Yes, of course, research is time-consuming. But the three months you mentioned are really a week here and a week there, when I have the time.

The composers that intrigue me are the ones who were able to express a very great personality through simple means. It’s a bit like a Gothic cathedral. If you look at each detail on its own, you see that the means are astonishingly simple. That doesn’t mean they don’t add up to an incredibly complex result, though.

And your choices?

What I’m looking for is a spirit—in fact, a spirit that no longer exists. Well-known names don’t always interest me, especially when it comes to monody. Hildegard von Bingen, for instance, doesn’t particularly interest me. But late medieval polyphonic music, which was so alive, constantly evolving, and which effortlessly crossed borders, almost always interests me. Not the Baroque, however. Beautiful though it can be, I often find it too academic, too restricting. Just look at all the rules Rameau felt bound to follow. That shows a spirit —to return to the same idea—that doesn’t interest me.

The composers that intrigue me are the ones who were able to express a very great personality through simple means. It’s a bit like a Gothic cathedral. If you look at each detail on its own, you see that the means are astonishingly simple. That doesn’t mean they don’t add up to an incredibly complex result, though. The process that goes into writing a polyphonic motet is quite similar.

Getting back to your research, where do you look for works?

You can look everywhere. Often all you have to do is open your eyes. Some ‘forgotten’ music has even been published. That’s the case for Richafort, actually. Unfortunately, though, these editions are often prepared by musicologists who might be very knowledgeable, but who don’t have much of an ear.

I like to work from the original manuscript, and always hope this will be possible. At the very least I want to be able to compare it with the prepared text. Any transcription is an interpretation. The edition of Richafort I mentioned was published in America, and contained quite a lot of mistakes in the indications for musica ficta. It often takes more work to correct a substandard edition—all those changes you pencil in during rehearsals!—than it does to do the editing yourself.

We recorded Annibale Padovano’s Mass for 24 Voices for harmonia mundi. It has never been edited. But with thirty years’ experience, you can do without the middle man.

To return to down-to-earth matters, where do you look, geographically speaking?

European libraries are stuffed with manuscripts, but not very many people look at them. OK, researchers scour the big libraries—but not the little ones! There’s the little Inguimbertine library in Carpentras (France), for example. It’s close to Avignon, and contains some real treasures. That’s where I found Petrarch’s manuscripts.