Busnois and His Circle

Program: #03-06   Air Date: Feb 10, 2003

NOTE: Our continuing exploration of music from the Franco-Flemish lowlands features this recent recording by the Binchois Consort directed by Andrew Kirkman. While most of Binchois' life was in the service of Philip le Bon, Duke of Burgundy, his last years were spent in Bruges. Both Petrus de Domarto and Jean Pullois were associated with the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp.

The program is sponsored in part by the Belgian Tourist Office and the Embassy of Belgium in Washington, D.C. For  more information on visiting Belgium, you may contact the Belgian Tourist Office at: www.visitbelgium.com

Special Note: This recording is on the Hyperion label (CDA 67319). As this show was being sent across the nation, the founder of this label, Ted Perry, died. After years of associations with music labels (including the co-founding of Meridian), Ted founded Hyperion at his kitchen table the year Millennium of Music began regular broadcast (1980). He drove a mini-cab to help subsidize the label. One evening, he heard the Gothic Voices under Christopher Page perform music of Hildegard von Bingen. This reaffirmed a lifelong commitment to early music, and A Feather on the Breath of God became one of the label's signature best-sellers (it had its American premier on this program).

The label went on to celebrate English chamber music, a complete Schubert edition (37 discs so far), a Liszt edition (95 discs so far), the Romantic piano concerto (at 31 discs), and much more. The English Orpheus series celebrated the 'lost years" of British music from the death of Purcell into the early 19th century.

But its commitment to early music has been profound--many of our programs have been dedicated exclusively to Hyperion discs over the years, and no Top Ten list from this program has failed to have at least one and often more recordings from this label. Each has been of extraordinary quality, and presented with fastidious scholarship and beauty of design.

Hyperion was the titan of light who gave birth to the Muses, who were in fact as well-served by Ted Perry, this ex-cab driver and ice cream salesman, as any in our fractious time. May God be pleased with His latest feather.

RAD

Composer Info

ANTOINE BUSNOIS (c.1430-1492), JEAN PULLOIS (d.1478), PETRUS de DOMARTO (fl. c.1450),

CD Info

CDA 67319