new development.
A new and radical development occurred about 1430; it was recognized as such by contemporaries (e.g. Martin le Franc in his poem Le champion des dames) as early as 1440. Tinctoris remarked on this fundamental change in the introduction to his Ars contrapuncti (1477), calling it the beginning of an ‘Ars Nova’. He wrote that, according to connoisseurs, the only music worth listening to was that of the last 40 years. Du Fay stands at the centre of these musical innovations and at the beginning of the period which has become known as the ‘Age of the Netherlanders’. He took as his starting-point the legacy of the 14th-century French Ars Nova, of his teacher Richard Loqueville and of his friend Nicolas Grenon; during his creative period, which spanned almost half a century, he synthesized the achievements of the Ciconian epoch and the English composers active on the Continent (especially Dunstaple), developing them further and interpreting them anew. The musical style developed by Du Fay and continued, transformed and expanded by his compatriots became part of a generally accepted musical language, and the steady emigration of musicians from the north ensured its rapid and broad diffusion throughout Europe. While in the service both of popes and of Italian princes Du Fay had the opportunity to come to terms with the distinctive Italian musical idioms. Throughout the period of migration of Netherlandish musicians up to the time of Lassus and Monte this confrontation with the south continually provided stimulus. The result of his versatility in serving both sacred and secular institutions was a correspondingly varied oeuvre ranging from simple sacred songs to tenor masses on a grand scale, from tasteful courtly chansons to splendid state motets.
Du Fay’s most important innovation was the reformulation of the legacy of the isorhythmic motet from the Ciconian epoch. The mathematical rigidity of the tenor line of the isorhythmic motet is gradually relaxed in Du Fay’s motets and the contratenor sinks once and for all below the tenor which simultaneously assumes the function of an axis. The new sense of harmony, which had come about as an adaptation of Fauxbourdon that involved a transformation of an English polyphonic style, now permitted this ‘contratenor bassus’ to become a harmonic supporting voice. The character of the contratenor thus became more like that of the upper pair of voices, which moved as soprano and alto separated by the interval of a 5th. In Du Fay’s later work the vocal nature of the tenor, which was formerly in long note values, became much more like that of the other parts, although polytextuality was retained as a traditional feature.
In liturgical music such as the hymn and Magnificat the ornamented cantus firmus is doubled in the discant at the interval of a 4th and a free tenor is added which transforms the parallel 4ths into 6-3 chords. To this new full sound were added the forms and flourishes of the type of melody which was fashioned principally by Du Fay, with the animated 3/4 rhythm that pervades all branches of his work. The genre of the song motet, used in private devotions, belongs in a special tradition which continued long after Du Fay’s death.
The characteristic features of Du Fay’s tenor motets set the pattern for the 15th-century motet and influenced polyphonic settings of the Ordinary, which can be considered the central form of 15th-century Netherlandish music. The striving towards musical unity in individual Ordinary sections, already noticeable in the Ciconian epoch, was largely realized in Du Fay’s contribution to the mass. A borrowed tenor, either sacred or secular, was used as a link between the individual sections; in addition, the same introductory motif could be used as a kind of motto. The relative modernity of the tenor mass can be seen in the great variety in construction of the tenor: this includes the adoption of melodies from plainchant, folksong or chanson; treatment of the melody as an ostinato in long note values; and the melodic influence of the tenor on the voices that accompany it.
Apart from the innovations made in the motet (and, related to this, in the mass), the chanson as a form retained a certain independence in Du Fay’s work. A three-part texture was still the norm, in accordance with the generally more conservative approach to the chanson; the discantus was the most prominent part, and all Du Fay’s earliest chansons were written in perfect time (though later examples in imperfect time also appeared). Serving both for special occasions and for more informal music-making, Du Fay’s chansons show in their polyphonic organization an increased interest in imitation and a songlike character. The chansons of Binchois, who was mainly active at the Burgundian court and chiefly concerned with this genre, were of decisive importance for the next generation; they are characterized by broadly flowing melodies, clear and energetic rhythms, a cantabile songlike arrangement of the superius with the contratenor functioning as a harmonizing part, and a predominance of imitation with an unmistakable tendency towards blending individual sections: these all became characteristic features of the chanson in the following period.
Although Du Fay and Binchois were the chief exponents of the musical golden age in the Netherlands, lesser masters such as Johannes de Lymburgia, Johannes Brassart and Hugo and Arnold de Lantins added depth to the pattern of stylistic developments in many individual ways. In addition their careers elucidate in detail the international validity of the early Netherlandish style.
The main achievement of the generation of Netherlandish musicians from about 1460 to 1490 did not lie as much in the creation of a fundamentally different style nor in the development of new forms as in the extension and consolidation of the achievements of the Du Fay era in the three main genres, mass, motet and chanson. This is most impressively exemplified in the work of the chief representative of that generation, the Franco-Flemish composer Jean de Ockeghem, who probably came to maturity under the influence of Binchois. Settings of the Ordinary were his main interest; the chanson and especially the motet were subsidiary genres. He was considered unequalled in France during his lifetime, overshadowing his contemporaries, Johannes Regis, Antoine Busnoys, Hayne van Ghizeghem, Robert Morton, Firminus Caron and Jacobus Barbireau. Just as the achievements of Josquin and Willaert were later codified by Glarean and Zarlino respectively as classical, so too were those of Ockeghem in the work of Tinctoris.
Ockeghem stands in a strange half-light in the musical histories of the 19th and early 20th centuries, where his contrapuntal artifices are considered the most characteristic feature of his art. Modern scholarship has concluded that such intentional complications are of only peripheral importance, yet earlier opinions persist even in recent musicological textbooks. This disproportionate emphasis on his contrapuntal skill may be the result of the difficulty in describing the essential characteristics of his style. In any case, the artifices of this epoch (enigmatic notation for all kinds of canonic forms and the refinement of mensural theory) offer impressive proof of the astonishing technical skill in counterpoint of which composers were capable.
The tendency already prefigured in the previous generation towards through-vocalization (‘Dutch imitation’) of the whole texture was developed further: in the four-part compositional structure of one of Ockeghem’s masses, for example, each individual part has been conceived with equal contrapuntal attention; the borrowed tenor frequently loses its rhythmic individuality and is assimilated into the vocal texture of the accompanying parts; and the active implementation of refined mensural theory contributes to the highly differentiated rhythm of each individual part. Long melismatic phrases abound, avoiding all metrical breaks or other stopping-points, and, in the words of Tinctoris, the codifier of Ockeghem’s art, ‘varietas’ is of the utmost importance; symmetry in phrase or sub-section seems therefore to have been avoided, and a sense of continuous movement is achieved.
Alongside Ockeghem’s ten masses, his surviving motets, at least as far as numbers are concerned, are quite modest, a phenomenon which, moreover, is symptomatic for the period as a whole; the motet was of considerable importance only in the work of Regis. As a rule the tenor motet was in five parts, and because it belonged within the tradition of the early isorhythmic motet, it became the festival music par excellence for high church and state occasions.
In the period from about 1480 to 1520, the musical influence of the Netherlands spread throughout Europe in a most impressive way; the highly talented groups of musicians in churches, at courts and above all in cathedrals caused the reputation of the Netherlands as the ‘Conservatory of Europe’ to spread to even the most distant courts and cathedrals of the Continent. The recruitment instructions contained in court and church documents in Spain, England, France, the whole Empire and above all in Italy confirm that the authorities wanted Netherlandish singers, composers and musical directors. Josquin, Obrecht, Isaac, Pierre de La Rue, Alexander Agricola, Weerbeke, Brumel, Compère and Antoine de Févin represent a body of musicians almost unparalleled in the history of music when one considers the greatness of their legacy together with the uniformity of their background.
The migration of Netherlandish musicians to Italy seems to have reached a climax during this period; the greatness of Netherlandish music would have been inconceivable without the stimulus of the southern European music and intellect. This is demonstrated most effectively in the work of Josquin, the leading composer of this generation. Probably brought up on the waning contrapuntal technique of Ockeghem, he was associated with the Milanese court from the early 1480s. It was there that his meteoric career in the service of the Sforza family, the popes and the Este family brought him into contact with the ideals of the Italian high Renaissance and with the indigenous musical forms of that country. His reputation for both wit and moodiness allowed him to take great liberties with his employers, and in his later years, when richly endowed with benefices, he could be certain of the princes’ solicitous concern for his welfare. No other Renaissance composer made such a deep impression on the theoretical writings and music of the ensuing period. Modern scholarship, fully aware of his importance, has not only named the period after him, but sometimes even refers to the following years as the ‘post-Josquin’ period. His reputation, which had already attained legendary proportions before his death, must have brought him a vast number of pupils, but this remains an unsubstantiated theory.
In the same way that Josquin’s career and reputation were international, his work, too, may be divided into distinct styles and genres of composition. Alongside the traditional species of Netherlandish music, such as the mass, motet and chanson, he also used indigenous Italian forms such as the frottola. It was probably his masses (about 20) that established his reputation with his contemporaries and with posterity; they demonstrate the whole stylistic diversity of this genre. Besides a fairly large number of cantus firmus masses, whose basic melody is taken from plainchant, folksong, chanson or solmization themes and whose melodic material sometimes permeates the texture of the accompanying parts, he wrote masses in which canonic or proportional part-writing is prescribed for parts or for the whole. The systematic imitation of the parts seems to reach its climax in his late works (e.g. the tenor Missa ‘Pange lingua’); this was an important development, for pervading imitation became the characteristic formal element in the compositions of the following generation.
The motet returned impressively to the fore in Josquin’s work. The motets (about 120, some 30 of which are of doubtful authenticity) exhibit a versatility of technique similar to that of the masses: alongside purely chordal motets, which may have been influenced by Italian musical ideals, there are tenor motets with pervading imitation in the accompanying parts and psalm settings not based on a cantus firmus. Perhaps the most important characteristic feature of Josquin’s motet style, however, is that the cantus firmus is no longer a fundamentum relationis; instead the text and its syntactic coherence became fundamental. He attempted to elucidate the meaning of the text by varying the style of the setting, using homophonic-declamatory blocks or longer sections interwoven with imitative or canonic techniques, contrasting voice pairs, and varying the number of voices. The ideals of Italian humanism undoubtedly influenced the new relationship between the composer and the text, which in turn led to the application of new stylistic methods to reflect both the content and emotion of the text (e.g. word-painting and chromaticism). From a historical point of view this new concern with the text may have been the most important innovation in the Netherlandish music of the 15th and 16th centuries, for its most extreme result was the Baroque recitative, and thus the development of opera. In Josquin’s secular works there is a similar gradual loosening of traditional forms and constructivism in favour of a musical style centring on the text and the emotions it conveys.
Josquin’s contemporaries, Pierre de La Rue and Jacob Obrecht, clearly directed their main creative efforts to settings of the Ordinary. In some 30 masses, which became quite widely known, La Rue developed an impressive technique in varying individual motifs strongly reminiscent of Ockeghem’s rhythmically varied repetition technique. On the whole the spirit of the Ockeghem era with its contrapuntal virtuosity seems to reappear in La Rue’s works, which abound in canons and other devices. Even if the existence of humanistic tendencies, as emphasized above in Josquin’s work, cannot be completely denied in that of La Rue, it must nevertheless be said that La Rue did not achieve the same results in adopting this approach.
If considered from the point of view of progress, Obrecht’s works would seem to be less fruitful. His work is best regarded as the climax and, simultaneously, as the end of a line of development, where earlier trends are finally exhausted. Like Ockeghem’s, Obrecht’s masses are the most impressive part of his output; the grand scale of his tenor masses is evidence of his superior ability. But it is significant that with Obrecht the polyphonic song in Netherlandish reappears; that genre became much more popular in the next generation.
The international career of the Flemish composer Isaac is reflected in his extensive corpus of compositions. Emphasis is always justifiably placed on his ability to familiarize himself with the indigenous musical forms of the places in which he lived (e.g. the frottolas he may have composed during his long sojourn at the Florentine court of Lorenzo il Magnifico). Isaac, with his tenor songs on German texts, was the first great Netherlandish composer of the group who made the German polyphonic song almost level with other types of vernacular composition like the chanson, the madrigal and their predecessors. His universally familiar tenor song Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen contributed vastly to his posthumous fame (not least because of the popularity of its Protestant contrafactum); and yet, there is no thorough and comprehensive evaluation of his work. The so-called Choralis constantinus, Isaac’s work of massive proportions setting the most important melodies of the Mass Proper and completed by his pupil Senfl, is a work of uniform cyclic design and of comparable size to the Magnus liber of Leoninus and Perotinus.
The next generation of musicians, among whom the leading figures were Gombert, Clemens non Papa and Thomas Crecquillon, were primarily active in the Netherlands either at the Habsburg courts or in cathedrals and churches. A second group, distinctive in their musical style, were the travellers to Italy headed by Willaert and somewhat later by Cipriano de Rore. The large number of greater and lesser masters belonging to the first ‘northern’ group include Pierre de Manchicourt, Nicolas Payen, Cornelius Canis, Benedictus Appenzeller, Josquin Baston, Eustachius Barbion, Jean Courtois, Johannes Lupi, Lupus Hellinck and the somewhat older Jean Richafort.
This ‘northern’ group seems to have adopted one aspect in particular of Josquin’s work – imitation. This can be seen most clearly in the work of Gombert, music director at the court of Charles V and possibly a pupil of Josquin. The characteristic features of Josquin’s style were abandoned, and pervading imitation, formerly only one of many stylistic features and a development which Riemann attributed to Ockeghem, became the chief principle of construction instead; the melodic lines suggest a purely linear conception. This style permeates to almost the same extent all the main genres of this generation’s vocal music (the mass, motet, chanson and polyphonic song in the vernacular), if incidental connections with such styles as the Parisian chanson are not sought. Gombert’s output, with approximately 160 motets, testifies to the increased interest after Josquin’s generation in the motet, which is certainly the highpoint of Gombert’s work and of that of his contemporaries. Polyphonic settings of the Ordinary were almost all composed using the parody technique, which later extended to other forms such as the Magnificat. In spite of many individual features there is a fundamental style common to the work of the other members of the northern group. The strict adherence to the principle of pervading imitation in all forms did much to bring about their stylistic uniformity, which makes it difficult to identify confidently the form of a given work. More than anyone else, Clemens non Papa was able to retain a certain degree of independence in his highly striking and personal style. When compared with the broadly flowing melodic technique of his motets with a slightly emphasized superius, the often witty, folksong-like and even cunning melodies of his chansons and polyphonic Netherlandish songs present a richly shaded picture of domestic and religious musical life. His polyphonic settings of the Souterliedekens, rhymed psalms with associated melodies, are particularly important.
In the 1540s new patterns appeared in these composers’ later works; broad phrases rich in melismas formerly in vogue gradually disappeared and compositions began to be dominated by a type of motif characterized by the repetition of notes and by a declamation style reflecting the accent of the words. The formerly linear bass became a harmonic foundation to the five-voice texture, whose sound was characterized by a warmth absent in the works composed at the peak of Gombert’s classical pervasive imitative style. This re-orientation may be traced back largely to Italian influences, particularly those which were furthered by a lively cultural exchange and the prolific activity of music printers in Italy and the Netherlands.
Willaert and many other Netherlanders had settled in Italy by the 1520s; in 1527, after serving the Este court, he was appointed maestro di cappella at S Marco, Venice. Through his works and personality, which attracted a great number of influential pupils, primarily Italians, he exerted a decisive influence on the cross-fertilization of Netherlandish and Italian music unlike almost any other composer before him. With other Netherlanders he contributed to the birth of the madrigal, which was rooted in typically Italian social culture. In place of the indigenous frottola, the Netherlandish contrapuntal style of composition probably set the pattern for the early phase of the madrigal, which was used as a collective heading for the sonnet, canzona and strambotto. Enriched by such Netherlandish composers as Arcadelt, Berchem, Jan Nasco and Jhan Gero as well as by Willaert and Rore, the madrigal attained greater importance because it served as an experimental genre for chromatic style and textual interpretation, whose results in turn extended to other genres.
In addition Willaert merits special attention because of his contribution to the development of the polychoral style. Probably based on the tendency towards the richness of sound rooted in Italian music, Willaert’s salmi spezzati appeared in 1550; instead of the eight-part composition being divided into upper and lower chorus, as was sometimes the case in Josquin’s era, the two four-part choruses are contrasted with each other in dialogue. The architectonic conditions in S Marco made this division practical. The principle progressed from bi-choral to polychoral compositions with the addition of instrumental choruses and foreshadowed the typical Baroque concerto form in the compositions of Willaert’s Italian pupils and successors, including Andrea Gabrieli. Even if Willaert may not be regarded as the inventor of cori spezzati, his contribution to its development and revival was decisive.
The high quality of music and language permeating Willaert’s compositions is also evident in those of his pupil Cipriano de Rore, who expressed his aesthetic convictions in a most remarkable way in the emotional musical idiom of his madrigals. Interpretation of text and expression of emotion are here essential characteristics, and were adopted by the next and last great generation of Netherlandish composers.
The hegemony of the Netherlands was shaken soon after the mid-16th century. A steady stream of Netherlanders was still pouring abroad; the chapels of the Austrian and Spanish Habsburgs were led by Netherlanders well into the 17th century, and in the more remote parts of the German Empire court institutions still showed a preference for these well-trained men. Netherlandish music became internationally known through the Netherlandish printing houses of Susato, Waelrant and Phalèse; similarly Italian, French and especially German publishers contributed to the general dissemination of works by Netherlandish composers by publishing those that had been written abroad. The efforts of the Netherlandish composers began to be rivalled by Italian, Spanish, French, English and German composers. Various reasons have been given for the gradual waning of the golden age of Netherlandish music: the religious wars with their political consequences which increasingly affected the Netherlands after the mid-16th century; the resulting decline of economic affluence; and the lowering of standards in musical training in the home country. These may all contribute to an understanding of the phenomenon, but do not provide a conclusive explanation.
The last Netherlandish composers historically recognized as being of truly European stature are Lassus and Monte. Along with Isaac, Lassus was probably the most versatile Netherlandish composer of the 16th century. He composed in virtually every form of every country and in every musical dialect, whether villanesche, chromatic madrigals, French chansons, state motets, parody masses or German polyphonic songs. After a period of travel in Italy he returned to the Netherlands in the mid-1550s. His first collection of motets (1556) comprehensively reveals the impression that Italian idioms made on him. The tendencies initiated in the later works of the northern composers of the previous generation are simultaneously crowned and surpassed. During Lassus’s time in the Netherlands the term ‘musica reservata’ was in use (see Musica reservata (i)). This term has been linked with various aspects of music of the period on the basis of different, partly contradictory, contemporary definitions. Through one such definition musica reservata was long associated with the frequent musical interpretation of individual words and of the text as a whole which occurs in Lassus’s works. In fact, this is a chief stylistic feature of the works of the late Netherlanders, particularly Giaches de Wert. In the works of Lassus and of the prolific madrigal composer Monte, the emotional content of the text becomes the primum mobile and the emotionalism or symbolism of individual words is frequently interpreted in the music. Lassus’s style seems to create a new psychological relationship between the composer and the listener, which is quite new and independent in comparison with Gombert’s esoteric principle of pervading imitation. While a standard, uniform sacred style was being codified among Palestrina’s circle in Rome under the influence of the Council of Trent, there is in Lassus’s work a blending of motet-like contrapuntal elements with the pictorialism and emotionalism of the madrigal. Admittedly this does not exclude the occasional implementation of traditional techniques, such as the use of cantus firmus, ostinato and similar devices; rather, these are united with polychoral and chromatic techniques and with a chordal foundation which became an impressive synthesis of all available stylistic means.
The Netherlandish style of the mid-16th century was long retained at the Catholic Habsburg courts in Austria, and until Monte appeared there along with such composers as Jean Guyot, Christian Hollander, Jacobus Vaet, Johannes de Cleve, Jacob Regnart and Alexander Utendal, the ‘northern’ tradition had continued to develop with relative independence. Carl Luython and Lambert de Sayve were the last representatives of this late stage of Netherlandish polyphony. The court chapel of Charles V was dissolved on his abdication in 1556–7 and his successor Philip II resided in Spain; thus the most important concentration of musicians up to that time left the Netherlands. The cultivation of music at the courts of the Habsburg Stadtholders in the Netherlands was no longer as important as it had been before 1550. Composers active in the Netherlands, all of minor importance, included Geert van Turnhout, Andreas Pevernage, Séverin Cornet and Cornelis Verdonck. After a short period of activity in the Netherlands, Joannes Tollius emigrated to Italy, where he distinguished himself as a progressive and individualistic although minor composer of madrigals which had some influence on Monteverdi.
After 1550 the Netherlanders were not the only creators of an internationally valid musical style as they had been in the eras of Ockeghem and Josquin. Only one more Netherlandish musician made a significant contribution to the history of music.
The beginning of this period is dominated by Sweelinck. Even his contemporaries knew of his superior ability as a composer and a teacher. He was born into a family of musicians and by the time he was 12 he was appointed organist in the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam; he remained there until his death in 1621. His output is largely the result of his obligations to the church and the city, as well as to the bourgeois collegium musicum. At the centre of his vocal works is the polyphonic setting of the Genevan Psalter, which is strongly orientated towards the achievements of the late Netherlandish contrapuntal style. The Cantiones sacrae of 1619 are stylistically more advanced, using extensive chromaticism and keyboard accompaniment. Above all Sweelinck gained an international reputation with his keyboard compositions which had considerable influence outside the northern Netherlands, particularly among north German organists. The fantasias and toccatas, which were connected with developments abroad (Venice, Spain and England), are particularly important. His skill in variation and improvisation was attested by contemporary audiences and recorded by his pupils, including the Netherlanders Anthoni and Sybrandus van Noordt, Henderick Speuy and Dirck Scholl.
Sweelinck’s career demonstrates the basic elements of musical life in the Netherlands from the 17th century until the rise of public concerts in the late 18th century; music was cultivated chiefly under the auspices of the Calvinist church, the city authorities or in the numerous collegia musica. These existed in Amsterdam, Arnhem (1591), Deventer (1623), Utrecht (1631), Nijmegen (1632), Leiden, Leeuwarden, Groningen (1638), Rotterdam, The Hague, Middelburg, Zierikzee and Alkmaar; surviving documents provide insights into both social and specifically musical attitudes. Their importance extends far beyond the dilettantism usually associated with such groups, and they included musicians from the town churches who had been placed at their disposal by the city authorities. As early as the 17th century and increasingly in the 18th, these music institutions, supported by a wealthy bourgeoisie, enabled travelling foreign musicians to make public appearances, thus anticipating organized public concerts, which developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As there was no productive cultivation of church music (for a while even the playing of the organ during divine services was forbidden) and no strong interest in music emanating from the courts, the work of the collegia musica was of great significance. In the 17th century their repertory consisted largely of polyphonic songs and madrigals and simple instrumental music, some of which was of local origin. The lutebook of the Leiden nobleman Thysius (NL-Lu) shows the high esteem for lute playing in bourgeois circles. Composers of the 17th century and early 18th, both native and foreign, included Matthias Mercker, Nicolas Vallet, Lotharius Zumbach von Koesveld, Hendrik Anders, Cornelis Padbrué, Marcus Teller, Benedictus a Sancto Josepho, Quirinus van Blankenburg, Servaas de Konink, Dirck Scholl, Carolus Hacquart, Elias Bronnemüller and Joan Albert Ban (this last particularly known for his capricious doctrine of composition). The Pathodia sacra of the statesman, author and musician Constantijn Huygens is an important example of Netherlandish monody. An official document provides special insight into the musical views held by the Leiden authorities: it states that organ recitals should be given before and after Sunday services and on weekdays to keep the people away from inns and taverns. The value that the authorities placed on public organ recitals in their town churches resulted in the construction of an almost incalculable number of organs, both in the Netherlands and abroad; these are among the finest of their time.
A form of musical culture peculiar to the Netherlands was the Carillon, which still attracts the attention of foreign visitors. The immigrant brothers François and Pieter Hemony, by their accurate tuning of bells, brought the indigenous art of bellfounding to an unsurpassed peak. When the ill-humoured Charles Burney visited the country in 1772 outside the concert season, he stated that the only music to be heard was ‘the jingling of bells and ducats’.
The musical theatre came into being relatively late, when the first opera house was founded in Amsterdam in 1680. Along with works from the international operatic repertory, local works in the vernacular by Hacquart, Schenk, Konink and Anders were performed during the last decades of the 17th century.
During the 18th century, even more than in the 17th, there was extensive immigration to the Netherlands of foreign musicians. Attracted by the unparalleled wealth which made the republic one of the leading European nations in the 17th century and to a certain extent in the 18th, they either settled there or included it on their concert tours. From then on, in accordance with the Netherlandish taste of ‘bourgeois satisfait’, foreign musical productions in the French or Italian vein became standard occurrences. Indigenous music, which had until then been widely cultivated, and the further development of the Netherlandish opera were abandoned. French, Italian and German opera troupes with an international repertory appeared with varying degrees of success in the large towns. Indigenous music yielded to a taste for virtuosity which was catered for in great abundance by the numerous travelling musicians. The collegia musica gradually became chiefly concert organizers.
A special branch of musical life, music publishing, developed with unprecedented vigour in the large western towns. Profiting from the commercial and technical experience of printing in general in the 17th century, music printing and publishing houses came to the fore, particularly during the last decade of the century. The list of Amsterdam music publishers who made the city a principal centre of music publishing up to the second half of the 18th century begins with the immigrant Huguenots Pierre Mortier and Estienne Roger. Any musician with a European or especially an Italian reputation had his compositions published in Amsterdam; if the composers themselves did not send their works to the press, in some very extreme cases the publishers went so far as to commission sailors to appropriate newly composed works in Italy (if necessary, illegally) and these then appeared in print as ‘pirated’ editions without the composers’ permission. Foreigners especially seem to have found favourable conditions here for their business interests. In addition to Roger’s successors, Le Cène, La Coste and Chareau, important publishers included G.F. Witvogel, the Hummel family, Joseph Schmitt, Arnoldus Olofsen, Covens and Markordt.
The organ yielded its important position in instrumental music. The country still had accomplished organists such as the Havinghas and Radekers, and J.W. Lustig and Jacob Potholt, yet during the first half of the 18th century the public had a taste for concertos and sonatas, especially of Italian origin. Of the Netherlandish composers of violin sonatas the most important are Albertus and J.F. Groneman, J. Nozeman and J.H. Klein. Moreover, Willem de Fesch achieved fame during his lifetime beyond the boundaries of his country and especially in England, his second homeland, as an excellent composer of both violin and flute sonatas, trios, a number of concerti grossi and ambitious violin concertos. The famous Concerti armonici, long misattributed to Pergolesi, were composed by the Dutch nobleman and diplomat Count Unico Wilhelm van Wassenaer. Most of his other works are lost, although three sonatas for treble recorder and thorough bass have come to light. The work of Pieter Hellendaal was more conservative and his concerti grossi still occupy a modest place in concert programmes. In the first half of the century the Netherlands produced many talented musicians such as Ernest Heinsius, the municipal organist of Arnhem, who also worked in the collegium musicum there and composed several violin concertos. All these musicians are overshadowed as international figures by Pietro Locatelli. In his 24 caprices and 12 violin concertos op.3, which appeared in Amsterdam in 1733 under the title L’arte del violino, he revealed the latest method of violin playing, as he also probably did through his personal activity. The works of Locatelli, who remained in Amsterdam from 1729 until his death, set the pattern for the development of violin technique. His contemporary Conrad Hurlebusch, from Brunswick, also spent a large part of his life in Amsterdam, where he was most active as an organist and composer. Foreign musicians who lived for a time in the Netherlands until about the mid-18th century include Carlo Tessarini and Egidio Duni. A corollary to the predilection for violin virtuosity was the rising interest in the construction of string instruments, which had its origins in the 17th century.
The second half of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th were characterized above all by the further development of public concerts. After various early attempts to expand Amsterdam musical life, a climax was reached with the opening by the Felix Meritis Society of a small concert hall (capacity 600) in their new building in Amsterdam in 1788. Because of its excellent acoustics this concert hall remained one of the finest in Europe for many decades. The music director was Joseph Schmitt (1734–91), formerly a German Cistercian monk, who brought great fame to the Felix Meritis concerts during the three years before his death. These concerts were the most important aspect of musical life in the Netherlands until they were replaced a century later by the Concertgebouw. Schmitt, known as the composer of a number of symphonies and chamber works (some of which were also attributed to Haydn), was the first of a line of conductors that included Ruloffs, Fodor, Bree, Verhulst and Kes and culminated in the golden age of music-making in Amsterdam with Willem Mengelberg.
A basic orchestra of 30 professional musicians was at Schmitt’s disposal, occasionally supplemented by other musicians, even amateurs. Apart from the Felix Meritis Society, other concert organizations appeared such as the Eruditio Musica in 1796 under Karl Joseph Schmidt; its chief merit lay in the swift dissemination of Viennese Classical works, particularly those of Haydn and Mozart. Schmitt’s successor in the Felix Meritis concerts was Bartholomeus Ruloffs, who, apart from composing a large number of instrumental works, attained fame through his operas in the vernacular. After his death in 1801 the directorship was taken over by Carolus Antonius Fodor until 1830.
The reputation of the music at the Stadtholder’s court was somewhat restored after the marriage of the Stadtholder Willem IV of Orange-Nassau to the English Princess Anne, a pupil of Handel. The German musician Christian Graf had been in the service of the court as early as the 1750s and was specially noted as a composer of symphonic and chamber music and as a music theorist. In 1765–6 Mozart and his sister performed at the Stadtholder’s court in The Hague and, after a stay prolonged by illness, they continued their concert tour via Haarlem, Amsterdam and Utrecht. The court orchestra varied in size but never exceeded ten professional musicians. The most important among them were the composer Colizzi and the violinist Malherbe. As was the case with the orchestra of the Felix Meritis Society, the proportion of foreign musicians in the Stadtholder’s court orchestra was initially very large. Musicians who travelled extensively also appeared at the court (e.g. Carl Stamitz and the young Beethoven). After 1820 under King Willem I the court orchestra became an official court institution and did much to promote musical life in the Netherlands during the 20 years of its existence. In 1829 under J.H. Lübeck the orchestra numbered 45 professional musicians.
The 17th century, when the southern Netherlands were under Spanish rule, was an epoch disrupted by continuous threat of war, with economic stagnation (the river Scheldt was closed to trade), and the cultural dominance of nobility and clergy. Musical life was centred on the court and the church, although civic musical societies came into being at this time. The earliest collegium musicum was established in 1585 in Hasselt; and later collegia were established at Ghent (1649), Tournai (1652) and Leuven (1670). Their members, singers and instrumentalists, were dilettantes and included members of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie as well as magistrates and church dignitaries.
The greatest period of Netherlandish music had passed and composers were curbed by both traditionalism and foreign influence, especially from Italy and France. Nevertheless there were certain compensations; for example the exceptional prosperity of the instrument building trade, especially harpsichord manufacturing.
The Brussels court chapel was reorganized in 1647 during the reign of Lodewijk-Willem. Until 1695 it was divided into ‘musique de la chapelle’ and ‘musique de la chambre’, each with its own maître, singers and instrumentalists. Up to 1660 foreign musicians, especially Spaniards and Italians, were predominant in the latter, but later there was a growing number of Netherlandish musicians. Composition was still based on the Netherlandish polyphonic tradition, but slowly it came under foreign (especially Italian) influence with the introduction of the basso continuo, concertato techniques and the sonata da chiesa. Only a small number of sources of sacred music have survived, as in the 18th century the church repertory was comprehensively revised. The choirbook of the Terry Collection (B-Lc no.1325) reflects the repertory used in the Liège diocese, with traditional compositions in a cappella style by Remouchamps, Hodemont, Hayne and others. In the second half of the century the work of Henry Du Mont, born in Looz but working mostly in Paris, shows a notable change: he mixed polyphonic techniques with basso continuo (Cantica sacra, 1652), narrative motets with dialogues in recitative style after the model of Carissimi, and double-choir motets in concertato style. Collections of sacred songs were published in different areas of the southern Netherlands (e.g. La Philomèle séraphique, Tournai, 1640, and Libellus cantionum catholicarum, Leuven, c1690).
As both the nobility and middle classes cultivated music for recreation, there is a great deal of instrumental but little secular vocal music. An evolution from traditional polythematic ricercares to motivic concentration in monothematic fugues is particularly evident in the organ works of Abraham van den Kerckhoven, a member of the royal chapel and later at the church of Ste Catherine in Brussels. Towards the end of the century a lighter, more graceful style appeared, with dance movements like allemandes or gigues, as for instance in the Livre d’orgue (1695) by Lambert Chaumont, who worked in Liège. Lute music shows obvious French influence, with dances and genre pieces after the style of the Gaultiers, for instance in the work of Jacques de Saint-Luc, born in Hainaut and active at the Brussels court. Chamber music consists mainly of sonate da chiesa for strings and continuo, for example the four sets of Symphoniae unius, duorum et trium violinorum by Nicolaes a Kempis, published by Phalèse in Antwerp (1644, 1647 and 1649). Even the melodic structure is sometimes conceived in a typically Italian way, for instance in the Fasciculus dulcedinis by Philippe van Wichel (Antwerp, 1678). In the Harmonia parnassia of Carolus Hacquart there is great variety of sequence of movements, and of melody and rhythm.
Theatre music was not extensively cultivated in the early 17th century; a notable occasion, however, was the wedding of Philip IV in Brussels in 1650, for which Giuseppe Zamponi composed Ulisse all’isola di Circe, an allegory on royal power, with ornate vocal writing and elaborate orchestration. In 1694 the Opéra du Quai du Foin was opened in Brussels under the management of P.A. Fiocco; it survived for four years, with Lully’s operas as the mainstay of the repertory. Fiocco himself wrote a pastoral Le retour du printemps in the French style.
Instrument building in the southern Netherlands took a leading position in the 17th century. Three families of violin makers, the Borbons, Snoecks and Rottenburghs, were active in Brussels, and Tilman and Hofmans, both of Antwerp, were famous for their fine Cremona imitations. Moreover, Antwerp was known for the bell-foundry of Melchur De Haze (1632–97), who supplied a carillon of 31 bells for the Escorial and another of 38 bells for The Hague. The organ builder Hans Goltfuss, whose organ for Rotterdam had three manuals and 44 stops, also worked in Antwerp. That city was, above all, a centre of harpsichord building, where the Ruckers family were established from 1575 to about 1679 (their instruments were sold all over Europe), and where the Couchet family were active from about 1642 to 1681.
The region was under Austrian domination from 1713 to 1794, a comparatively tranquil period (at least until 1789), characterized by material progress and greater middle-class participation in cultural life. Thus an intensive musical life arose outside the court and the church which stimulated the work of Netherlandish composers as did the still strong foreign influence.
Sacred music, especially in the early part of the 18th century, was dominated by the French style; later, Italian influence became more apparent and the dominant style changed from the monumental Baroque to a lighter, more florid style. The archives of Ste Gudule in Brussels contain some important examples of 18th-century sacred music. At the beginning of the century, as in the masses and motets of P.H. Brehy (1673–1737), sacred music is characterized by a powerful Baroque style using concertato technique with fanciful melodies and solid harmonization. A more expressive style characterizes the church music of the second quarter of the century, as seen in the work of J.H. Fiocco. After 1750 Rococo and pre-Classical styles predominate, especially in the works of C.J. van Helmont and in the motets and arias of H.-J. de Croes. J.-N. Hamal adopted a style near to that of Pergolesi. Gossec’s Requiem of 1760, with its vivid polyphony and colourful orchestration suitable for the concert hall, marks a culminating point in the secularization of church music, which was accelerated by a resolution made by Joseph II in 1787; this stated that hymns were to be replaced by recitation. In 1797 it was decreed that the maîtrises be closed and church organs be sold.
Secular music flourished at many social levels. Under Charles of Lorraine, the court musicians followed their sovereign to his hunting-lodges at Tervuren and Mariemont, where open-air music was often performed. In Brussels official festivities included performances of comedies and opéras comiques. In Liège opera was usually given by visiting French and Italian companies. Walloon composers copied French opéra-ballet (e.g. Les plaisirs de la paix, 1715, by T.-L. Bourgeois, in the style of Campra) and French opéra comique. J.-N. Hamal wrote in the Liège dialect, and the genre was most splendidly represented by Grétry. The more serious kind of opera eventually responded to the influence of Gluck’s reform, evident in Gossec’s Nitocris (1782). Opera was primarily a business enterprise, however, run by and for the bourgeoisie. In 1700 Maximilian-Emmanuel of Bavaria founded La Monnaie in Brussels, an institution based on the patent system. During the revolution it was abolished, and later the theatre became a centre of patriotic and republican ferment.
Among the musical academies active in the 18th century, the most prominent was the Académie Ste Cécile at Mechelen. It existed from 1704 to 1773, and counted noblemen, magistrates, lawyers and clergymen among its members; sonatas and symphonies were the principal fare. Chamber music was still based on the Baroque sonata, in a transitional style from Corelli to Vivaldi and Handel. Willem de Fesch, a native of the northern Netherlands, was kapelmeester of Antwerp Cathedral from 1725 to 1731. Sonatas are found for various combinations; for example, sonatas for flute and continuo by J.B. Loeillet, trio sonatas by Delange and de Croes, and sonatas for four or five players by Brehy.
In orchestral music there is a clear evolution from Baroque to Classical style, from concerto to symphony, and from the Italian to the German style. To the Italian type belong divertimentos, concertos and a symphony by de Croes, the overture a due cori in concertato style by Van Helmont and the six overtures by Hamal. The symphonies of Pierre van Maldere (1729–68), who was employed at the court of Charles of Lorraine and travelled to Dublin, Paris and Vienna, are in the German Classical style. As well as displaying elements of the Mannheim style, these symphonies are in Classical ternary form with thematic contrast, modulating development, binary lied-form in the second movement and sometimes a rondo finale. A similar development from symphonies concertantes to the Classical symphony can be observed in the works of Gossec, who was in Paris after 1751.
Associated with the flowering of harpsichord building, there was in the first half of the 18th century a golden age of harpsichord music in the southern Netherlands. This kind of music was generally cultivated in families and dynasties of composers, like the Loeillets, the Fioccos and the Boutmys. J.H. Fiocco’s suites contain both French multipartite and Italian quadripartite compositions side by side. Ornamentation and orchestration show the influence of Rameau, especially in the music of Josse Boutmy. Nevertheless, the end of the century saw a turn to the fanciful empfindsamer Stil of C.P.E. Bach, as in the divertimentos of François Krafft.
A special curiosity of the southern Netherlands is carillon music, best represented by the remarkable preludes and fugues of Matthias Vanden Gheyn. The turn of the century was a period of transition and revolution, social disorder and political instability. Musical life was even more influenced by the French, and although during the period 1815 to 1830, when north and south were united, there was the beginning of an economic and cultural revival, it was too short to have any lasting musical effect.
Secularization continued; the churches gave up their educational role, which was taken over by the official schools of music in Brussels and Liège. Civil concert-promoting bodies flourished especially in Brussels (the Société des Grands Concerts, 1799–1829; the Société des Amateurs de Musique, 1793–1830; the Société Philharmonique, 1794–1833). Opera was a focus of civic musical life, not only in Brussels at La Monnaie, but also in Liège and in Antwerp, whose Théâtre Royal dates from 1802.
Composition was orientated towards the theatre and was strongly influenced by early Romantic French opera, especially in the works of M.-J. Mengal and the Antwerp-born Albert Grisar. Both sacred and orchestral music developed in the Romantic style (e.g. in the works of C.-L.-J. Hanssens and his son, Charles-Louis). The musicologist, teacher and composer F.-J. Fétis was one of the most influential musical figures of the 19th century.
In the southern Netherlands it was only after 1830 that a new musical prosperity grew up, as a Flemish and Walloon Romantic style took shape.
During most of the 19th century Dutch music came strongly under German influence; certainly the Dutch music composed during the first half of the century, as in the 18th century, owed much to music brought in from the outside. In spite of this, there were isolated attempts at developing a more independent character in Dutch music, although composers of great original ability to some extent comparable with the most important contemporary composers in countries such as Germany and France are rare. During the first half of the 19th century Johannes van Bree occupied an important place in the musical life of the country both as a composer and a conductor; his output comprises numerous works which show originality (for example the Allegro for four string quartets). After van Bree’s death, Johannes Verhulst occupied a dominant position in Dutch musical life for over three decades. He was a pupil of Mendelssohn and a friend of Schumann, who in his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik often wrote favourably about his compositions. As a conductor in the most influential posts in the Netherlands, Verhulst promoted his German contemporaries and almost as fervently opposed the new German style of Wagner and Liszt. Many of his compositions (mainly those of his younger years) are not only among the best Dutch works of the mid-19th century but are also important by international standards (e.g. the Symphony in E minor op.46, Mass op.20, String Quartet op.21 and many beautiful songs). Other important composers from this period include Richard Hol, Willem Nicolai, L.F. Brandts Buys, Daniël de Lange and J.C. Coenen.
Radical changes in musical life are apparent around 1880 when, as elsewhere in Europe, a general cultural revival began to exert its influence. A national movement arose, stimulating the cultivation of a specifically Dutch art and wider public interest. This movement began in literature, and was soon followed by the visual arts and finally by music. The Amsterdam Concertgebouw, a large concert hall fulfilling all the requirements of the time, was built between 1886 and 1888, and the Concertgebouw Orchestra founded in 1888. It is principally through this orchestra that the Netherlands began to develop a particularly fruitful orchestral tradition. When Willem Mengelberg, then aged 23, succeeded Willem Kes as conductor in 1895, the orchestra soon acquired international fame, and Amsterdam became in turn an important European musical centre. Not only did many important conductors, soloists and composers go to the Netherlands to appear with the Concertgebouw Orchestra or to hear it perform their works, but the orchestra’s great success and fame also gave Dutch musicians a certain self-confidence, and thereby stimulated native composers. The first composer to react with enthusiasm and success to that stimulus was Bernard Zweers. He was a pupil of Jadassohn in Leipzig, and his Third Symphony (1890) placed him in the forefront of Dutch composers of his time. It is significant that he gave this work, which differed both through its thematic character and structure and its instrumentation from any symphony previously written in the Netherlands, the title ‘Aan mijn Vaderland’. Like Verhulst, Zweers primarily used Dutch texts for his vocal works. As a teacher at the Amsterdam Conservatory (founded in 1884) he trained a large number of outstanding musicians and imbued them with his ideals.
Around the turn of the century Alphons Diepenbrock pointed the way to a new musical development in the Netherlands through his strong personality and great gifts as a composer. As a Roman Catholic he was much influenced by the newly rediscovered Renaissance polyphony and by Gregorian chant; he also had a weak spot for Wagner’s sensual chromaticism. Diepenbrock’s musical works were essentially based on literary sources (including Sophocles, Aristophanes, Vondel, Goethe, Novalis and Nietzsche) and consist, with a single exception, of vocal works and incidental music; the vocal works are characterized by a freely flowing rhythm which, combined with undulating melodic lines, gives an individual expression to the words, while a rich orchestral sound predominates in his instrumental incidental music and, in particular, in his symphonic songs, contemporary with those of his friend Mahler.
The music of Johan Wagenaar is completely different in character; his most important works are orchestral, especially the symphonic poems and concert overtures, in which a certain relationship with the aims of Berlioz and Richard Strauss is evident. Musical humour and a subtle love of mockery characterize many of his works, in which a very personal fantasy is coupled with a sound compositional technique. His most significant contemporaries include Julius Röntgen (i), Emile and Gerard von Brucken Fock, Carl Smulders and Leander Schlegel. After Wagenaar’s generation there is a clearly perceptible duality of Germanic and French influence, a factor that has in many cases continued to characterize Dutch music, partly because of the strong cosmopolitan state of Dutch cultural life, which is much affected by the country’s geographical position.
Typically German late Romantic influences are evident in the work of such composers as Jan van Gilse, Cornelis Dopper, Jan Brandts Buys and Jan Ingenhoven, while French influences are evident in the work of Willem Landré, Bernard van den Sigtenhorst Meyer and Alexander Voormolen. A strong personal stamp characterizes the work of Matthijs Vermeulen, one of the most original Dutch composers of the 20th century. The experiments with new possibilities in sound and structural organization that started about 1920 found representatives in the Netherlands in Daniel Ruyneman, Sem Dresden, Willem Pijper, Jacob van Domselaer and Bernard van Dieren. Technically the most advanced of the group were van Dieren (whose Zes Schetsen for piano have affinities with Schoenberg’s Three Piano Pieces op.11), Voormolen (mainly influenced by Ravel), Ruyneman and Vermeulen, whose Second Symphony can be compared with Ives in its bold polyphonic textures. Each of these composers sought a renewal of compositional structure and instrumental possibilities. Willem Pijper, who made a strong impression on Dutch music as a composer, teacher and essayist, was exceptionally important in the years 1920 to 1940, and was one of the first 20th-century Dutch composers to become internationally known. Henrik Andriessen also contributed to the reputation of Dutch music through his vocal music, largely associated with the Catholic liturgy, and through his symphonic works.
During World War II, when the Germans occupied the Netherlands, funding for the orchestras and for commissions was restructured, the results of which lasted for several decades after the war. During the war most orchestral musicians remained at their posts, as did celebrated public figures such as Willem Mengelberg at the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The composer Henk Badings even took over the direction of the conservatory in The Hague during the German occupation. The creation of Dutch music was even increased with the help of the occupying government. Still, many musicians tried to survive without any official ties by giving concerts in private homes.
After 1945 it was mainly the pupils of Willem Pijper who came to the fore; many of the composers born in the first decades of the 20th century were taught by him, including Guillaume Landré, Badings (briefly), Kees van Baaren, Rudolf Escher, Bertus van Lier and Hans Henkemans. Their very different methods of writing point to an increasing diversity in Dutch music in the mid-20th century. Besides Badings, who was internationally perhaps the best-known composer of his generation, van Baaren was of major importance, both as a composer and as a teacher. Under his guidance Schoenberg’s and Webern’s 12-note technique and the new serialism inspired a generation of young composers, for example Peter Schat, Jan van Vlijmen, Misha Mengelberg, Otto Ketting, Reinbert de Leeuw and Louis Andriessen. At the same time Ton de Leeuw, a pupil of Badings, Messiaen and the ethnomusicologist Jaap Kunst, developed new techniques based on serialism, but soon experimented with aleatory techniques before evolving an idiom based on modalism. Among his pupils were Jan Vriend, Jos Kunst, Joep Svaesser, Daniël Manneke, Tristan Keuris, Alex Manassen, Guus Janssen, Paul Termos and Chiel Meyering.
The most important feature of the generation of van Baaren’s pupils has been the search for a politically and socially engaged music, as exemplified by the opera Reconstructie (1969) described as a ‘morality’ and written collectively by Schat, Andriessen, de Leeuw, Mengelberg and van Vlijmen. The opera concerns the destructive powers of American imperialism in Latin America as personified by Don Giovanni, and uses a mixture of serial and post-serial styles, pop songs, Mozartian pastiche, electronic music and improvisation. Its success resulted in the foundation of several specialist ensembles for avant-garde music. Many of them still play an important role in Dutch musical life, notably De Volharding, the ASKO Ensemble and the Schönberg Ensemble.
In the 1960s and 70s Dutch musical life became more international and more self-confident. With some 17 symphony orchestras, many specialist ensembles for both contemporary and early music (directed by audiences with such internationally renowned artists as Gustav Leonhardt, Frans Brüggen and Ton Koopman), and a keen taste for adventurous programmes, the Netherlands was in many respects a model of state-funded liberal culture. The versatility of Dutch musical life also resulted in the need to diversify official funding which was now given not only to established symphony orchestras, opera companies and composers but also to specialist ensembles, jazz and other forms of improvised music, experimental music and music theatre. The number of permanent symphony orchestras was correspondingly reduced in the 1980s to 14, including three radio orchestras.
Improvised music and jazz have become important features of Dutch musical life, with musicians such as Theo Loevendie, Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennink, Willem Breuker, Guus Janssen, Ernst Reijseger and Paul Termos. In the field of electronic music de Leeuw, Jan Boerman, Dick Raaymakers and Ton Bruynèl have been important pioneers.
As in other European countries and in the USA, the 1970s and 80s saw a further diversification in the language and techniques of Dutch composers. The post-serial musical climate embraced collage (Louis Andriessen), minimalism (Simeon ten Holt, Andriessen, Diderik Wagenaar, Joep Franssens), neo-romanticism and neo-tonality (Schat, van Vlijmen, Ketting, Keuris, Peter-Jan Wagemans), neo-modality (Ton de Leeuw), and finally an eclectic array of styles and genres. Among the most imporant composers of the youngest generation are Cornelius de Bondt, Theo Verbey, Willem Jeths, Rob Zuidam, Martijn Padding, Robin de Raaff and Peter van Onna.
Belgium became independent in 1830 and immediately set about establishing its own national musical institutions with the conservatories of Liège and Brussels. Before that year musical instruction in Belgium came principally from the French and the Austrians, but following the French Revolution, the Napoleonic wars and years of political instability before independence, Belgium was left with broken traditions and none of the foreign teachers on whom it had depended. In 1831 the former Ecole Royale de Musique in Liège became the Conservatoire Royal; it was first directed by Daussoigne-Méhul and became famous for its violin instruction. An école de chant founded in 1813 in Brussels by Jean-Baptiste Roucourt (1780–1849) became the Conservatoire Royal de Musique in 1832 and was directed by François-Joseph Fétis (1833–71) and F. Gevaert (1871–1908). Both these men made pioneering contributions to musicology and music teaching, and they established the Brussels Conservatory as one of the leading institutions of its day, training composers, performers, teachers and scholars to carry on the distinct national traditions they had begun. The Koninklijk Conservatorium Gent (founded 1812) was first directed by Joseph Mengal (1784–1851).
During the 19th century a number of additional music conservatories were founded, the most important of which was a small one founded in 1842 in Antwerp, which became the Flemish Music School in 1867 under the direction of Peter Benoit (1834–1901) and the Royal Flemish Conservatory in 1898. Also as part of the mid-19th-century nationalistic fervour, many small music schools were founded to train choirboys, to rebuild cathedral choral traditions and to channel the more gifted students into the state conservatories. Benoit was an important figure in the development of a Flemish culture and, in addition to his efforts in music education, he was responsible for the founding of the Vlaamsche Opera (1893, founded as Nederlandscg Lyrisch Tooneel in 1890) and encouraging a Flemish style of composition exhibited in his own works.
The first national school of composition developed in the genres of opera and choral music and, like all Belgian music of the early 19th century, it was predominantly influenced by the French. As early as 1820 Fétis had produced opéras comiques in the style of Boieldieu and Hérold; these were frequently staged in Paris. Albert Grisar (1808–69) was one of the first important Belgian composers known for opéras comiques influenced by Italian opera buffa and the French opéra comique. Auber, Adam and Meyerbeer overshadowed most opera composition in Belgium during the middle of the century.
About 1870 Belgian opera began to grow away from French models and came under the influence of Wagner (Lohengrin was performed in Brussels in 1870). Many composers chose to write their own librettos after Wagner’s example, which largely proved detrimental. By World War I Belgian composers had achieved a style of their own by assimilating aspects of French, Italian and German music into their operas.
Belgian composers have been particularly successful in choral music. Fétis was one of the earliest proponents of choral music; his important works include the Requiem (1850), composed for the funeral of Queen Louise-Marie, and Domine salvum fac regem nostrum (1865) for four-voice choir, organ and orchestra. César Franck, Peter Benoit, Edgar Tinel and Joseph Ryelandt were among the most important composers of oratorios, cantatas and larger choral works.
The Lemmens Institute opened at Mechelen on 2 January 1879 and played an important role in the revival and dissemination of the refined liturgical church music and the training of future clergy, organists and choirmasters in Belgium. In 1968 the institute was moved to Leuven. The founder was the organist J.-N. Lemmens who directed it until his death in 1881; he was succeeded by Edgar Tinel, a prominent composer of religious music and religious oratorios. The Benedictine monks of the Abbey of Maredsous did much to promote the singing of Gregorian chant.
A notable lieder school developed in Belgium in the late 19th century, drawing on both the French and the German traditions of songwriting. Franck, Huberti and Waelput were among the most important in this idiom.
Symphonic music developed more slowly than had opera and vocal genres. Before the 1860s very little notable orchestral music was composed in Belgium. Fétis, Hanssens and Vieuxtemps had all dabbled in orchestral writing, but without success. Peter Benoit’s symphonic poems for piano and orchestra and flute and orchestra, Adolphe Samuel’s Sixth Symphony, Theodore Radoux’s Godefroid de Bouillon and Louis Kéfer’s D major Symphony (1889) are some of the earliest significant orchestral works, largely in a style drawing heavily on contemporary French and German models.
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries an important school of violinists was based in Liège. It was founded on the virtuoso repertory of the 19th century and reached its peak with César Thomson (1857–1931), Ovide Musin (1854–1929) and Eugène Ysaÿe. By and large, Belgian music in the early years of the 20th century was dominated by Wagnerism, though Désiré Pâque (1867–1939) has claims as an early exponent of atonality. The principal composers of the time included Paul Gilson (1865–1942), Joseph Jongen (1873–1953) and Flor Alpaerts (1876–1954), all of whom were influenced by Wagner and Strauss, though Jongen inclined more towards Franck. Gilson composed little of importance after 1905, giving his attention instead to teaching and writing on music; he was almost untouched by the influence of Debussy. Jongen and Alpaerts, however, did compose impressionist scores (although not until the early 1920s) and each took something from later developments in an individual manner.
The considerable delay before pre-World War I innovations made their mark in Belgium may be attributed to the lack of performances of contemporary music. Flor Alpaerts included contemporary works of both Belgian and non-Belgian composers in the Antwerpse Dierentuinconcerten (1894) and Lodewijk de Vocht gave primarily contemporary choral programmes with the Chorale Caecilia at the Nieuwe Concerten (1903–34) in Antwerp. Paul Collaer (1891–1989) gave his first concert, with works by Bartók, Satie, Stravinsky, Roussel, Ravel and Skryabin, in Brussels in 1911, but it was not until after the war that he was able to establish a regular concert series; his Pro Arte concerts, lasting from 1921 to 1934, introduced music by Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Stravinsky, Milhaud and others. One of the first to be influenced by the Pro Arte concerts was André Souris (1899–1970), a pupil of Gilson. He had begun as a composer of Debussian songs but in the early 1920s, following some traits in Satie and Stravinsky, he engaged in a dadaist cultivation of parody and banality. His example was taken up briefly by Willem Pelemans (1901–91), though for the most part Souris was an independent; later he created works based on earlier music and folksong, adopted 12-note serialism for a short while and then, from the late 1940s, devoted himself to film music.
Other pupils of Gilson took a more moderate attitude to modern techniques. In 1925, the same year that saw Gilson’s foundation of the Revue musicale belge, seven of his students grouped themselves together as the ‘Synthétistes’. Their aim was a synthesis of the achievements of contemporary music, and they drew principally on Ravel, Stravinsky, Hindemith and Honegger in their broadly neo-classical art. The group, which included Marcel Poot (1901–88) and Gaston Brenta (1902–69), dispersed after only a few years, but a tradition of midstream, neo-romantic modernism had been established. Yet another Gilson pupil, Jean Absil (1893–1974), learnt from the music heard at the Pro Arte concerts in developing his polytonal style. In 1934 he founded the review Syrinx and the concert series La Sirène, in which Souris and Poot were also active; both ventures were short-lived, but they did help to promote knowledge of contemporary music in Belgium.
Three of Absil’s pupils, Pierre Froidebise (1914–62), Marcel Quinet (1915–86) and Vic Legley (1915–94), came to the fore in the 1940s. Quinet’s style developed directly from Absil’s, as did that of Legley, who, like Poot, Raymond Chevreuille (1901–76) and other Belgian composers, did important work for radio in the years after World War II. Froidebise was a more independent musician: as an organist he was concerned in the revival of early music, and as a composer and teacher he took a lively interest in new trends, including Webernian serialism (from the late 1940s) and aleatory writing. One of his pupils was Henri Pousseur (b 1929), who quickly established himself as an international figure in the company of Stockhausen, Boulez and Nono. Karel Goeyvaerts (1923–93) was also an early pioneer of ‘total serialism’ and synthesized electronic music, but he soon abandoned his avant-garde position.
It was Pousseur who founded the first Belgian electronic music studio, APELAC, in Brussels in 1958. The studio was absorbed into the Centre de Recherches Musicales de Wallonie, established in Liège under Pousseur’s direction in 1970. A parallel institution in the Flemish region is the Instituut voor Psychoacoustica en Electronische Muziek in Ghent, which was founded by Louis de Meester (1904–87) in 1962 with the cooperation of Belgian radio and television and Ghent University; others who have worked there include Goeyvaerts and Lucien Goethals (b 1931). All three of these Ghent composers are leading members of the ‘Spectra’ group. Among composers closely associated with Pousseur are Philippe Boesmans (b 1936) and Pierre Bartholomée (b 1937), a founder member of the Brussels ensemble Musique Nouvelle. Other composers, such as André Laporte (b 1931) and Frederik van Rossum (b 1939) cultivate a style that synthesizes traditional and avant-garde techniques.
The Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie (Koninklijke Muntschouwburg) is the centre of opera in Brussels, as is the Vlaamse Operastichting (formerly Opera voor Vlaanderen) in Antwerp and Ghent and the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège. The Société Philharmonique (Filharmonische Verening), based in Brussels, is the most important concert society in the country. In Liège the Orchestre Royal de Liège et de la Communauté Française de Belgique (Liège PO) gives frequent concerts, as does the Koninklijk Filharmonisch Orkest van Vlaanderen (Royal Flanders PO) in Antwerp, where the De Singel concert society also makes a significant contribution to musical life. The Festival van Vlaanderen and the Festival de Wallonie organize concerts in provincial towns as well as the large centres, while the Ars Musica festival has promoted contemporary music since 1988.
In Belgium, as elsewhere, radio has played an important part in musical life. However, its role has been reduced by the separation of Belgian radio into two entities (Vlaamse Radio en Televisie and Radio-Télévision Belge de la Communauté Française de Vlaamse), by the priority given to television transmissions and by financial problems. Of all the ensembles that were available to the two companies during the 1960s, only the symphony orchestra of Belgische Radio en Televisie is still in existence. Nevertheless, both broadcasting companies still have programmes exclusively devoted to music.
A protective rights society, the SABAM (Société des Auteurs Belges, or Belgische Auteurs Maatschappij), was founded in 1945. Since the reform of the Belgian state in 1970 the two linguistic communities, French-speaking and Flemish-speaking, have been separately responsible for their cultural and educational institutions. The federal government takes responsibility only for the activities of national organizations such as the Orchestre National de Belgique (Nationaal Orkest van België), founded in 1936 as successor to the Brussels SO of 1931, and since 1963 the Monnaie. The CeBeDeM (Centre Belge de Documentation Musicale) was set up in 1951 to encourage contemporary composers by publishing their music, paying recording costs and subsidizing concerts.
In 1960 the leading Belgian composers formed the Union des Compositeurs Belges to ‘promote and defend Belgian music in both national and international cultural life’; from 1968 it awarded the ‘Fuga’ medal to outstanding performers.
The earliest references to musical life in the area which is now Luxembourg are Ausonius's poem Mosella (c371 ce) and, two centuries later, Venantius Fortunatus's De navigio suo, both describing popular singing and folklore. The foundation of the abbey of Echternach by St Willibrord in 698 marked the beginning of sacred music in the region. The area became a duchy in 1354 and was under Burgundian, Spanish, French and Habsburg rule at various times from 1443 until 1815, when it became a grand duchy under Willem I of the Netherlands; until 1839 it included the Luxembourg province of Belgium. It became an independent state in 1839 by the Treaty of London. On the death of Willem III in 1890, the crown passed to Adolphe I, duke of Nassau-Weilburg who became Grand Duke of Luxembourg, thus founding the present dynasty. Echternach flourished during the Carolingian period and during the 10th and 11th centuries after Berengaudus had created the abbey’s schola, which became famous through the works of Marquardus and Heribert. Several manuscripts (e.g. a sacramentary and antiphoner, D-DS 1946, a troper-gradual, F-Pn lat.10510, and a sacramentary, F-Pn lat.9433) attest to a remarkable musical culture.
In 963 Count Siegfried built a castle on the banks of the Alzette and called it Lucillin Burhuc (‘little borough’); this was, in effect, the founding of Luxembourg. Echternach remained a centre of cultural life until 1794, when French Revolutionary troops attacked the town: the library was destroyed, books and manuscripts were burnt, stolen and dispersed over the neighbouring countries, and only 1500 of nearly 9000 volumes were recovered. Of these, 74 precious manuscripts were confiscated by J.B. Maugérard, Commissaire du Gouvernement pour la Recherche des Objets de Sciences et d’Art, and sent to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In 1797 the abbey was sold and converted into a china factory.
There was little musical activity outside Echternach during the Middle Ages; some 13th-century minstrels, such as Jacques Bretex, appeared in the castles and many nobles played the lute. In 1446 a guild of cooks, lute players and pipers of the town was established (none of the groups being numerous enough to form a corporation by itself). In 1603 the Jesuits opened a college by giving a drama festivum mixtum musica, a kind of pastoral with an orchestra and a choir; such plays with music were regularly presented at the beginning and end of the academic year, and on special festive occasions. However, few documents survive from the 17th century except the basso continuo part of a cantata, discovered in 1935.
In 1737 a certain François Ferré, either of French or Walloon origin, was authorized to establish himself in Luxembourg as ‘maître de musique pour le chant et la Basse de Violle’. The first philharmonic society was established in Wiltz in 1794 by Adam Kiseloppsky, followed by that founded in Esch/Sûre by Peter Krein in 1815. From 1818 Henri-Joseph Cornély was the first professor of music at the Ecole Modèle (later the Ecole Pédagogique) in Luxembourg; he conducted concerts for the Société Littéraire (1818) and was appointed conductor of operas and ballets for the Société d’Art Dramatique (1821). In 1822 he founded the first Ecole de Musique; this became the Ecole de Musique de la Ville de Luxembourg in 1844 and a conservatory in 1849, but later became an Ecole de Musique again. It was dissolved in 1882. Thanks to a generous foundation by Eugénie Dutreux, the new Conservatoire de Musique de la Ville de Luxembourg was opened in 1906; it has since expanded continuously and in 1984 moved to a larger building accommodating over 2000 students.
Cornély was not only an outstanding teacher but also conducted the orchestra of the Société Philharmonique (1824) which was formed from the defunct orchestra of the Société d’Art Dramatique. He was responsible for revitalizing the society in 1829 with J.B. Zinnen as director, and such conductors as Laurent Menager and Edmond Patzké; it organized the first concert given by Liszt in Luxembourg in November 1845. Zinnen opened a second Société Philharmonique together with a music school in Larochette which has produced some of the country's best composers, including Philippe Decker, his cousin Théodore Decker, who composed the famous Palm Sunday hymn Lauda Jerusalem, Philippe Manternach and Jean-Antoine Zinnen (J.B. Zinnen’s son and composer of the national anthem Ons Hémecht, 1864). The Caecilien Verein, the choir of the future Notre Dame Cathedral of Luxembourg, was founded in 1844 by Cornély, who in 1823 had created a choir and orchestra known as the Société d'Amateurs to perform sacred music in the church of St Pierre (which became the Cathedral in 1870). Later conductors of the Caecilien Verein included Henri Oberhoffer, Jean-Pierre Barthel, Pierre Aloyse Barthel, Dominique Heckmes, Jean-Pierre Schmit, René Ponchelet and Jean-Paul Majerus. Organists included André Oberhoffer, Jean-Pierre Beicht, Albert Leblanc and Carlo Hommel.
The Ecole Pédagogique became an Ecole Normale in 1845 and offered musical instruction (Father Jean Majerus was director). A new cultural society, Gym, was established in 1849 and gave such popular composers as Michel Lentz and Dicks (Edmond de la Fontaine) the opportunity to conduct; as a result the first Singspiel in the Luxembourg language, De Scholtschein by Dicks, was performed in 1855. The two military bands of Diekirch and Echternach were merged in 1868 to form what eventually became the Musique Militaire Grand-Ducale; a symphony orchestra was formed from this band. Under the auspices of the prince Henry and princess Amalia of the Netherlands, the Théâtre Municipal de Luxembourg opened in 1869 with a comic opera by J.A. Zinnen, Le chef de bande, ou Le capitaine des voleurs. On 19 July 1886 Liszt gave his second and last concert at the Casino of Luxembourg.
A federation of Luxembourg's bands and choirs, founded in 1863 by Auguste Fischer and directed by J.A. Zinnen, was disbanded in 1882. But since Grand Duke Adolphe sponsored most of the bands and choirs, a new federation was formed in 1891; called Union Grand-Duc Adolphe, it has retained this name. In Esch-sur-l’Alzette an Ecole de Musique was created in 1917 and through private initiative was very active by 1923. In 1926 it came under municipal control and in 1969 became a conservatory. Despite these institutions musical life continued to decline during the first half of the 20th century. The Société Philharmonique was disbanded in 1926 and replaced by Les Amis de la Musique under Fritz Fischer in 1928, which organized concerts with international artists and orchestras. Similarly, the Luxembourg Jeunesses Musicales (founded in 1946 by Norbert Stelmes, Mathias Thinnes and Henri Pensis) and the concert series Soirées de Luxembourg (founded in 1964 by Norbert Weber and Stelmes under the Minister of Culture, Pierre Grégoire) exist primarily to bring international artists to Luxembourg. Radio Luxembourg transmitted its first programme in 1931; its own symphony orchestra, founded in 1933, became famous under its founder Henri Pensis. Most of its musicians, however, were imported from outside Luxembourg; conductors after Pensis included Carl Melles, Louis de Froment, Pierre Cao and Leopold Hager. In 1996 the orchestra was re-formed as the Luxembourg PO under chief-conductor, David Shallon
The Ecole Normale was promoted to a university institute in 1960, now the Institut Supérieur d'Etudes et de Recherches Pédagogiques; Luxembourg’s most prominent composer at the time, Edmond Cigrang, a pupil of Müller-Zürich, Philipp Jarnach and André Jolivet, developed the institute's syllabus, providing practical music education on a high level for the country’s musicians.
In the second half of the 20th century, musical activity in Luxembourg developed vigorously. Many new orchestras and choirs were formed, among them, Les Musíciens founded (1974) by professor Josy Groben and conducted by Pierre Cao, and a new generation of composers emerged who rejected the neo-romantic and folk-influenced styles of their predecessors in favour of a modernist idiom. In addition to Cigrang, prominent composers in the latter part of the century included Victor Fenigstein, Jeannot Heinen, Alexander Müllenbach, Johny Fritz, Walter Civitareale, Camille Kerger, Georges Lentz, Marcel Wengler, Marco Kraus, Claude Lenners and Alain Nitschké.
Several important festivals were established in Luxembourg in the second half of the 20th century: the Wiltz Festival (1953), initially an open-air drama festival and later expanded to include operas, orchestral concerts and chamber music; the Echternach Festival (1975); and the annual young composers' festival organized by the Lëtzeburger Gesellschaft fir nei Musék (1983); and the Printemps Musical de Luxembourg (1983).
See also Amsterdam; Antwerp; Bruges; Brussels; Burgundy; Hague, The; Holland Festival; Leiden; Liège; Leuven; Rotterdam; Utrecht.
BurneyGN
Vander StraetenMPB
E.G.J. Grégoir: Essai historique sur la musique et les musiciens dans les Pays-Bas (Brussels, 1861)
A. Goovaerts: Histoire et bibliographie de la typographie musicale dans les anciens Pays-Bas (Antwerp and Brussels, 1880, 2/1963)
W.G. Rice: Carillons of Belgium and Holland (New York, 1915)
H. Birtner: Studien zur niederländisch-humanistischen Musikanschaung (Heidelberg, 1930)
A. Smijers: Nederlandsche muziekgeschiedenis (Utrecht, 1930)
F. van der Mueren: Het orgel in de Nederlanden (Brussels and Amsterdam, 1931)
A.I.M. Kat: De geschiedenis der kerkmuziek in de Nederlanden sedert de Hervorming (Hilversum, 1939)
C. Backers: Nederlandsche componisten van 1400 tot op onzen tijd (The Hague, 1942)
S.A.M. Bottenheim: Orgels in Nederland (Amsterdam, 1943)
S.A.M. Bottenheim: De opera in Nederland (Amsterdam, 1946, enlarged 2/1983 by P. Wander)
C. van den Borren: Geschiedenis van de muziek in de Nederlanden (Antwerp, 1948–51)
W.H. Thijsse: Zeven eeuwen Nederlandse muziek (Rijswijk, 1949)
M. Möller: The Violin Makers of the Low Countries (Belgium and Holland) (Amsterdam, 1955)
A. Curtis: ‘Dutch Harpsichord Makers’, TVNM, xix/1–2 (1960), 44–66
C.C. Vlam and M.A. Vente, eds.: Documenta et archivalia ad historiam musicae neerlandicae, i/1–2: Bouwstenen voor een geschiedenis der toonkunst in de Nederlanden (Amsterdam, 1965–71)
P. Fischer: ‘Music in Paintings of the Low Countries in the 16th and 17th Centuries/Musik auf niederländischen Gemälden im 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts’, Sonorum speculum, nos.50–51 (1972), 1–128
P. Scherft: Een Speurtocht door Zeeuws muziekverleden (Middelburg, 1984)
W. Elders: Componisten van de Lage Landen (Utrecht and Antwerp, 1985)
J.G.A. ten Bokum: Muziek in de IJsselsteden (Utrecht, 1988)
F. Vester and R. de Reede: Catalogus van de Nederlandse fluitliteratuur (Buren, 1988)
E. Beijer and L. Samama: Muziek in Nederland van 1100 tot heden (Utrecht, 1989)
J. van Biezen: Het Nederlandse orgel in de Renaissance en de Barok (Utrecht, 1995)
A. Dunning: ‘Europas Musikgeschichte: Niederlande’, Europas Musikgeschichte: Grenzen und Öffnungen: Vorträge des Europäischen Musikfestes Stuttgart 1993, ed. U. Prinz (Kassel, 1997), vii, 52–61
D.F. Scheurleer: De Souterliedekens: bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der oudste Nederlandsche psalmberijming (Leiden, 1898/R)
J. Wolf: ‘Der niederländische Einfluss in der mehrstimmingen gemessenen Musik bis zum Jahre 1480: eine bibliographische Skizze’, TVNM, vi/4 (1900), 197–217
A. Schering: Die niederländische Orgelmesse im Zeitalter von Josquin (Leipzig, 1912)
C. van den Borren: Les musiciens belges en Angleterre à l'époque de la Renaissance (Brussels, 1913)
A. Averkamp: ‘De verhouding van noord tot zuid op muzikaal gebied in de XVe en XVIe eeuw’, TVNM, ix/4 (1914), 213–23
C. van den Borren: Les origines de la musique de clavier dans les Pays-Bas (nord et sud) jusque vers 1630 (Brussels, 1914)
R.B. Lenaerts: Het Nederlands polifonies lied in de zestiende eeuw (Mechelen and Amsterdam, 1933)
E. Dannemann: Die spätgotische Musiktradition in Frankreich und Burgund vor dem Auftreten Dufays (Strasbourg, 1936/R)
C. van den Borren: ‘Actions et réactions de la polyphonie néerlandaise et de la polyphonie italienne aux environs de 1500’, Revue belge d'archéologie et d'histoire de l'art, vi (1936), 51–62; repr. in RBM, xxi (1967), 36–44
J. Smits van Waesberghe: Muziekgeschiedenis der Middeleeuwen (Tilburg, 1936–42)
W. Stephan: Die burgundisch-niederländische Motette zur Zeit Ockeghems (Kassel, 1937/R)
H. Ostoff: Die Niederländer und das deutsche Lied, 1400–1640 (Berlin, 1938/R)
J. Marix: Histoire de la musique et des musiciens de la cour de Bourgogne sous le règne de Philippe le Bon (1420–1467) (Strasbourg, 1939/R)
J. Schmidt-Görg: Niederländische Musik des Mittelalters und der Renaissance (Bonn, 1942)
M.A. Vente: Bouwstoffen tot de geschiedenis van het Nederlandse orgel in de 16de eeuw (Amsterdam, 1942)
V. Denis: De muziekinstrumenten in de Nederlanden en in Italië naar hun afbeelding in de 15e-eeuwsche kunst (Antwerp, 1944; partial Eng. trans. in GSJ, ii (1949), 32–46)
E.E. Lowinsky: Secret Chromatic Art in the Netherlands Motet (New York, 1946/R)
H.A. Bruinsma: The ‘Southerliedekens’ and its Relation to Psalmody in the Netherlands (diss., U. of Michigan, 1949)
H. Besseler: Bourdon und Fauxbourdon: Studien zum Ursprung der niederländischen Musik (Leipzig, 1950, rev., enlarged 2/1974 by P. Gülke)
W.L. Bethel: The Burgundian Chanson (1400–1477): a Study in Musical Style (diss. U. of Pennsylvania, 1950)
J. Smits van Waesberghe: ‘A Dutch Easter Play’, MD, vii (1953), 15–37
La Renaissance dans les provinces du Nord: Arras 1954 [incl. A. van der Linden: ‘Comment designer la nationalité des artistes des provinces du Nord à l'époque de la Renaissance’, 11–17]
R.B. Lenaerts: ‘Contribution à l'histoire de la musique belge de la Renaissance’, RBM, ix (1955), 103–21
H.C. Wolff: Die Musik der alten Niederländer (15. und 16. Jahrhundert) (Leipzig, 1956)
F. Noske: ‘Remarques sur les luthistes des Pays-Bas: (1580–1620)’, Le luth et sa musique: Neuilly-sur-Seine 1957, 179–192
F. Stock: Studien zum Wort-Ton-Verhältnis in den Credosätzen der Niederländer zwischen Josquin und Lasso (diss., U. of Cologne, 1957; extract in KJb, xli (1957), 20–63)
F. van der Mueren: ‘Ecole bourguignonne, école néerlandaise au début de la Renaissance’, RBM, xii (1958), 53–65
M.A. Vente: Die Brabanter Orgel: zur Geschichte der Orgelkunst in Belgien und Holland im Zeitalter der Gotik und der Renaissance (Amsterdam, 1958, enlarged 2/1963)
H. Wagenaar-Noltenhuis: Nederlands muziekleven in de middeleeuwen (Utrecht, 1958)
R.B. Lenaerts: De Nederlandse muziek uit de vijftiende eeuw (Leuven, 1959)
R.B. Lenaerts: ‘Nederlandse luittabulaturen uit de zestiende eeuw’, Jb van de Vereniging voor Muziekgeschiedenis (Antwerp, 1959)
P. Gülke: ‘Das Volkslied in der burgundischen Polyphonie des 15. Jahrhunderts’, Festschrift Heinrich Besseler, ed. E. Klemm (Leipzig, 1961), 179–202
R.B. Lenaerts: Die Kunst der Niederländer, Mw, xxii (1962, Eng. trans., 1964)
R. Wangermée: La musique flamande dans la société des XVe et XVIe siècles (Brussels, 1965; Eng. trans., 1968)
P. Becquart: Musiciens néerlandais à la cour de Madrid (1560–1647) (Brussels, 1967)
W. Elders: Studien zur Symbolik in der Musik der alten Niederländer (Bilthoven, 1968)
W.I.M. Elders: ‘Zur Aufführungspraxis der altniederländische Musik’, Renaissance-muziek 1400–1600: donum natalicium René Bernard Lenaerts, ed. J. Robijns and others (Leuven, 1969), 89–104
J.A.F. Doove: ‘Nederlandse luitmuziek rond het jaar 1600’, Mens en Melodie, xxxiii (1978), 263–75
C. Lingbeek-Schalekamp: Overheid en muziek in Holland tot 1672 (Rotterdam, 1984)
J. van Biezen and J.P. Gumbert: Two Chansonniers from the Low Countries: French and Dutch Polyphonic Songs from the Leiden and Utrecht Fragments (Early 15th Century) (Amsterdam, 1985)
C.A. Höweler and F.H. Matter: Fontes Hymnodiae neerlandicae impressi 1539 tot 1650 (Nieuwkoop, 1985)
R.A. Leaver: ‘Goostely Psalmes and Spirituall Songes’: English and Dutch Metrical Psalms from Coverdale to Utenhove 1535–1566 (Oxford, 1991)
R.C. Wegman: ‘New Light on Secular Polyphony at the Court of Holland in the Early Fifteenth Century: the Amsterdam Fragments’, JRMA, cxvii (1992), 181–207
K. Polk: ‘Instrumental Music in the Low Countries in the Fifteenth Century’, Festschrift W.I.M. Elders, ed. A. Clement and E. Jas (Amsterdam and Atlanta, 1994), 13–29
K. Polk: ‘Minstrels and Music in the Low Countries in the Fifteenth Century’, Musicology and Archival Research, ed. B. Haggh and others (Brussels, 1994), 392–410
E. Schreurs and B. Bouckaert, eds.: Bedreigde klanken? Muziekfragmenten uit de Lage Landen (middeleeuwen en renaissance) (Peer, 1995)
J.F.H. de Loos: Duitse en Nederlandse muzieknotaties in de 12e en 13e eeuw (diss., U. of Utrecht, 1996)
E. Jas: De koorboeken van de Pieterskerk te Leiden: het zestiende-eeuwse muzikale erfgoed van een Hollands getijdencollege (diss., U. of Utrecht, 1997)
E.G.J. Grégoir: Les artistes-musiciens belges aux XVIIIme et XIXme siècles (Brussels, 1885–90, suppl. 1887)
J.W. Enschedé: ‘Marschen en marschmuziek in het Nederlandsche leger der achttiende eeuw’, TVNM, vi/1 (1898), 16–79
J.W. Enschedé: Dertig jaren muziek in Holland (1670–1700) (Haarlem, 1904)
J. Fransen: Les comédiens français en Hollande au XXVIIe et au XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1925)
E.H. Meyer: ‘Die Vorherrschaft der Instrumental-Musik im niederländischen Barock’, TVNM, xv/2 (1937), 56–83; xv/4 (1939), 225–81
D.J. Balfoort: Het muziekleven in Nederland in de 17de en 18de eeuw (Amsterdam, 1938, rev. 2/1981 by R. Rasch)
S. Clercx: ‘Les clavecinistes belges et leurs emprunts à l'art de François Couperin et de Jean-Philippe Rameau’, ReM, nos.192–4 (1939), 11–22
A.M. Pols: De Ruckers en de klavierbouw in Vlaanderen (Antwerp, 1942)
R. Vemiere-Roos: ‘De Loeillet's, een voornaam geslacht van musici te Gent in de XVIIe en XVIIIe eeuw’, Miscellania musicologica Floris van der Mueren (Ghent, 1950), 209–15
S. Clercx-Lejeune: ‘Introduction à l'histoire de la musique en Belgique’, RBM, v (1951), 9–22, 114–31
E. Duverger: ‘Muziekboeken en muziekinstrumenten in de 18e eeuwse verzamelingen te Gent’, Gentse bijdragen, xxii (1957), 259
M.J.E. Sanders: Het Nederlands kinderlied in 1770–1940 (Amsterdam, 1958)
F. Noske: ‘Het Nederlandse kinderlied in de achttiende eeuw’, TVNM, xix/3–4 (1962–3), 173–85
F. Peeters and others: The Organ and its Music in the Netherlands, 1500–1800 (Antwerp, 1971)
J. Zomerdijk: Het muziekleven in Noord-Brabant (1770–1850) (Tilburg, 1981)
J.R. Luth: ‘Daer wert om't seertste uytgekreten … ’: Bijdragen tot een geschiedenis van de gemeentezang in het Nederlandse Gereformeerde protestantisme 1559–1852 (Kampen, 1986)
F.P.M. Jespers: ‘Het loflijk werk der Engelen’: de katholieke kerkmuziek in Noord-Brabant van het einde der zeventiende tot het begin der negentiende eeuw (Tilburg, 1988)
F. Noske: Music Bridging Divided Religions: the Motet in the Seventeenth-Century Dutch Republic (Wilhelmshaven, 1989)
L.P. Grijp: Het Nederlandse lied in de Gouden Eeuw (Amsterdam, 1991)
A. Dunning: ‘Music Publishing in the Dutch Republic: the Present State of Research’, Le magasin de l'univers: the Dutch Republic as a Centre of the European Book Trade: Wassenaar 1990, ed. C. Berkvens-Stevelinck and others (Leiden, 1992), 121–8
R.A. Rasch: ‘The Dutch Republic’, Man & Music/Music and Society: the Late Baroque Era, ed. G.J. Buelow (London, 1993), 393–410
J.H. Letzer: Muzikaal Nederland, 1850–1910: bio-bibliographisches woordenboek (Utrecht, 1911, 2/1913)
E. Reeser: Een eeuw Nederlandse muziek 1815–1915 (Amsterdam, 1950, 2/1986)
M. Monnikendam: Nederlandse componisten van heden en verleden (Amsterdam, 1968)
H. Zomerdijk: Het muziekleven in Noord-Brabant 1850–1914 (Tilburg, 1982)
L. Samama: ‘Much More than Jingling of Bells and Ducats’, in L. Samama, F. Abrahams and M. de Reuter: Music in the Netherlands (The Hague, 1985), 4–31
L. Samama: Zeventig jaar Nederland muziek 1915–1985 (Amsterdam, 1986)
J. van der Klis: Oude muziek in Nederland: het verhaal van de pioniers 1900–1975 (Utrecht, 1991)
P. Micheels: Muziek in de schaduw van het Derde Rijk: de Nederlandse symfonie-orkesten 1933–1945 (Zutphen, 1993)
F. Faber: Histoire du théâtre français en Belgique (Brussels and Paris, 1878–80)
E. Evenepoel: Le Wagnérisme hors d'Allemagne (Bruxelles et la Belgique) (Paris, 1890)
J. Kreps: ‘De Belgische orgelmakers, 13e tot 19e eeuw’, Musica sacra [Bruges], xxxix (1932), 231
E. Closson: La facture des instruments de musique en Belgique (Brussels, 1935)
R. Bragard: Histoire de la musique belge (Brussels, 1946–9)
E. Closson and others, eds.: La musique en Belgique du Moyen Age à nos jours (Brussels, 1950)
A. Vander Linden: Octave Maus et la vie musicale belge (1875–1914) (Brussels, 1950)
A. Corbet: ‘De vlaamsch muziek’, Vlaanderen door de eeuwen heen, ii, ed. M.C.G Lamberty and R. Lissens (Brussels, 1952), 257–90
J. Rottiers: Beiaarden in België (Mechelen, 1952)
R. Wangermée: La musique belge contemporaine (Brussels, 1958)
B. Huys and others: François-Joseph Fétis et la vie musicale de son temps, 1784–1871, Bibliothèque royale Albert Ier, 27 May – 26 Aug 1972 (Brussels, 1972) [exhibition catalogue]
D. von Volborth-Danys, ed.: CeBeDeM and its Affiliated Composers (Brussels, 1977–80)
R. Wangermée and P. Mercier, eds.: La musique en Wallonie et à Bruxelles (Brussels, 1980–82)
M. Haine and N. Meeús, eds.: Dictionnaire des facteurs d'instruments de musique en Wallonie et à Bruxelles du 9e siècle à nos jours (Liège and Brussels, 1986)
M. Delaere, Y. Knockaert and H. Sabbe: Nieuwe muziek in Vlaanderen (Bruges, 1998)
J. Ulveling: ‘Notice sur les anciens treize maîtres et les corporations des métiers de la Ville de Luxembourg’, Publications de la Société pour la recherche et la conservation des monuments historiques dans la Grand-duché de Luxembourg, xiv (1859), 1–24
N. van Werveke: Kulturgeschichte des Luxemburger Landes (Luxembourg, 1923–6)
A. Foos: ‘Music in Luxemburg’, Jong–Hémecht, iv/5–7 (1930), 133
F. Mertens: ‘Quelques notices sur la musique militaire de Luxembourg’, Jong–Hémecht, iv/5–7 (1930), 145
A. Sprunck: Les origines de la Bibliothèque nationale du Grand-duché de Luxembourg (Luxembourg, 1953)
G. Wagner: Luxemburger Komponisten heute (Echternach, 1986)
L. Weber: Das Luxemburger Rundfunkorchester: 1933–1940, 1946–1958 (Luxembourg, 1993)
The area considered in this article mainly comprises the Dutch language area, which consists of the Netherlands and Flanders (i.e. northern Belgium and the extreme north-west of France); it also includes the Frisian language area in the Dutch province of Friesland, and French-speaking Wallonia (i.e. southern Belgium). Because of their geographical situation and political history the Low Countries have always been open to foreign cultural influences. Consequently they share most of their musical traditions with neighbouring areas in Germany and France. Since the Middle Ages the Low Countries have also been among the most urbanized areas of Europe, which has meant a continuous cultural interaction between social classes.
Low Countries, §II: Folk music
Among the most archaic vocal forms are the calls of herdsmen, of which only some Walloon examples have been studied. Their nucleus is a 3rd (usually major), which can be divided into two tones, and extended with an additional whole (or, more recently, a semi-) tone below and/or above. Also archaic are the bi- or tritonic chains of short motifs sung by children. A study by Lucy Gelber (A1972) of the Flemish children’s repertory reveals that the most representative tritonic structure is A–C–D, with C as the focal degree. Children also make great use of scales of four, five or six notes, the most frequently-heard scales being G–A–B–C–D(–E–G) and (G–) C–D–E(–G), with G or, more often, C as tonic and final note. Such scales may have been transmitted since pre-medieval times.
Until the 16th century song collections contain mainly hexatonic and modal tunes. More than half the tunes are in the D or A mode, followed in popularity by the C and G modes. Many tunes testify to the strong link between popular and church singing. The 17th-century songbooks show a transition from modal to tonal music and the appearance of accidentals. Modal tunes only disappeared from common usage in the 20th century, however, and the use of accidentals seems to have been uncommon before the end of the 19th century.
To date only folksongs in Dutch have been the subject of musical analysis. Paul Collaer studied songs collected in Flanders between about 1850 and 1910, whereas Hermine Sterringa analysed ballads collected in the Netherlands from the 1950s onwards (in Doornbosch, A1987–91).
Melodies often consist of only two phrases, and tunes of more than four phrases are exceptional. Most melodies range between an octave and an octave and a 4th, and use a major heptatonic scale. The Flemish repertory analysed so far uses the following scales: heptatonic major (35·5%), hexatonic (34%), pentatonic (14%), A mode (5%), chromatic (3·5%), D mode (3%), heptatonic minor (2%), C mode (1·5%), G mode (1%), E and F mode (together 0·5%).
Very few melodies modulate. Two-thirds of the Dutch ballads use a plagal scale and half the major plagal tunes start with the dominant followed by the tonic. They generally end on the tonic, sometimes on the third degree. The melodic outline is undulating and fluent, with a marked preference for small intervals up to a 4th. Song-tunes are essentially syllabic. Melisma occurs only exceptionally and it hardly ever exceeds two notes to the syllable.
The singing style is generally sober and has little dynamic variety. Ornamental notes are hardly ever used, except in the town of Volendam (Noord-Holland province). The use of glissando is more common.
Folksinging is essentially monodic. Spontaneous two-part singing has been recorded sporadically, but this seems to be originally a 19th-century phenomenon. There is a marked preference for binary metre and most songs are entirely isometric. When heterometre occurs, however, it is mostly as a result of the singer adapting the metre to the text or to his or her pausing at the end of a phrase. Most melodies start with an upbeat. Syncopation is extremely rare.
The traditional song repertory can basically be divided into two parts. The first group consists of songs which were mainly transmitted orally. Generally they are of a cheerful nature and meant to be sung by a group, for instance, game- and dance-songs. As a rule they are in binary metre and sung in tempo giusto. Each verse contains only one or two elements or lines; the rest of the verse consists of repetitions of those lines and of fixed refrain lines, including series of meaningless syllables, like van falderadiere, van falderada or tradérira, luron, lurette.
The second category consists of songs whose lyrics were originally written down. They may tell a merry or a sad story, and are usually sung solo. They can also be in ternary metre, and the serious songs in particular are often performed parlando rubato. The verses contain four to eight, sometimes more, lines, of which the last one or two are often repeated. The lyrics generally tended to suffer when transmitted orally.
Part of the repertory is linked to important events in the course of life such as conscription, marriage or moving house. There are, however, hardly any songs connected with birth or death rites. Another important group consists of seasonal songs, for instance, the luck-visit songs (sung to bring good luck to the households visited at these times) during Carnival and Holy Week, on May Day, midsummer and Martinmas, and in the period from Christmas to Epiphany. These luck-visit singers are now children and teenagers, but until the beginning of the 20th century many were handicapped or jobless adults.
From the 16th century until the beginning of the 20th, and in Flanders even until about 1950, broadside singers were a familiar sight at markets and outside churches after Mass. Their repertory dealt mainly with sensational news and love stories.
Examples of once popular dance-songs are ‘t patertje (a kissing dance from the Dutch language area), the seven steps/jumps dance, and dances round the maypole and autumn, Lent, midsummer and Easter bonfires. A rich variety of songs also accompanied the crâmignon, the open-air farandole which was danced until about 1960 in the town of Liège and which still survives in a few villages between Liège and Maastricht (Limburg province), though now mostly accompanied only by a brass band. A related chain-dance is the vlöggelen of Ootmarsum (Overijssel province), which is performed on Easter Sunday and Monday.
Already in the 19th century collectors were worried about the marked decline of traditional singing, which was accelerated in the 20th century by a combination of factors, the most important being the gradual loss of its function within the agricultural work-cycle and the human life-cycle. According to Doornbosch, this was caused mainly by the mechanization of agriculture, industrialization, the radio and the introduction of commercial entertainment, improvement in the means of transport, and the advent of electricity, by which twilight – the best time for singing in the family circle – was lost.
Low Countries, §II: Folk music
Some noise-makers and rhythm instruments are essentially linked with luck-visit singing. They include cog rattles (for Holy Week), the hanske knap (a clapper made from a clog and played on Plough Monday in some villages north of Antwerp) and the rommelpot (a friction drum played during Shrovetide and the Christmas and Epiphany period in some Dutch-speaking areas). A typical Carnival instrument is the musical bow (Dutch: goebe or brombas; Fr.: ramoncelle or basse de Flandres), which has one or two strings running over a bladder as resonator. The midwinterhoorn is a horn about 100–120 cm long made of wood. It is played in the Twente area (the eastern part of the province of Overijssel) during Advent.
Since at least the 12th century, a rich variety of duct flutes has been known in the Low Countries. Archaeological research has yielded dozens of bone duct flutes, most of which were excavated in the terpengebied (area of mounds) along the coast of the provinces of Friesland and Groningen. In Belgium a few traces of a pastoral cow-horn flute tradition have been found. The duct could be formed by a wooden block or the lower lip.
Six-hole duct flutes were among the most popular traditional instruments until the first decades of the 20th century. From the middle of the 19th century these were mainly factory-made metal or synthetic instruments, imported from France, Gemany or England. The last traditional players – recorded in Belgium in the 1970s – favoured a non legato style, with brisk tonguing and an economy of ornamentation. Though mostly played as a pastime, the tin whistle was also often part of informal dance bands in Belgium about 1900.
The pipe and tabor were first depicted at the end of the 13th century and were a popular accompaniment for dance until about 1650.
The
fife and side drum were introduced at the end of the 15th century and, until
the advent of brass bands in the 19th century, provided most open-air music.
The fife and drum tradition is still very much alive in the area between the
rivers Sambre and Meuse (Hainaut and Namur provinces), where the players – in
post-Napoleonic uniforms – accompany the military escorts of religious
processions. The fifes made in this area are in C or D
, lathe-turned from a single piece of ebony,
boxwood or aluminium, keyless and with a cylindrical bore. The style of playing
is characterized by sparse use of slurring and ornamentation. The tradition
also survives in a few towns in the province of East Flanders. There the
traditional fife has been ousted by the orchestral piccolo, and the playing
style is more slurred and ornamented.
Since its introduction at the end of the 15th century, the side drum has been one of the most important open-air instruments. The carnival drummers of Binche and the surrounding villages (Hainaut province) achieve an amazingly high standard of drumming, with characteristic asymmetrical rhythms.
The earliest references to the bagpipe (Dutch: moezelzak, doedelzak, pijpzak; Fr.: cornemuse, pip’sac, muchosa) date from the last quarter of the 13th century. The bagpipes of the Low Countries had a sewn bag, a conical chanter with a double reed and one (until about 1500) or two cylindrical drones with a single reed. Both drones could be mounted in a common stock, and rested against the left shoulder. In the 18th and 19th centuries shepherds in the province of Hainaut favoured a type with a parallel arrangement of chanter and small drone in the same stock, while the bass drone rested against the shoulder. In the provinces of Hainaut and Antwerp the bagpipe tradition lingered until the beginning of the 20th century.
The industrialization of wind instrument making in the first half of the 19th century brought about the formation of village wind bands. Dance bands often consisted of a clarinet, a cornet, a trombone and a tuba. There could also be a second clarinet, a flute, one or two flugelhorns and a bombardon. Until the interwar years this was the most common type of band for large village dance halls.
The accordion became a truly popular instrument about 1880, with the import of cheap German instruments and the start of mass-production in Belgium. It quickly dethroned the fiddle as the main folk instrument for small dance parties. Until the interwar years the Belgian workshops produced an amazing variety of single-action, double-action and hybrid models. Most popular among Flemish country musicians was the double-action model with two melody rows and ten bass keys, of which five keys sound bass notes and the other five their chords. Some accordion players, mainly in the province of Namur, accompanied themselves on the ‘foot-bass’ invented in 1894 by Joseph Alexandry. It consists of a large bellows on top of which is a soundbox with one row of nine to twelve buttons, depressed with both feet.
In the Ardennes (Liège and Luxembourg provinces) an archaic style of fiddle playing survived until the 1970s. It was characterized by non legato playing (with detached strokes), the use of drone strings, absence of vibrato and economy of ornamentation. In bands the fiddle could be used to play a second part or a rhythmic, generally off-beat accompaniment consisting of two notes, usually a 3rd or a 6th, sometimes a 4th apart. The fiddle was by far the most popular instrument for dancing from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Quite often it was accompanied by a bass (cello). In the provinces of Brabant and Antwerp this duo survived until about 1920. Until the beginning of the 20th century dance bands in the West-Friesland area (Noord-Holland province) generally consisted of two fiddles and a bass.
The hurdy-gurdy (Dutch: (draai)lier; Fr.: vielle à roue, vièrlète, tiesse di tch’vå) is first mentioned in the 13th century. Both diatonic instruments with a single row of keys, and fully chromatic models with a double row were used. The instrument was usually played by wandering minstrels of humble condition, many of them blind beggars. In Belgium the last players were seen about 1920.
The hammered dulcimer is first depicted between 1420 and 1435. Extant dulcimers from the 17th and 18th centuries were probably made by harpsichord makers, which points to their use as drawing-room instruments. There are, however, a few indications that the hammered dulcimer was also played by wandering street musicians until the middle of the 19th century.
The
fretted zither (Dutch: hommel; Fr.: épinette) was probably
introduced before 1600, as a Dutch example is dated 1608. The instrument was
made in a variety of forms, ranging from crudely hollowed-out logs to fine
pieces of craftsmanship. Some 20th-century Belgian zithers have an additional
soundbox. There are usually from two to five melody strings and two to four
drones. In the Hageland area (Brabant province) a zither tuned to two or three
different major chords was popular in the 1920s. The scales produced from the
frets are mostly diatonic but since about 1900, 90% of the Flemish instruments
have been tuned to the following scale: C–D–E–F–G–A–B–B–C etc.. Some instruments are, however,
fully chromatic.
In Belgium in the 20th century, the zither has been played exclusively with a piece of cane or hardwood run along the frets and a plectrum for plucking. The zither has always been an instrument for family music-making. It was the only folk instrument generally played by women. Until the 19th century the zither was mainly found in the provinces of Noord-Holland and Friesland, but about 1900 it was virtually extinct in the Netherlands. In Belgium, on the contrary, it reached the peak of its popularity in the interwar years.
Low Countries, §II: Folk music
Before the middle of the 18th century folk musicians left no written music. Many traditional tunes, however, found their way into printed collections for middle-class amateurs. For instance, the branles published by Tylman Susato in Antwerp (1551) and Pierre Phalèse in Leuven (1571) and Antwerp (1583) are unmistakably rooted in the Western European popular tradition. A wealth of traditional music is also to be found in the Oude en nieuwe hollantse boerenlieties en contredansen (‘Old and new Dutch peasant songs and country dances’), published in Amsterdam from 1700 to 1716. This is the largest collection of tunes ever published in the Low Countries, and contains more than 1000 melodies, many of French and English origin.
From these written sources and the instruments used it would appear that until about 1700 there was no noteworthy difference between instrumental and vocal music. Tunes were often both sung and played. The scarcity of bands points to the fact that – in contrast to middle-class music – folk music was essentially monodic, drones being the only common form of accompaniment.
A wealth of 18th-century traditional music is to be found in manuscripts and printed collections by fiddlers, dancing-masters and carillon players.
About the middle of the 18th century popular music had apparently become predominantly tonal. It was still largely diatonic, but gradually it moved away from vocal models. The use of drone accompaniment gave way to harmony, which may explain the decline of the bagpipe. Some sources give an idea of the ensemble playing that was undoubtedly also adopted by country bands. The second part is mostly isorhythmic and a 3rd or a 6th below the first part. The bass is often limited to the fundamental note of the chords, sometimes with passing notes in between. The mid-18th-century tune books contain mainly minuets and marches. The dance-tunes usually consist of an AABB structure, both units with an even number of bars, generally eight to 16, eight bars being the usual length. The marches are in 2/2 time, and generally they consist of two units with an odd number of bars as a result of the typical tonic–dominant–tonic final cadence.
In the second half of the 18th century the minuet gave way to the country dance. Both the ‘English’ longways and the ‘French’ square dances became immensely popular. The tunes were often extended to three or four units, each consisting of usually eight and sometimes 16 bars. Modulation was no longer exceptional, but was restricted to the dominant or subdominant major keys, or to the minor on the same tonic. During the 18th century the compass of dance music was apparently extended, though seldom beyond the range of an octave and a 6th. Even at the end of the century tunes with a compass of an octave or a 9th were not at all uncommon.
The traditional music of the first half of the 19th century is mainly documented by the tune books of fiddlers from the provinces of Luxembourg and Friesland. These manuscripts contain many tunes of French, German and British origin. Most popular were all kinds of country dances, like the anglois in Friesland and the passe-pied, allemande and amoureuse in the province of Luxembourg. The Frisian madlot and the Luxembourgian maclotte were local adaptations of the matelotte (‘sailor’s dance’), introduced in the second half of the 18th century.
The Frisian manuscripts contain a number of schotz or schots (‘Scottish’) tunes, which are only rhythmically related to Scots dance music. In the second half of the 19th century the skotse trije (‘Scottish three’) became the ‘national’ dance of Friesland. Although originally danced by three dancers, by the end of the century it had become a square dance.
Shortly after 1815 the first waltzes appeared. Until the middle of the 19th century waltzes were mostly written in 3/8 time, and were more akin to the Alpine ländler than to the Viennese waltz. The polka was introduced in 1844, and it conquered the remotest villages in no time. Other pair-dances imported around this time include the mazurka, the redowa, the galop and the schottische.
Most pair-dance tunes from the first half of the 19th century consisted of two units of eight bars. Some tunes introduced a new element – modulation to the relative minor. In the middle of the century the quadrille was introduced. This descendant of the country dances usually consisted of four or five figures with different tunes in 2/4 or 6/8 time.
The instrumental tradition reached its greatest complexity in the second half of the 19th century. The handwritten scores of Belgian wind and mixed bands give a first and second part, off-beat chords and a bass. The use of accidentals was generalized. The literate bands mostly played pair-dances with the structure AABBACCAABBA, each unit consisting of eight or 16 bars. B and C (called trio) modulated to different related major keys, usually to the dominant and subdominant respectively, though the B unit sometimes also modulated to the relative minor. The units were performed with contrasting dynamics. The first part (usually on clarinet, cornet or flugelhorn) was sometimes a true bravura piece with strings of quick triplets.
Country musicians continued, however, to play older and simpler forms of instrumental music until well into the 20th century. As far as one can tell, the local people have always been eager to adopt new, fashionable dances and tunes. Some became traditional and thus survived the international dance fashion a long time. Old rounds, country dances, quadrilles and pair-dances survived best in the Twente area (Overijssel province), the Achterhoek area (Gelderland), on the island of Terschelling, in the West-Friesland area (Noord-Holland), in the province of Antwerp, the central part of Brabant province and in the Ardennes area (Liège and Luxembourg). Some communities have maintained their local traditions to this day.
Since World War I the dance repertory has been extended with dances of North or South American origin, but their diffusion by radio, TV and records has limited further evolution within an oral tradition.
Low Countries, §II: Folk music
Folksong research in Flanders began in the middle of the 19th century. Among the pioneers, the French musicologist C.-E.-H. de Coussemaker was the first to collect songs from the oral tradition. The results of 19th-century research into folksongs in Dutch were compiled by Flor van Duyse in his standard work Het oude nederlandse lied (A1903–08). In the first decade of the 20th century Theophiel Peeters was the first Flemish fieldworker to collect dance-tunes.
In the Netherlands and Wallonia the collection and study of traditional music made headway only at the beginning of the 20th century. The first Dutch fieldworker was Jaap Kunst, who collected songs and dances on the island of Terschelling. In the 1930s Pol Heyns of Flemish radio was the first to make field recordings of songs and dance music.
The most prolific fieldworker is Ate Doornbosch, until 1986 head of the Nederlands Volksliedarchief (Amsterdam), who managed to record some 10,000 epic songs from 1957 onwards. The most important all-embracing study of Flemish and Walloon traditional songs to date is Paul Collaer’s La musique populaire traditionelle en Belgique (E1974).
Musical instruments were the worst documented aspect of traditional music until Hubert Boone of the Brussels Museum of Musical Instruments began his pioneering research in the late 1960s.
Since about 1900 many traditional songs from the above-mentioned collections have been promoted in a ‘cultivated’ form through schools, youth movements and choral societies. In the mid-1960s the Antwerp singer Wannes van de Velde was the first of his generation to resume a traditional style of singing.
Folkdancing was revived after World War I by youth movements of all tendencies, mainly with educative intentions, as a means to counter the growing popularity of the ‘degenerate’ newly imported pair-dances of American origin. Since the early 20th century folkdances have also been cultivated and demonstrated by folklore groups, including the guilds of archers in the provinces of Brabant and Antwerp, some of which draw their repertory from local tradition. Since the late 1970s folkdance parties have stimulated spontaneous folkdancing, mainly in Belgium.
The revival of native traditional instruments was started in 1968 by Boone’s band De Vlier. In Walloon and the Netherlands the revival began in 1973, largely under the influence of Flemish bands. At first the revival caught on mainly among university students and visual artists, as a reaction against the international commercial music business. The folk revival has often had strong links with the regionalist and ecological movements. In contrast with the older folklore groups the revival ensembles have not limited themselves to the most recent traditional forms, as collected from the surviving, mostly aged, musicians. They also go back in time by drawing from older, written sources and by reconstructing and playing (virtually) extinct folk instruments. An important tendency within the revival aims at revitalizing traditional music by performing it using non-traditional arrangements, techniques, instruments and line-ups. Many of the new bands are heavily influences by foreign, particularly Irish, British and central French, revival music. Traditional music now seems to have carved out a lasting, though still marginal, place in the contemporary music scene of the Low Countries.
Low Countries, §II: Folk music
and other resources
Grove6 (F.J. de Hen)
MGG2 (‘Belgien II: Volksmusik’; W. Bosmans)
J.G. Büsching and F.H. von der Hagen: Sammlung deutscher Volkslieder (Berlin, 1807)
A.H. Hoffmann von Fallersleben: Holländische Volkslieder (Breslau, 1833)
J.F. Willems: Oude Vlaemsche liederen (Ghent, 1848/R)
C.-E.-H. de Coussemaker: Chants populaires des flamands de France (Ghent, 1856/R, 2/1930)
A.H. Hoffmann von Fallersleben: Niederländische Volkslieder (Hanover, 1856)
A.R. Lootens and J.M.E. Feys: Chants populaires flamands (Bruges, 1879/R)
G. Kalff: Het lied in de Middeleeuwen (Leiden, 1884)
J. Bols: Honderd oude Vlaamsche liederen (Namur, 1897/R)
A. Blyau and M. Tasseel: Iepersch oud-liedboek (Ghent, 1900/R)
F. van Duyse: De melodie van het nederlandsche lied en hare rhythmische vormen (Brussels, 1902)
A. de Cock and I. Teirlinck: Kinderspel en kinderlust in Zuid- Nederland (Ghent, 1902–8)
F. van Duyse: Het oude nederlandsche lied (The Hague, 1903–8/R) [incl. index and suppl.]
R. Ghesquiere: Kinderspelen uit Vlaamsch België (Ghent, 1905)
H.F. Wirth: Der Untergang des niederländischen Volksliedes (The Hague, 1911)
J. Kunst: Terschellinger volksleven (Uithuizen, 1916, 3/1951)
A. Sanson-Catz and A. de Koe: Oude nederlandsche volksdansen (Amsterdam, 1930–35)
L. Bataille-Hiel: Kinderspelen en liedjes uit het land van Dendermonde (Ghent, 1931)
L. Lambrechts, ed.: Limburgsche Liederen (Ghent, 1936–7/R)
J. Bols: Godsdienstige kalenderliederen (Brussels, 1939)
P. Heyns: Volksliederen (Amsterdam, 1942)
E. van der Venten Bensel and D.J. van der Ven: De volksdans in Nederland (Naarden, 1942)
B. Veurman and D. Bax: Liederen en dansen uit West-Friesland (The Hague, 1944)
J. Bols: Wereldlijke volksliederen (Brussels, 1949)
M.P. van Wely: Het bloeitijdperk van het Nederlandse volkslied (Heemstede, 1949, 2/1965 as De bloeitijd van het Nederlandse volk)
T. Peeters: Oudkempische volksliederen en dansen (Brussels, 1952)
L. van Doren: Kinder-volksliedjes uit de vlaamse gewesten (Brussels, 1964)
K.H. Heeroma and C.W.H. Lindenburg: Liederen en gedichten uit het Gruuthuse-handschrift (Leiden, 1966)
G.J.M. Bartelink: ‘Twents volksleven’, Neerlands Volksleven, xvii/2 (1967), 1–152
J. de Vuyst: Het sterrelied in het gebied van Dender en Schelde (Ghent, 1967)
Dansen uit de Vlaamse gewesten (Schoten, 1967–92)
B.W.E. Veurman: Volendam, leven en lied (Arnhem, 1968)
S.J. van der Molen: De Friese tjalk (The Hague, 1970)
L. Gelber: De melopee van de Vlaamse kinderzang (Ghent, 1972)
H. Franken: Liederen en dansen uit de Kempen (Hapert, 1978)
R. Hessel: Het volkslied in West-Vlaanderen (Bruges, 1980)
A. Seelen: Het volkslied in Nederland (Nijmegen, 1981)
L. Gelber: Encyclopedie van het levende Vlaamse volkslied (Sint-Martens-Latem, 1982–3)
R. Jansen: We hebben gezongen en niks gehad: muzikanten en liederen uit Midden-Brabant (Tilburg/Breda, 1984)
S. Top: Komt vrienden, luistert naar mijn lied: aspecten van de marktzanger in Vlaanderen (1750–1950) (Tielt, 1985)
E. Verstraete: Zwaarddansen in Vlaanderen (Sint-Niklaas, 1985)
A. de Bra and N. vande Voorde-Hendriks: Gentse kontradansen (Antwerp, 1987)
A. Doornbosch and others: Onder de groene linde: verhalende liederen uit de mondelinge overlevering (Amsterdam, 1987–91)
W. Bosmans: ‘De volksliedtraditie in Woluwe’, Volkscultuur in Brabant, ed. F. Vanhemelrijck (Brussels, 1994), 143–80
F. Balleux and J. Dejardin: Choix de chansons et poésies wallonnes (Pays de Liège) (Liège, 1844)
L. Jouret: Chansons du pays d’Ath (Brussels, 1889)
L. Terry and L. Chaumont: Recueils d’airs de crâmignons et de chansons populaires à Liège (Liège, 1889)
P. Gilson: Chants populaires du pays Borain (Brussels, 1894)
A. Doutrepont: Les noëls wallons (Liège, 1909)
L. Simon and M. Denée: Chansons populaires condruziennes (Ghent, 1937)
E. Montellier: 14 chansons du XVe siècle extraites des archives namuroises (Brussels, 1939)
A. Libiez and R. Pinon, eds.: Chansons populaires de l’ancien Hainaut (Brussels, 1939–72)
R. Pinon: La nouvelle lyre malmédienne (Malmedy, 1949–67)
J. Vandereuse and R. Pinon: ‘Quelques danses curieuses de Wallonie’, Commission royale belge de folklore, xii (1958–9), 184–267
R. Thisse-Derouette: Le recueil de danses: manuscrit d’un ménétrier ardennais (Arlon, 1960)
E. Senny and R. Pinon, eds.: Chansons populaires de l’Ardenne Septentrionale (Lorcé et Filot) (Brussels, 1961–2)
R. Thisse-Derouette: Danses populaires de Wallonie (Charleroi, 1962–78)
R. Pinon: ‘Contribution à l’étude du folklore poético-musical des pâtres en Wallonie’, Enquêtes du Musée de la vie wallonne (1963), 19–63
L. Maes, M. Vaisière and R. Pinon, eds.: Chansons populaires de la Flandre Wallonne (Brussels, 1965)
O. Lebierre: Lyre mâmediène (Malmedy, 1966)
R. Pinon: ‘L’étude du folklore musical en Wallonie’, Jb für musikalische Volks- und Völkerkunde, iv (1968), 25–58
R. Pinon: ‘Contribution au folklore poético-musical de la ville de Charleroi’, Commission royale belge de folklore, xviii (1972)
J.-P. van Aelbrouck: Les contredanses du journal musical liégeois ‘L’Echo’ (1758–1773) (Brussels, 1986)
Oude en nieuwe hollantse boerenlieties en contredansen (Amsterdam, 1700–16/R1972 with introduction, notes and bibliography by M. Veldhuyzen
J. de Gruijtters: Beiaardboek (MS, 1746, B-Ac); facs. (Asten, 1968/R)
P. Trappeniers: Recueil de contredanses avec premier violon et la basse continue (Brussels, c1775–9/R)
C. Wytsman: Anciens airs et chansons populaires de Termonde (Dendermonde, 1868)
J. Rimmer: Two Dance Collections from Friesland and their Scotch, English and Continental Connections (Groningen, 1978)
B. Donay: Le manuscrit de François-Joseph Jamin, ménétrier gaumais au XIXe siècle (Liège, 1986–7) [unpublished thesis]
L. Rombouts and G. Huybens, eds.: Het liedeken van de Lovenaers: een 18de-eeuws Leuvens beiaardhandschrift (Leuven, 1990)
G. Huybens and E. Schreurs, eds.: T’Haegelant: vier 18de-eeuwse muziekboekjes uit Diest/Quatre recueils de musique du XVIIIe siècle de Diest (Peer, 1995)
G. Huybens and E. Schreurs, eds.: Speelmansboek uit Maastricht (Peer, 1996)
F.J. de Hen: ‘Folk Instruments of Belgium’, GSJ, xxv (1972), 87–132; xxvi (1973), 86–129
C. Brade: Die mittelalterlichen Kernspaltflöten Mittel- und Nordeuropas (Neumünster, 1975)
J. Montagu: ‘The Construction of the Midwinterhoorn’, GSJ, xxviii (1975), 71–80
H. Boone: ‘Beknopte bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van het hakkebord in de Lage Landen’, Volkskunde, lxxvii (1976), 203–16
H. Boone: De hommel in de Lage Landen (Brussels, 1976)
W.H. Thijsse: ‘De midwinterhoorn en zijn functie’, Mens en Melodie, xxxv (1980), 24–32
H. Boone: De doedelzak (Brussels, 1983)
H. Boone: De mondtrom (Brussels, 1986)
L. Moïses: La vielle belgië à roue (Brussels, 1986)
H. Boone: Het accordeon en de voetbas in België (Leuven, 1990)
H. Boone: ‘Gestreken en geschraapte pseudo-bassen in Vlaanderen en Wallonië’, Liber amicorum Prof. Dr. Jozef van Haver (Brussels, 1991), 35–46
P.-J. Foulon: ‘Tambours et fifres d’Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse’, ibid., 107–21
W. Bosmans: Eenhandsfluit en trom in de Lage Landen/The Pipe and Tabor in the Low Countries (Peer, 1991)
H. Boone and W. Bosmans: Volksinstrumenten in Vlaanderen en Wallonië (Leuven, 1995)
W. Bosmans: ‘La cwène d’Henri Crasson, ménétrier de Gueuzaine’, Studium et musicum: Mélanges Edouard Remouchamps, i (Liège, 1996), 9–22
E. vander Straeten: La musique aux Pays-Bas avant le XIXe siècle (Brussels, 1867–88/R)
F. van Duyse: Het eenstemmig Fransch en Nederlandsch wereldlijk lied (Ghent, 1896)
E. Closson: Notes sur la chanson populaire en Belgique (Brussels, 1913)
P. Collaer: La musique populaire traditionnelle en Belgique (Brussels, 1974)
J.P. Sepieter: De muziek van het Vlaamse volk (Dunkirk, 1981)
F. Lempereur: ‘Le folklore musical’, La musique en Wallonie et à Bruxelles, ii, ed. R. Wangermée and P. Mercier (Brussels, 1982), 303–28
J. Koning: De folkbeweging in Nederland: analyse van een hedendaagse muziek-subcultuur (Amsterdam, 1983)
J. Robijns, H. Heughebaert and H. Dewit, eds.: Op harpen en snaren: volksmuziek, volksdansen, volksinstrumenten in Vlaanderen (Antwerp, 1983)
Folksongs and Dances of the Netherlands, coll. W.D. Scheepers, FW F 4036 (1963)
Etnische muziek in België, coll. H. Daems, BRT DL 111 427 (1967)
Etnische Instrumentale Muziek uit de Brabantse Gewesten, coll. H. Boone and E. Vissenaekens, Alpha 5005 (1970)
Anthologie du folklore wallon, coll. C. Flagel and F. Lempereur, CACEF FM 33 003-6, 009-10 (1974–81) [7 vols.]
Le carnaval de Binche, Decca DA 209/210
Van een heer die in een wijnhuis zat, coll. A. Doornbosch and M. van Winkoop-Deurvorst, P.J. Meertens-Instituut and NOS 6814 230 (1980)
Belgique/België ballades, danses et chansons de Flandre et Wallonie, BRT/Ocora 558 594 (1981)
Volksmuziek uit Frans Vlaanderen/Vie musicale populaire en Flandre Française, coll. A.-M. Despringre, Alpha 5030 (1982)
Piet de Jong en Willem de Hek: harmonikamuziek van Terschelling, coll. F. Tromp, Cadans 15042 (1983)
Toen Rollewijn over die bergen kwam, coll. A. Doornbosch and M. van Winkoop-Deurvorst, P.J. Meertens-Instituut and NOS 6814 840 (1983)
Belgique: le carnaval de Binche/Belgium: the Carnival of Binche, Buda Records 825162 (1990)
Airs de fête en Wallonie: chansons et musiques traditionnelles, coll. C. Flagel, Fonti Musicali FMD 188 (1991)
Les authentiques airs de Gilles de Binche, Folklore Records 1505 (c1991)
Gilles de Binche: les airs du ‘Mardi Gras’, Ariola Express 290 837 (1991)
Belgique: ballades, danses et chansons de Flandre et de Wallonie Ocora C 580061 (1994)
Jouster Boerebrulloft/ Farmer’s Wedding in Joure, Pan records 2004 (1994)
Tambours et fifres d’Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse, coll. L. and C. Flagel, Fonti Musicali FMD 198 (1994)
Pays-Bas: chansons oubliées/The Netherlands: Songs Adrift, coll. A. Doornbosch, Ocora C 600003 (1996)
Musique populaire de la Belgique/Volksmuziek uit België/Folk Music from Belgium, coll. H. Boone, Auvidis Ethnic B 6844 (1997)