Is there a long tradition of interest in "early music" at the Brussels Conservatory? Certainly! Did you know that the "father" of this institution, François Joseph Fétis (1784-1871) was the first in Europe to offer the public "Historical Concerts" from 1832 onwards? These sessions (organised first in Paris and then in Brussels) struck a chord with the Romantics, who discovered that the evolution of musical styles could not be summed up in simple terms of progress. Fétis was an enthusiast. He was not really a purist: perhaps he did not hesitate to "arrange" for his performers the ancient works he zealously presented. A leading musicologist of the 19th century, Fétis was very well informed. His personal library (bequeathed to the Royal Library) and the one he began to equip the Conservatoire are worth a visit for any connoisseur of early music.

His successor, François Auguste Gevaert (1828-1908) continued his efforts. A few famous photos show him proudly sitting at the harpsichord, something certainly unusual for the time! It was under his "reign" that the Conservatoire gathered a prestigious collection of early instruments (today accessible to the MIM). These carefully restored instruments were used in concerts specifically devoted to early music (from 1879 onwards). The performers were teachers and students of the Conservatory: pianists playing the harpsichord, virtuosos of the transverse flute or the clarinet playing the recorder or the crumhorn (in ensembles) respectively... But for the time, the undertaking was highly original and had an international impact. It made its mark on the famous Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940), one of the pioneers of old-fashioned performance in England, who had passed into the class of Vieuxtemps at the Brussels Conservatoire .

Our regions have had an extremely rich musical past, especially in the 15th and 16th centuries. Today, it is often foreign musicologists who value this heritage. In the 20th century, however, a few Brussels personalities contributed enormously to its study and performance. Among others, one thinks of Charles Van den Borren (1874-1966), librarian at the Conservatory (and also professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles). It was he who determined the vocation of Safford Cape (1906-1972). An American who came to Brussels to study, Cape abandoned composition around 1930 to found the group "Pro Musica Antiqua" with fellow instrumentalists and singers. A bold search for an appropriate interpretation of early music (or rather, "youthful" music, as J. Stehman called it) led the group to tour for some thirty years, winning the admiration of such accomplished musicians as Stravinsky. The audience for "Pro Musica Antiqua" was obviously enlarged thanks to the LP (mainly Archiv Produktion). In other words, until the mid-1960s, this Belgian vocal and instrumental ensemble was a "must" in the interpretation of music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance!

In the group's younger generation, some instrumentalists hoped to go even further in an authentic approach: flutist Silva Devos, harpsichordist Charles Koenig, violinist Janine Rubinlicht (who formed the "Alarius" ensemble in 1954 with Robert Kohnen, Ch. McGuire and then the Kuijken brothers). Taking advantage of a certain freedom of interpretation acquired through contact with Renaissance music, and often an interest in contemporary music, these musicians attacked the bastion of Baroque music still jealously guarded by a certain academicism. Soon, in the movement of the '68's, these libertarian aspirations gained ground throughout Western Europe, in the USA and then in Japan. In Brussels, the teaching of the musicians mentioned above attracted students of all nationalities, thus creating an international network.