Leuven, Alamire Foundation, 6-7 February 2025
Brussels, KBR (Royal Library of Belgium), 8 February 2025
 

 The Low Countries and Central Europe: Historiographical Paradigms in Music and the Arts, 1400-1650 

                                    Conference in memory of Lenka Hlávková (1974-2023)

The music history of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance is largely dominated by composers born and trained in and around the Low Countries. Their migrations and the dissemination of their works—commonly referred to as "Franco-Flemish" music—represent the main thread around which the development of European art music is narrated. Art history, by contrast, has mainly addressed Italian artists and architects, with a secondary focus on early Netherlandish painting. In both disciplines, history has been written by focusing almost exclusively on Western European regions—most notably the Low Countries, France, and Italy. However, in recent years scholars have devoted increasing attention to the region known as "Central Europe," including historical territories which had been long marginalized by the twentieth-century division of Europe by the Iron Curtain. Thanks to the intense work of scholars, "Central Europe" has now gained a hitherto unprecedented relevance in musicology and art history; in music, scholars have increasingly investigated the Central European reception of the works by "Franco-Flemish" composers, while in art history the emphasis on the “correct” use of Italic forms and styles has been replaced by investigation of the mass-migration of Netherlandish artists and their work in the region. However, in neither discipline has this been accompanied by a critical reflection on the concepts and methodologies that are employed to investigate, frame, and narrate the relationship between the so-called Franco-Flemish musical tradition and Central Europe or the relative role of Netherlandish and local artists in the region. The present conference aims at reassessing such relationships, focusing on issues of broad historiographical relevance. Furthermore, it aims at creating a forum for discussion between musicologists, historians, and art historians who deal with artistic practices across these regions.

Convenor
Antonio Chemotti (Alamire Foundation, University of Leuven, KBR)
 

Scientific Committee
David J. Burn (University of Leuven), Anne-Emmanuelle Ceulemans (UC Louvain), Antonio Chemotti, Sarah W. Lynch (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg), Katelijne Schiltz (University of Regensburg), Nicole Schwindt (University of Music Trossingen)
 

Organizing Committee
Antonio Chemotti, Bart Demuyt (Alamire Foundation), Ann Kelders (KBR)
 

Sponsors and Partners: Alamire Foundation, University of Leuven

Programme:
 

Thursday, 6 February (House of Polyphony, Alamire Foundation (Park Abbey, Leuven)

14.30-15.00: Welcome coffee

15.00-15.15
Bart Demuyt, Antonio Chemotti, Welcome Address and Introductory Remarks
15.15-15.30
Jan Ciglbauer, Paweł Gancarczyk, In memoriam Lenka Hlávková

Historiography (Chair: Antonio Chemotti)
 

15.30–16.00
Sarah W. Lynch (Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg)
Central Europe and the Low Countries: One Region Divided by Historiographical Tradition?

16.00–16.30
Benjamin Ory (University of Leuven / Alamire Foundation)
Gustave Reese’s Music in the Renaissance and its Historiography of Central Europe

16.30–17.00
Magdalena Kunińska (Jagiellonian University Cracow)
From the ‘Golden Age’ to the National Style. Mythologisation of the Sigismund Era in Polish Historiography, Art Historiography and Theory of Art

17.00–17.30: Coffee break
 

17.30–18.30
Concert Utopia Ensemble (House of Polyphony)
 

Friday, 7 February (House of Polyphony, Alamire Foundation (Park Abbey, Leuven)

Mobility (Chair: Nicole Schwindt)

9.30–10.00
Sonja Tröster (University of Vienna)

‘Expats’ in the Habsburg Court Chapels of the Austrian Hereditary Lands: Career
Strategies, Foreignness, and Identity

10.00–10.30
Aleksandra Lipińska (University of Cologne)

‘Coarse German and More Refined Netherlandish...’: Netherandish Artists
and Netherlandish ‘Influences’ in Polish Art History of the Renaissance

10.30–11.00
Christian Thomas Leitmeir (University of Oxford)

Final Destination: Prague. Musicians from the Low Countries in
Rudolfine Bohemia

11.00–11.30: Coffee break

From Central Europe to the Low Countries (Chair: Katelijne Schiltz)

11.30–12.00
Paul Newton-Jackson (University of Leuven / Alamire Foundation)
The Low Countries as Periphery: The Circulation of Polish Dances in
North-Western Europe

12.00–12.30
Jan Ciglbauer (Charles University Prague)
Devotio Moderna in Bohemia and the Low Countries: Ideas on Content and
Dissemination

12.30–14.30: Lunch break

The North Sea and the Baltic (Chair: Bartłomiej Gembicki)

14.30–15.00
Inga Mai Groote (University of Zurich)

Multiple Centres, Periphery, or Networks? The Historiography of ‘Central’
Musical Traditions between North Sea and the Baltic in the Early 17th Century

15.00–15.30
Agnieszka Leszczyńska (University of Warsaw)
Netherlandish Traces in the Musical Culture of Gdańsk in the Second
Half of the 16th Century: Assimilation and Transformation of Imported Patterns

15.30–16.00: Coffee break

From the Low Countries to Central Europe (Chair: Paul Newton-Jackson)

16.00–16.30
David J. Burn (University of Leuven / Alamire Foundation)
The Anonymous Missa Vulnerasti cor meum in Prague, Czech National Library 59
R5117 and Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Mus. ms. 65

16.30–17.00
Brett Kostrzewski (University of Leuven / Alamire Foundation)
Over the Alps and Back Again: The Transmission of Gaspar’s Missa O Venus bant

17.00–17.30
Bartłomiej Gembicki (Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences)
Josquin in Poland? DISCovering Franco-Flemish Music in Central Europe

Saturday, 9 February (Panorama Room, KBR (Royal Library of Belgium), Brussels)

Books 1 (Chair: Sarah W. Lynch)
 

10.00–10.30
Erika Supria Honisch (Stony Brook University)
Musical Miscellanies and Other Histories

10.30–11.00
Anna Cohen (Northwestern University / University of Leuven)
Illuminated Music Manuscripts in Flanders and Central Europe: A Comparative
Historiography

11.00–11.30: Coffee break
 

Books 2 (Chair: Brett Kostrzewski)
 

11.30–12.00
Paweł Gancarczyk (Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences)

The Lviv Fragments and their Repertoires: Towards Integration of European Narratives
 

12.00–12.30
Nicolò Ferrari (Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences)
‘The West is the Best’: The Geopolitics of Late Medieval and Early Modern Music Manuscripts

12.30–13.00: Meet the Sources: private exhibition of music sources from the KBR stacks