YEARBOOK OF THE ALAMIRE FOUNDATION

SELLING THE MADRIGAL: PIERRE PHALÈSE II AND THE FOUR ‘ANTWERP ANTHOLOGIES’
tural consumption. The large, 36-folio size of each collection reveals a bigger ambition
on the part of Phalèse: to become an active player in the European music trade.
Though madrigals had appeared in northern editions as early as Orlando di Lasso’s
Opus 1 (Antwerp, Susato, 1555), the ‘Antwerp anthologies’ mark a shift in focus
from northern composers and regional markets, to Italian composers and the European
marketplace. 3 The contents of each anthology are presented in Appendix 1.
The article first argues that Phalèse created a brand of madrigal books that relied
on consumer recognition. The ‘Antwerp anthologies’ retain the ‘look and feel’ of
music books from the Phalèse shop, while at the same time they transmit contents
that represent a marked shift away from the specialization of his father, Pierre Phalèse
I, on French chansons and lute books. Second, Phalèse used outside compilers to
build a target audience of patrons who received praise in both words and music in
the ‘Antwerp anthologies.’Third, Phalèse allied himself with prominent bookdealers
and publishers in the region to expand the market for the collections to virtually all
corners of Europe. Finally, Phalèse reprinted the anthologies multiple times over the
course of fifty-one years to create a lasting market presence. Phalèse and his heirs
printed a combined total of twenty-three editions of the four collections, which form
the largest recurring body of Italian madrigals in the north. 4
3 Scholars have noted the significance of the ‘Antwerp anthologies’ for the northern dissemination of
madrigals by Italian composers. See F. PIPERNO, Madrigali siciliani in antologie transalpine (1583–
1616), (Musiche Rinascimentali Siciliane, 6), Florence, 1991; F. PIPERNO, Gli ‘Eccellentissimi musici
della città di Bologna’con uno studio sull’antologia madrigalistica del cinquecento, (Historiae Musicae
Cultores Biblioteca, Madrigalisti dell’Italia Settentrionale, 2), Florence, 1985; F. PIPERNO, Polifonisti
dell’Italia meridionale nelle antologie madrigalistiche d’Oltralpe (1601–1616), in La musica a Napoli
durante il seicento. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Napoli, 11–14 Aprile 1985, (Miscellanea
Musicologia, 2), Rome, 1987, pp. 77–92; and F. PIPERNO, Il madrigale italiano in Europa. Compilazioni
antologiche allestite e pubblicate oltralpe: dati e appunti, in ALBERTO COLZANI et al. eds., Il
madrigale oltre il madrigale. Dal Barocco al Novecento: destino di una forma e problemi di analisi,
Como, 1994, pp. 17–48.On their importance for the development of the English madrigal, see J. KERMAN,
The Elizabethan Madrigal: A Comparative Study, (American Musicological Society: Studies and
Documents, 4), New York, 1962, especially pp. 48–51, 57–58. Kristine K. Forney was among the first
to draw attention to Antwerp as a northern centre for the madrigal – see K. FORNEY, Antwerp’s Role
in the Reception and Dissemination of the Madrigal in the North, in ANGELO POMPILIO et al. eds.,
International Musicological Society 14th Congress 1987. Round Table IV. Produzione e distribuzione
di musica nella società del XVIe e XVII secolo, Turin, 1990, 1, pp. 239–253, especially pp. 247–249.
Gerald R. Hoekstra focuses on the audience for Italian music in G. HOEKSTRA, The Reception and
Cultivation of the Italian Madrigal in Antwerp and the Low Countries, 1555–1620, in Musica Disciplina,
48 (1994), pp. 125–187. On the printing and publishing history of Lasso’s Opus 1, see K. FORNEY,
Orlande de Lassus’s ‘Opus 1’: The Making and Marketing of a Renaissance Music Book, in Revue Belge
de Musicologie, 39–40 (1985/86), pp. 33–60.
4 Friedrich Lindner’s three-volume series Gemma musicalis (Nuremberg, Gerlach, 1588–1590) contains
a comparatively large number of madrigals, but was never reprinted. The dates for the reprints of the
‘Antwerp anthologies’ are summarized in HOEKSTRA, The Reception and Cultivation of the Italian
Madrigal, p. 126, n. 4 as follows: Musica divina (1588, 1591, 1595, 1606, 1614, 1623, 1634); Harmonia
celeste (1589, 1593 [with slight modifications], 1605, 1614, 1628); Symphonia angelica (1590 [with
slight modifications], 1594, 1611, 1629); and Melodia olympica (1594, 1611, 1630).
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