Björn Schmelzer / artistic leader
Arnout Malfliet / voice
Razek-François Bitar / voice
Albert Riera / voice
Marius Peterson / voice
In the past graindelavoix presented programmes on medieval and sufi confraternities. This concert is a next step, concentrating on the practices and chants of the brotherhoods in the ancient Netherlands. Most were organized around devotions of a saint - Saint Anthony, Saint Anne, Our lady - or a relic - the Holy Cross, Holy Sacrament of the Circumcission relic. These were not freaky objects of superstition, only venerated by some bigots, but the core around which common interests and bodily desires circulated. A lot of surviving polyphony was composed for these confraternities, transforming devotion and veneration of relics into an emotional and profound experience, leading to direct ecstasy. Graindelavoix interpretes the works of Ockeghem, Obrecht, Josquin and others not with a usual abstract holiness but with an affective empathy that gives this music an unknown physical dimension: suddenly the connection with the living traditions of mediterranean brotherhoods appears.
Program:
Confraternities
Devotion and emotion of 16th century brotherhoods in Franco-Flemisch polyphony
Josquin Desprez, Jacob Obrecht, Johannes Ockeghem, Loyset Compère