They sang Parisian chansons, played Polish lute music or collected musical instruments: for Basel’s Renaissance burghers, polymaths like Amerbach, Platter and Iselin, music was essential to the cultural life of the city.
This is the story told by some remarkable prints and manuscripts of the period that for many years Basel University Library has been hoarding like a treasure. These are to be presented to the public for the first time in a new show called «Sound Pictures». The manuscripts on show may not be masterpieces of illumination, but they are powerful testimony to the musical life of the city in the age of Humanism.
The exhibition is a co-production with the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (FHNW), the Musikwissenschaftliche Seminar of the University of Basel, and Basel University Library.
Special exhibition in the Musikmuseum
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