St. Gallen 2026, Graindelavoix (BE): Josquin the Undead

Graindelavoix (BE): Josquin the Undead

“Josquin the Undead” opens the “Stimmliche Parallelen” series with one of the internationally most significant vocal ensembles for early music. Graindelavoix and its artistic director Björn Schmelzer have decisively shaped the performance practice of early music with their distinctive sound language and uncompromising approach to historical scores.

At the center of the program is the Septiesme livre de chansons, published in 1545 by Tielman Susato in Antwerp. Appearing twenty-four years after Josquin Desprez’s death, this volume is dedicated exclusively to his music — an extraordinary document of musical memory in the 16th century.

Late chansons by Josquin such as Nymphes des bois, Faulte d’argent, and Baisiez moy encounter mourning motets by his contemporaries, including Gombert’s Musae Jovis. Quotations migrate from work to work, motifs return transformed, compositions seem to recall one another. Powerlessness, love’s failure, melancholy, and death form the inner horizon of a music in which memory itself becomes musical form.

“Josquin the Undead” is one of Graindelavoix’s outstanding programs. The recording of the same name was awarded the German Record Critics’ Award in 2022.

Graindelavoix

Founded in 1999, Graindelavoix is an Antwerp-based music and art ensemble. Helmed by founder-director Björn Schmelzer, it is committed to offering a contemporary and critical interpretation of mainly historical, vocal repertoires

The ensemble’s artistic allure, distinctive sound, plastic performance style and rigorous programming—the whole characterised by an uncanny touch—makes it both unique and difficult to situate in the current artistic landscape. Its critical questioning of old repertoires—their aesthetic and political dimensions, their displacement and alienation—meanwhile often leads to controversial performances in which the audience is not just challenged but also made complicit

Björn Schmelzer

Björn Schmelzer is a conductor, writer, artist, filmmaker and anthropologist. As artistic director of the Antwerp music ensemble Graindelavoix, he has produced seventeen CDs (plus assorted hybrid-format works), while regularly putting on concerts in Belgium and abroad, and undertaking residencies at art institutions.