ABSTRACT
This chapter focusses on the music printers Madeleine and Marie Phalèse in Antwerp, during a period of more than half a century, 1629–1675. It is well known that women ran many of the printing houses in early modern Europe. While the most common role was that of widow or wife, the sisters Phalèse inherited their father’s famous printing house and ran it in their own right; their husbands do not seem to have taken an active part in the business of the printing house. The Phalèse printing firm was exceptional also for being one of the very few early modern printing houses north of the Alps solely dedicated to music. Despite this, the significance of the Phalèse sisters in the history of music printing has not been properly acknowledged. The scope of their output is considerably larger than has previously been estimated. Through inventories and catalogues of lost music, it has been possible to not only sketch the original production, but partly also its dissemination. The chapter brings together biographical and historical details about the Phalèse sisters and their activity as music printers and suppliers, as a hub in the distribution of music in the region. It moreover contains a reconstruction of the entire output of the sisters Phalèse 1629–1675, and a discussion of the origin of the music issued – where, and how, music was selected, collected and edited. As almost half of the output consisted of reprinted Italian collections, one of the issues highlighted in the chapter is how these publications were adapted to a north European market. The activities of the Phalèse sisters are moreover set in a wider context of the history of women music printers, and in relation with, for example, the better known Kunegunde Hergott and Katharina Gerlach.
