Eisenhand

Korneel Van Neste answers questions from Dr. Thomas Christ. 

Thomas Christ (TC): Dear Korneel, ReRenaissance is delighted to invite you to our monthly interview. I imagine you gained your first experience of singing in a Belgian choir before you began your music studies at the LUCA School of Arts in Leuven. When did you discover your countertenor voice?

Korneel Van Neste (KVN): I only discovered my countertenor voice quite late in my studies. After having studied as a tenor/baritone for 2 years (and not quite managing to be good at either), my teacher asked me if I had ever tried singing in falsetto. It turned out that, despite the lack of technique at that time, the range was there! Funnily enough my tenor voice started developing after I dedicated most of my time to my countertenor voice, and to this day, I use both voices for concerts.

TC: You’re a well-known figure on Basel’s early music scene, even though you completed your first master’s degree in early music in the Netherlands. How and why did you end up at the Schola Cantorum in Basel?

KVN: Am I? I’m not sure I would go so far as to say I’m a well-known figure, but I feel very much at home in the Basel scene for sure! I visited Basel for the first time in 2023 and could not shake the feeling that this city felt like home, despite never having been there. There is so much early music happening in and around this city, and a lot of it is of the genre that I really appreciate. That is the reason I decided to move here and start a second study in the Schola Cantorum in Medieval music.

I’ll be there

by David Fallows

The claim that Oswald was ‘perhaps the most important poet writing in the German language between Walther von der Vogelweide and Goethe’ has been repeated often enough to have reached the status of cliché. Quite a few of his 132 surviving poems outstay their welcome or seem self-indulgent in their virtuosity; but there are enough poems that seriously sparkle.

On the other hand, his musical reputation has fallen steadily as the number of identified borrowings rose from six in 1924 to its present total of fifteen. Thus, now nearly half of the thirty-seven polyphonic songs in his manuscripts use polyphony that demonstrably originated earlier and with texts in other languages. But when he used polyphony composed by others, he almost certainly did not intend to pass it off as his own. His art in those cases was to be perceived as the art of contrafactum, of devising new texts for well-loved music. No deception was intended; and it seems fair to suggest that nobody was deceived (until the advent of modern musicology).

Sources:
Wien, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 2777 («WolkA», Wien c1425)
Innsbruck, Universitätsbibliothek, ohne Signatur («WolkB», Basel? c1432)
All music editions except Nr. 9: Marc Lewon

cursive = instrumental

Das Alpenglühen
Wolff, Karl Felix: Dolomitensagen. Sagen und Überlieferungen, Märchen und Erzählungen der ladinischen und deutschen Dolomitenbewohner, Bozen 1913, 20. Auflage 2019, S. 73–74

1 Durch Barbarei, Arabia – WolkB, fol. 18v–19r

2 Sag an, herzlieb / Los, frou, und hör des hornes schal – WolkA, fol. 17v–18r; unbestätigte Kontrafaktur

3 Stand auff maredel / Frou, ich enmag – WolkA, fol. 14v–15r; Kontrafaktur über das anonyme Rondeau «Jour a jour la vie»

Die Seiser Alm und die «Verheißene Zeit»
Dolomitensagen, S. 78–80

4 Zergangen ist meins herzen we – WolkB, fol. 47v–48r

5 Mich tröst ain adeliche mait – WolkA, fol. 39v–40r & WolkB, fol. 32r–v; Contratenor: Marc Lewon

6 Ain graserin durch küelen tou – WolkB, fol. 31v

7 Ain guet geboren edel man – einstimmig: WolkA, fol. 47v; dreistimmig: WolkB, fol. 16v (Discantus & Contratenor) & 18r–v (Tenor & Text)

Eisenhand (Man de fyèr), Teil 1
Dolomitensagen, S. 176–179

8 Wach, mentschlich tier – WolkB, fol. 1r–v

9 Ich hör, sich manger fröuen lat – WolkA, fol. 38v & WolkB, fol. 44r

Eisenhand (Man de fyèr), Teil 2

10 Du ausserweltes schöns mein herz – WolkB, fol. 13v–14r; Kontrafaktur über die anonyme Ballade «Je voy mon cuer»

11 Vier hundert jar auf erd – WolkA, fol. 52v; Kontrafaktur über «A son plaisir» von Pierre Fontaine

Eisenhand (Man de fyèr), Teil 3

12 Var heng und lass – WolkA, fol. 7v–8r

13 Fräu dich du weltlich creatur – WolkA, fol. 16r–v; unbestätigte Kontrafaktur über einen vermutlich burgundischen Satz

14 Gar wunniklich hat sie mein herz besessen – WolkA, fol. 25r; zweistimmiger Kanon, Edition und Rekonstruktion: Marc Lewon & Uri Smilansky