Princess Margaret

The Boreas Quartett Bremen and soprano Dorothee Mields bring a little-known musical manuscript of the renaissance to life and present a series of premiere recordings. The Basevi Codex, a collection of Franco-Flemish chansons, motets and mass settings, was produced during the early sixteenth century in the famous music scribing workshop of Pierre Alamire. Faithfully following renaissance performance practice, which allowed great freedom in its musical realisations, the recorder consort and Dorothee Mields interpret selected pieces from the codex, with voice or purely instrumental, and, depending on the character of the piece, also with improvised virtuoso ornamentation. This creates a colourful picture of the music as it was sung and played at the Burgundian-Dutch court of Princess Margaret of Austria in Mechelen.