Vernacular Song Flashcards
Troubadours vs Minstrels/’Jongleurs’
- Troubadours performed and composed - minstrels only performed
- Troubadours often higher class
- Troubadours often more settled due to patronage
- Troubadours disliked them as shown in music like ‘ensenhamen jonglaresc’ (genre)
Troubadour Class
- Mostly high-status (earliest known example is the Duke of Aquitaine)
- Later some more normal status (e.g. Perdigon was ‘son of a poor fisherman’ according to one vida)
Key Stats
- 460 troubadours known
- 2600 poems survive
- 1 in 10 troubadour songs survive (260) with melodies - 2 in 3 for trouveres
Vidas & Razos
- Vida = brief account of troubadour’s life (semi-fictional) - around 100 survive
- Razo = detailed story giving context of a specific song
- Boundaries sometimes blurred
- Later discovered one person wrote majority of vidas - Uc de Saint Circ
Occitan
- Main troubadour language
Troubadour styles
- Trobar leu (light) - most common and popular for all
- Trobar ric and Trobar clus - more exclusive
Fin Amors
- Occitan phrase for ‘courtly love’ (central theme of troubadour song)
Intertextuality
- Contrafactum = same melody different lyrics (common)
- Lyrics also shared regularly by ‘troubadour aficionados who trade quotations in a courtly game’ (Kay, 2013)
- Example: ‘Ar vey’ song borrows from ‘Quan lo rius’ lyrics (Kay, 1987)
Partimen (genre)
- Genre of debate between two troubadours (often used in public contests)
- Torneyamen = same but for 3+ speakers
Canso (genre)
- Most common song styles/genre
- Relatively simple
- Later challenged by ‘coblas esparsas’
Sirventes (genre)
- Genre focused on current affairs issues - often from servant’s perspective
- Marcabru wrote many
- Vertran de Born = most popular
- Cercamon = first recorded
Pastorela (genre)
- Genre where a knight meets a shepherdess
- Often sexual and humorous
Miscellaneous genres (minor/hybrid)
- Alba = song of lover waiting to fight woman’s jealous husband
- Comiat = song renouncing lover
- Gap = boasting challenge song
- Planh = lamenting death
- Hybrid forms e.g. meg-sirventes (half sirventes, half canso)
Famous trouveres
- Jehan Bretel
- Moniot d’Arras
- Gautier de Coincy
- Adam de la Halle (transitionary figure to 14th century polyphony)
Marcabru
- Prolific troubadour
- Vidas (two) tell contrasting stories - maybe poor background (ms. 12473)
- Originated ‘tenso’ form (Gaunt, 1989)
- 44 poems attributed - range of topics
- 4 melodies survive
- Focused on ‘moral failings’ (Nichols, 1999)
- Focused on serious issues (Golden, 2020)
- Current affairs in ‘Pax in nomine domini’ (Second Crusade)
Minnesingers
- German-based
- Similar to trouveres
- Secular monophony
- Courtly love (although sometimes political)
- Example = Walther von der Volgelweide
- Forms = Leich, Spruch and Lied (Lied more complex and reserved for upper class)
Trouveres vs Troubadours
TROUVERES
- More modern (earliest manuscript is from 1231 but most are 14th century)
- 2 in 3 melodies survive
- French dialect
- Often part-time
TROUBADOURS
- Older
- 1 in 10 melodies survive
- Occitan
- Often professional
Trobairitz Overview
- Female troubadours
- Around 20 are known (probably many more within ‘anonymous’ label)
- Few surviving melodies
- Song example = Comtessa de Dia’s ‘A chantar m’er de so q’ieu no voldria’
Trobairitz styles/genres
- Usually simple canso or tenso (counter: sirventes by Gormanda de Monspeslier)
- Usually trobar leu (counter: trobar clus by Lombarda)
Location
- Highly regional
- ‘Schools’ like that of North Italy
- Covered Bordeaux to Italian Alps in general
- Regular references to place e.g. going away for Crusades
- ‘Troubadour songs act as expressions of place’ and ‘often assume new agency as they travel’ (Golden, 2020)
Major female trouveres/troubadours
TROUVERES (8 total):
- Blanche de Castile
- Dame de la Chaucie
- Dame de Gosnai
- Gertrude
- Lorete
- Margot
- Sainte des Prez
- Maroie de Diergnau
TROUBADOURS/TROBAIRITZ (selection from 21):
- Comtessa de Dia
- Castellaza
- Gormanda
- Lombarda
Poet identity
- Vidas/razos (reliable?)
- ‘Guilhem de Petieus chose to construct a poetic identity’ (Nichols, 1999) - they were often the first ‘pop stars’
- Backstories about individuals often contested e.g. for Marcabru
Females - in male songs
- Generally ‘passive and silent’ in domna role (Sankovitch ed. Gaunt & Kay, 1999)
- Subject of fin amors
- Could have a voice at times e.g. female speakers in partimen
Females - historical context
- Women ‘enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy’ - half of Arras’ musical population were women (Dolce, 2020)
- ‘Easy-going tolerant nature’ of Occitan society (Bruckner, 1992)
- Women like Eleanor of Equitaine gained power at home when husbands left for Crusades
Females - music by women
- Only 5 vidas exist for women
- ‘Women were an integral part of music-making’ (Dolce, 2020)
- Trobairitz songs less sexual (Bruckner, 1992)
- Female poets identified by speaker ‘voice’ (Buckner, 1992) - problematic to generalise?
- Comtessa de Dia ‘Ab ioi’ features sense of equality between genders
- ‘Domna, tan vos ai prei ada’ song includes the line: ‘I will not be your lady - in fact I will cut your throat’
- Yselda and Alais poem features the line: ‘taking a husband pleases me, but I think that making babies is heavy penance, for one’s breasts start to droop and become ugly’ (Sankovitch ed. Gaunt & Kay, 1999)
British manuscripts
- Less well preserved
- All liturgical
- Text-focused (not very musical)
PC numbers (Pillet-Carstens)
- Cataloguing system
- First number = troubadour
- Second number = specific song
Manuscripts G and R
- Only troubadour manuscripts with surviving melodies
Literary vs musicological approaches
MUSICOLOGICAL
- ‘It is clear that this is, universally, a song tradition’ (Leach [Lecture], 2022)
- Golden (2020) writes of musical effect of Phrygian mode in one song
LITERARY
- Only 10% of troubadour songs have music surviving
- Music slotted in around text on manuscripts
- Leading experts are usually literary e.g. Sarah Kay
Rhythmic interpretation
- Early notation difficult to understand
- Trouvere manuscript O has some markings
- Most take an iso-syllabic approach e.g. John Stevens (scholar)
- ‘Pax in nomine domini’ rhythms audibly different between Early Music Consort and New Orleans Camera recordings
Interpreting songs: revisionist
- Pierre Aubry changed time signatures to 4/4 and added pianos
- Perne added dynamics
- ‘Readers would be more receptive to a modern interpretation’ (AJ Schmid quoted in Haines, 2009)
- Eric J Dobson makes active score edits where it seems likely scribe made an error (very possible)
Interpreting songs: traditionalist
- Burney liked sparse accompaniment
- Scientific approach of Germanic scholars e.g. Karl Lachmann cross-examining all versions/editions of a source then presenting the most ‘authentic’ version
Nationalism in song interpretation
OPEN
- ‘Enlightenment Germany was highly tolerant of, and even open to, the contribution of other nations’ (Haines, 2009)
CLOSED
- Song origins became ‘a claim to nationalistic superiority’ (Haines, 2009)
- Antonio Restori labels some vernacular song traditions as ‘primitive’
- Karl Bartsch ranks poem with value system
Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (film)
(Greig, 2020)
- 1928 film with ‘authentic’ soundtrack supposedly sourced from this period of vernacular song (long 13th century)
- ‘Nationality of composers’ was a factor - wanted more French
- More relaxed re-composition of soundtrack to this film in recent years - new versions by Cat Powers (American) and Ole Schmidt (Danish)
Manuscript production - importance of music
(Deeming, 2014)
ANTI MUSIC
- Music inserted into text gaps - Arundel 248
- Melismatic music attempted but given up due to lack of space - Arundel 248
PRO MUSIC
- ‘Despite their ad hoc and inelegant presentation, considerable care has often been taken’
- My own example of pro-music manuscript = Rawlinson 1225 - music often notated alongside text the whole way rather than implied to repeat / tails seems to imply rhythmic direction too / interesting, characterful vocal line
