The Early Music Show - A new songbook from the 1400s

Download A new songbook from the 1400s

Hannah French uncovers the amazing story of a 15th-century songbook rediscovered in 2014, in conversation with Professor Jane Alden of Wesleyan University. The Leuven Chansonnier, as it's become known, is only the size of a pack of playing cards, but it's beautifully decorated and packed full of the most popular French chansons of the day - plus 12 songs that until now were lost for 550 years.

Photographs of the whole Leuven Chansonnier can be seen on the website of the Alamire Foundation here (click on "VIEW IMAGES" towards the right-hand side of the page): https://idemdatabase.org/items/show/166

Additional information about the Leuven Chansonnier and the related family of songbooks known as the Loire Valley Chansonniers is available on the website created by Peter Woetmann Christoffersen: https://chansonniers.pwch.dk

Thanks to Danish Radio for the recording of Robert Morton's "Le souvenir de vous me tue".

Published on Sunday, 13th February 2022.

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