First recording of nine Renaissance pieces

Claudio Bacciagaluppi

Thursday, February 5, 2026

In December 2025, the Basel Forum for Early Music ReRenaissance released the album Lost & Found: Rediscovered Treasures of the German Renaissance, produced in collaboration with the RISM Digital Center. This is the first recording of nine compositions from the early 16th century that were long considered incomplete. These compositions were printed by Christian Egenolff in Frankfurt in 1536. A previously unknown Tenor partbook in the Swiss National Library (call number Ma 3549) was rediscovered by Royston Gustavson and David Fallows in 2018-2019, digitised and catalogued (RISM ID no. 993114959 - RISM Online | RISM Catalog). The musicians from Basel have now brought nine of these works back to life (some of them also as video recordings). All the pieces not known from other prints were selected and have been reconstructed for the first time from the music in the partbook in Bern. Further information can be found on the RISM Switzerland website.

Image: Title page, Cantiones selectissimae (Frankfurt, 1536), Schweizerische Nationalbibliothek (CH-BEl) Ma 3549 (2). RISM ID no. 993114959 (RISM Online | RISM Catalog). Available online (public domain).

Category: Rediscovered