New Music in Flanders

There was a time when Flemish composers dominated and dictated international musical life. During the Renaissance, musicians from the Low Countries were invited to every corner of Europe, and to Italy in particular to introduce their ‘new music' . This article is about the present state of Flemish music and contemporary composers and musicians. Generally speaking, international trends in new music predominate over national or regional ones, but this does not alter the fact that the emphases vary from country to country. Flanders is a case in point: certain tendencies clearly link up with international trends, but add features that are all their own. And yet Flemish postmodernism is distinctive: it has an identity of style and content that has no foreign precedent. But that this might be enough, as in the Renaissance, to develop into a Flemish influence on international musical life is, at least for the time being, wishful thinking.