Judith and Tineke Steenbrink, Holland Baroque’s artistic directors, have been researching Brabant repertoire of 17th-century composers for years. Last week, at the Dutch Carmelite Institute in Boxmeer, they discovered vocal music opus 3 and opus 7 by the Boxmeer composer Benedictus à Sancto Josepho, works that have been lost for more than 60 years. This is a unique find in the history of Dutch heritage.
Tineke Steenbrink: ‘Bundles of vocal music of opus 3 and opus 7 by Benedictus à Sancto Josepho were mentioned in the collection of the Sint-Gregoriusvereniging (NSGV) in Utrecht in 1958. These manuscripts contain the individual parts of the musical pieces. Scores were not printed at the time. Wim Goossens, a Boxmeer researcher, has been searching for these works, to no avail, since the 1960s.’
Judith Steenbrink: ‘We have been to the archives of the Dutch Carmelite Institute in Boxmeer many times. We have found beautiful musical pieces from the 17th century there. Compositions by Benedictus à Sancto Josepho. We gained a lot of knowledge about performing Gregorian music according to the 17th- and 18th-century Baroque tradition. However, thanks to the work of the current archivist, we could now search more specifically.’
Tineke Steenbrink: ‘Last week, we visited the archive again. There is a vault with in the archive with manuscripts and folders containing old scores. You have to make a request to see these. Then you have to wait and see what’s in there. This is when it happened. In front of me were the voice books of opus 7 and opus 3. It is still unclear how the works ended up in Boxmeer. There are stamps on them from the Sint-Gregoriusvereniging and also a catalogue number mentioned in 1958. Probably, the books somehow made their way from the NSGV archives to Boxmeer. Since these works were last named around the Universities of Utrecht and Tilburg, we have always looked in that direction.’
Judith Steenbrink: ‘The monastery archive in Boxmeer has an extensive collection, there is a huge amount of archived documents. The archivist was unaware that musicologists and musicians were so urgently looking for precisely these works. My sister and I have been immersing ourselves in early music for years. Even though there are some voices missing from the vocal material, it was immediately clear that this find is extremely special and unique. It is a historical find that is very important for researching Dutch heritage. It involves a total of 33 pieces with different line-ups, from solo works to five-voice choral works, always with ensemble accompaniment. Never before have we found anything so unique.’
Tineke Steenbrink: ‘I have been actively searching for these opus numbers for five years now. Calls via social media, the radio and academic magazines and endless enquiries yielded nothing. I have been in close contact with universities, musicologists, amateur researchers and Gregorian connoisseurs. When I suddenly and unexpectedly held these works in my hands, I didn’t know how to react.’
Judith Steenbrink: ‘We will now survey the works, and then play them on stage as soon as possible. The quality of these works should be very good, just like the other works by this Brabant composer.’