Around 1490, the painter Hans Memling created his "Concert of Angels". It consists of three paintings for the outside of an altar and shows God the Father surrounded by angels singing and playing instruments. What might the music have sounded like that inspired Memling to this painting? Very precisely, the painter depicted the instruments of his time, grouped into the "alta" and "bassa capella" typical of the period - the loud and the quiet instruments.
Together with the Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten in Antwerp, where Memling's paintings hang today, Wim Beku initiated an interdisciplinary project in which the depicted instruments were recreated in detail by specialists in instrument making and research was carried out to find thematically appropriate music. The central theme of the original altar, of which only the Angel Concerto remains, was the Assumption of Mary, and so "Paradisi porte" – the door to paradise – also determines the music of this album. Gregorian music from liturgical books and polyphonic compositions from the time around 1500 in Bruges are heard, truly heavenly music played by Wim Becus "Otremontano Antwerpen" together with the singers of the Tiburtina Ensemble. © Accent