The Egidius Kwartet is a Dutch vocal ensemble specialising in the music of the Franco-Flemish school, in particular of the Habsburgs, Margaret of Austria, governor of the Netherlands and her court at Mechelen. The ensemble was formed by four members of Ton Koopman's Amsterdam Baroque Choir in 1995.[1]
The group's name is taken from Aegidius, a character in Dutch medieval literature, a minstrel lamented in the song Egidius waer bestu bleven (though the name also reflects Maître Egidius of the Chantilly Codex, as well as the Dutch name of Gilles Binchois). Their recording Egidius zingt Egidius places Egidius waer bestu bleven, and two ballades by "Maître Egidius," with tribute to Egidius from modern Dutch composers; Henk Badings, Joop Voorn, Ton de Leeuw, Daan Manneke, Bart Visman, Calliope Tsoupaki, Walter Hus - and then Donald Bentvelsen, the quartet's bass voice, who also supplied Quatre poèmes de Ossip Zadkine.
Discography
editThe quartet has released over a dozen discs of renaissance music.,[2] including a 12-disc recording of the Leiden choirbooks: they recorded major pieces from the six choirbooks in six annual 2-CD releases from 2010 to 2015.[3][4] [5] [6]
References
edit- ^ Goldberg: early music magazine: Issues 6-9 1999 "Egidius Kwartet are new to my ears but I predict they will become a forcé to be reckoned with. They possess a dark-chocolate timbre that is ideal for this music and project a warmth on top notes that is balm to the ear."
- ^ "Egidius Kwartet website". Archived from the original on 2013-02-22. Retrieved 2012-07-09.
- ^ "Leiden choirbooks project homepage (in Dutch)". Archived from the original on 2019-01-03. Retrieved 2012-07-09.
- ^ Leiden choirbooks project homepage (in English)
- ^ Browse a digitized copy of the choirbooks at the Leiden city archive website
- ^ A short Documentary about the Leiden Choirbooks project (Dutch with English subtitles)