Pevernage, Andreas (EN)

Pevernage, Bevernage, Beveringen, Andreas, Andries, *1542 or 1543 Harelbeke, †30 July 1591 Antwerp, Flemish composer and publisher. He probably received his early education in Kortrijk (Courtrai). On 21 January 1563, he became choirmaster (magister cantus et choralis) at the Church of Our Lady in Bruges, but in September of that year he accepted a similar position at the Church of Notre-Dame in Kortrijk. After the city was taken over by the Calvinists, he moved to Bruges in 1578, where he conducted the choir at St. James’ Church. When in 1581 the celebration of the Catholic liturgy was banned also in Bruges, he returned in 1584 to his former post in Kortrijk, which had been regained by the Catholics. In October 1585, he became choirmaster at Antwerp Cathedral, where his duties included reconstructing the cathedral’s music collection.

The most important part of Pevernage’s creative output consists of over 100 secular and sacred chansons, which are among the most mature examples of 16th-century French polyphonic song. The composer combines in them the imitative style of the motet and free polyphony with a chordal texture reminiscent of the style of musique mesurée. Homorhythmic sections predominate in double-choir compositions, in which the bass line clearly serves as the harmonic foundation. Pevernage sometimes uses the technique of parody (the monumental 8-voice version of Orlando di Lasso’s Bon jour mon coeur in book 4), introduces bold harmonic sequences and madrigalisms, and illustrates texts that come mainly from the poetry of C. Marot, Ph. Desportes, and P. Ronsard. Pevernage published several of his own Italian madrigals in a similar style in an anthology he edited (1583). The most important collection of Latin texts arranged by the composer is Cantiones sacrae. It contains 38 two-part motets referring to successive feasts of the liturgical calendar and occasionally quoting choral melodies, as well as 25 occasional “eulogies” in honor of Catholic rulers of the Low Countries, local dignitaries, clergy, and friends of the composer.

Literature: L. Willems A. Pevernage’s Cantiones sacrae, 1578, “Tijdschrift van het boek- en bibliotheekswezen” IX, 1911; J.A. Stellfeld Andreas Pevernage. Zijn leven, zijne werken, Leuven 1943; R. de Man Andreas Pevernage en Kortrijk (1543–1591), “Handelingen van de Geschied en Oudheidkundige Kring Kortrijk” XLIV, 1977; B. Bouckaert et al. Andreas Pevernage (1542/43–1591) en het muziekleven in zijn tijd, “Musica antiqua” X, 1993; G.R. Hoekstra The Reception and Cultivation of the Madrigal in Antwerp and the Low Countries, 1555–1620, “Musica Disciplina” XLVIII, 1994; G.R. Hoekstra Andreas Pevernage’s Cantiones sacrae (1578) as a Counter-Refomation Statement of Confessional Loyalty in the Low Countries, “Sixteenth Century Journal”, XLIV, 1, 2013; D. Crook The Exegetical Motet, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” LXVIII, 2, 2015.