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Heritage Stories

Heritage Stories

Double virginal by Hans Ruckers, 1581 - The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

A harpsichord for everyone at home

In 16th- and 17th-century Antwerp, one family was as pivotal to the development of keyboard instruments as the Italian Stradivarius was to stringed instruments. His family likely came from Germany, but Hans Ruckers was born in Mechelen. Around 1575, he moved to Antwerp. He built virginal and

The Royal Carillon School in Mechelen - Archive of the Royal Carillon School Jef Denyn Mechelen

Singing Towers

Matthias Vanden Gheyn was a well-known resident of Leuven in the 18th century. Yet he had a profession that wouldn’t often make the front pages today: city carillonneur. From the time of his appointment in 1745, he played the bells of St. Peter’s Church for forty years on weekly market days and on special occasions

Title page of the Antwerp Songbook, 1544 - © Wikimedia Commons

The Antwerp Songbook

In 1544, the Antwerp printer Jan Roulans published a small booklet containing the lyrics of 221 “beautiful songs, old and new, to dispel sadness and melancholy.” It included political songs, but also bawdy ones in which monks and nuns engaged in licentious behavior. The church authorities therefore deemed the booklet to be

The Mechelen Choir Book from Alamire's workshop, ca. 1515 - Wikimedia Commons, photo by Paul Hermans

Petrus Alamire, music publisher

Petrus Alamire (c. 1470–1536) was actually named Petrus Imhoff. A-la-mi-re was his musical pseudonym. In his day, that was the name for the musical note A (or la). Petrus was of German descent, but he made his name primarily in the Habsburg Netherlands as an “escripvain de libres de musicke”—a music copyist.

Wim Delvoye with Marcel, the tattooed pig, 1998 - © dpa picture alliance/Alamy Stock Photo

Wim Delvoye's tattooed pigs

Austrian Tim Steiner is a walking work of art. Between 2006 and 2008, West Flemish artist Wim Delvoye covered his entire back with tattoos. A German collector “bought” the work—as a result, Tim can regularly be seen with his back bare in galleries and museums around the world. The “owner” is even said to have

KV Mechelen in action at Achter de Kazerne, 1947 - © Mechelen City Archives - regionalebeeldbank.be

Achter de Kazerne Soccer Stadium

Anyone in Mechelen who asks about Achter de Kazerne will immediately know if they’re talking to a KV Mechelen fan. For them, the soccer club’s stadium is a place full of memories. Achter de Kazerne opened in 1911, seven years after KV Mechelen was founded. At that time, it was still known as the

Gregorian manuscripts from St. Bavo's Abbey, 1100–1600 - © Ghent University Library - topstukken.vlaanderen.be

Gregorian chants

Probably in the late 9th century, Hucbald of Saint-Amand (now Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, near Valenciennes, France) wrote down his ideas about music on parchment. At that time, music was largely passed down orally. Hucbald proposed a new form of musical notation. He placed symbols above the text, which indicated the