Emmanuel Adriaenssen

When Emanuel Adriaenssen was born in mid-16th century Antwerp, lute music had already been central to the city's musical culture for several decades. But Adriaenssen would be the talent to put the mercantile city's lute players on an international map. He absorbed aspects of the Italian ornamental style; he propagated his own playing style in a lifetime of public performances. In his time the best of Antwerp society apparently delighted in his skill. It was his teaching, however, that would cement Adriaenssen's position in music history. Adriaenssen founded a school in Antwerp, and not only did he maintain students who would proceed to their own fame, his printed collections of Practical Music (Pratum musicum) for the lute must have been highly influential.