On 1/2 December, a small group of international experts from the disciplines of French studies, art history, and musicology will gather at the Institut für Musikwissenschaft (Universität Bern) at the invitation of Dr Henry Hope in order to study this fascinating manuscript. Their discussions will cover the manuscript’s provenance and design, its relationship with other sources of trouvère songs, the influence of Thibaut de Champagne on its songs, and the songs’ possible relationships with other genres of thirteenth-century music. In preparation for the workshop, the manuscript has been fully digitised by the online platform e-codices and will be freely available on that site from mid-December.
Together with some of their students from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, the early music specialists Marc Lewon and Baptiste Romain, will explore the lost sounds of MS 389 in a public concert. This will take place at St Peter & Paul, Bern (7pm) on Friday, 1 December. The concert ticket includes an apéro which will offer listeners the opportunity to engage with the performers and academics and find out more about these songs, their books, and their history.
The workshop and concert are generously supported by: the Burgergemeinde Bern, the Fondation Johanna Dürmüller-Bol, Migros-Kulturprozent, the Gesellschaft zu Ober-Gerwern Bern, the Swiss National Foundation, and the Universität Bern.