Renaissance: Pierre Phalese

Pierre Phalese

Pierre Phalése (1510 – 1573). also known under his Latinised name Phalesius, started a book company in Louvain (Flanders, Belgium) in 1545 and quickly expanded it to a publishing house. In four years, he published six collections of lute tablatures with many dances and arrangements of well-known songs and motets. Later he improved his production methods, which enabled him to increase his output.

Some call him composer, but in fact he was a music collector. Nobody complained about being "collected" by him, because music publications were rare in those days: if you were published as a composer, you were almost famous. Thus, there is a lot of "borrowed" music in Phalése’s publications -presently they would call that piracy- with music by famous composers such as Attaignant, Le Roy, Valderrabano and Newsidler.