He combs libraries for forgotten compositions and insists on reading the original scores, finding nuances which guide his interpretations.

But he is also insatiably curious about the concrete realities of Renaissance life.

He takes us back to a world in which time moved more slowly, although lives were shorter, and the dead kept watch over the living, where dreams held sway and children saw mountains and marvels wherever they looked, when the age of exploration was still dawning and the ‘landscape’ still taking shape.

When Van Nevel contemplates the Franco-Flemish landscapes into which all the great contrapuntists were born, he sees their compositions reflected.

Through him the hills and valleys suddenly start to sing Gombert, Manchicourt or Lassus and we become once more the dreamers of another age.