The Susato Dances

This was the first of several compositions commissioned and premiered by the Fitzwilliam String Quartet. The first performance took place in the White Hall of the Peterhof Palace near St Petersburg, Russia. They have since played it in other countries, including in San Francsico in the United States.

Tielman Susato was a composer, instrumentalist and music publisher in Antwerp in the 16th century. One of his most famous works is the “Danserye” of 1551, a book of dances from the Low Countries that he had collected and arranged over a number of years. I first came across this wonderful music on an old LP recording that my father owned, and I fell in love with the unadorned nature of Susato’s creativity, though not being without a fair level of harmonic and rhythmic sophistication, and the sheer gusto and joie de vivre of the music itself.

“The Susato Dances” takes 6 or 7 of the dances from the Danserye collection and re-examines them through the eyes of a 21st century composer, giving them a fresh lease of life for a new generation of music-lovers. Marcus Tristan