Central and Peripheral Musical Traditions in the Low Countries in the Earlier Sixteenth Century

Abstract

A nuanced understanding of centres and peripheries in renaissance music history requires examining both whether the peripheries were really peripheral and the centres really central. Responding to the latter side of the equation, the present article investigates Low Countries musical sources from the first half of the sixteenth century with an eye to indigenous versus imported traditions. Special attention is given to the so-called Zeghere van Male partbooks (Cambrai, Le Labo, Mss. 125-28). The results reveal that the Low Countries, like other regions, had their local traditions that were not exported; and that they, like other regions, were not immune from absorbing outside influences.