componist

Phalesio, Pietro

Pietro Phalesio The Younger (Pierre Phalèse - or Vander Phaliesen) belonged to the Phalèse family, a publishers dynasty.
Pierre Phalèse The Elder (c. 1510-c. 1576), son of a brewer became librarian at the University of Leuven (Louvain) in 1545 and started printing books. In 1575 he had published nearly 200 music books. First he was printer for other publisher but soon he started his own business in a high quality like Tielman Susato. He published many books with sacred music by Clemens non Papa ( Jacob Clement), Thomas Créquillon, Orlando di Lasso and Cypriano de Rore. Even for the famous Spanish composer Francisco Guerrero he published the 8-voiced harmonisation of the Magnificat in large lettering for a choirbook. This technique has later been used by Pierre Attaignant. He got three sons (Corneille, Jacob and Pierre), all of which became more or less reputed in music printing.
Pierre Phalèse The Younger (c. 1545-1629) was also born in Leuven but moved to Antwerp very young, where he published secular works by Italian composers, like the underlying album. Some of the titles of his publications are: Harmonia celeste, Musica divina (some sources mention the year of appearance 1583), Symphonia angelica and Melodia olympica. After his death his daughters Magdalena and Maria continued the business of their father as the Phalèse Daughters for 45 years. Maria ran the enterprise alone for 20 years after the death of her sister.
At the end of the 16th century Antwerp was in decline while Amsterdam was rising in the 17th century. That was the moment the enterprise Phalèse went down after more than a century.

Cees Wagemakers, 2015