Le Diamante & la Marguerite

his concert program by Phaedrus takes inspiration from the lost treatise owned by the early-16th century by Archduchess and daughter of Maximilian I, Margaret of Austria, known only by the mysterious title, Traité du Diamante et de la Marguerite (The Book of the Diamond and of the Daisy). Phaedrus takes the simultaneously impressive and tender imagery conveyed by this title to curate a musical display of treasures which may have provided a soundtrack to the Archduchess’s public and private life. Thus, “Le Diamant et la Marguerite ” offers a balanced mixture of elegant basse danse from the famed manuscript, B-Br MS. 9085, melancholic chansons and virtuosic untexted polyphony from celebrated Burgundian court composers Agricola, Obrecht, des Prez, and others, which survives in the various musical manuscripts which originated in the provenances of Margaret’s father, Maximilian I: the Augsburger Liederbuch, Leopold codex, and the surviving materials of A-LIb 529, known commonly as the Linz Fragments. The music in “Le Diamant et la Marguerite” is arranged in ensemble settings inspired by the surviving iconography in Maximilian’s books, Freydal (1512) and Der Triumphzug (1523), depicting the development of the traverso alongside the voice, drum and dance as an important instrument in early-16th century musical expressions of power and decadence.

Miriam Trevisan – vocals
Massimiliano Dragoni – percussion
Darina Ablogina – transverse flute
Luis Martinez Pueyo – transverse flute
Charlotte Schneider – transverse flute
Mara Winter – transverse flute; direction

14:00 Background: “Music and Power (Burgundy)”, Dr. Grantley MacDonald, Vienna
14:30 Concert
Schmiedenhof; Rümelinsplatz, Basel