Despres: Que vous madame/In pace

The elegant, keyless, cylindrical flute of the sixteenth century had a reedy, penetrating sound, closer to the cornetto than to any other wind instrument of the day. It had an impressive range of two and a half octaves and an evenness of tone quality that would not be matched again until the nineteenth century.

The pieces on this recording focus on repertoire for the renaissance flute consort, almost all of which was originally vocal music.

Margaret was the daughter of the emperor Maximilian I of Austria and Mary of Burgundy. Music was played daily in her court and she played several instruments. She left a legacy of two songbooks and a book of Basses dances, all preserved in the former Burgundian library, now part of the Belgian Royal Library in Brussels. 500 years on, we can catch an echo of the joys and sorrows in her life.