Margaret of Austria’s Songbook: Echo of a Renaissance Princess.

Elodie Charpié, Juana Fernandez, Madeleine Fiedeldeij and Tzu-Chi Kuo – recorder consort Les Oiseaux Enchantés
Aurélie Wolhauser – narration and soprano solo

Songs by Pierre de la Rue, Josquin Desprez, Gilles Binchois, Alexander Agricola…

She was betrothed to the future King of France, married to the heir to the Spanish throne and to the Duke of Savoy, and reigned as governor of the Habsburg Netherlands – and yet Margaret of Austria (1480–1530) is known to only a few people today. Yet she was one of the most influential women of the Renaissance, a passionate patron and art collector, as well as a diplomat of the first order.
Despite her political activities, Margaret never lost sight of beauty: her court welcomed painters, poets, scholars and musicians. In particular, she commissioned a personal ‘chansonier’ – that is, a collection of songs or musical scores – to be produced in Mechelen. The fact that it contains the songs ‘Mille regretz’ by Josquin Desprez and ‘Secretz regretz’ by Pierre de la Rue suggests that, for Marguerite, music was not merely a form of entertainment, but a means of emotional expression.
The concert programme traces Marguerite’s life story. Most of the works come from sources closely linked to her: manuscript 228, now held at the Royal Library of Belgium, is precisely that ‘Grand Chansonnier Album de Marguerite d’Autriche’ which she personally commissioned. The Codex Basevi, now held at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, is another manuscript from her immediate circle. Josquin Desprez, Loyset Compère and, above all, Pierre de la Rue were among the composers she particularly admired.
The dances of Pierre Attaingnant and the fantasias of Eustache Du Caurroy, on the other hand, belong to a later generation: here they resonate as a stylistic echo of that Franco-Flemish tradition which Margaret helped to shape. What has survived of her, therefore, is not her power, but the beauty of the art she encouraged as a patron, which she thus helped to sustain and flourish.