Brainscape's Knowledge GenomeTM

Browse over 1 million classes created by top students, professors, publishers, and experts.


See full index

Vernacular Song (Topics II) > Vernacular Song > Flashcards

Vernacular Song Flashcards

1
Q

Troubadours vs Minstrels/’Jongleurs’

A
  • 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)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
2
Q

Troubadour Class

A
  • 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)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
3
Q

Key Stats

A
  • 460 troubadours known
  • 2600 poems survive
  • 1 in 10 troubadour songs survive (260) with melodies - 2 in 3 for trouveres
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
4
Q

Vidas & Razos

A
  • 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
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
5
Q

Occitan

A
  • Main troubadour language
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
6
Q

Troubadour styles

A
  • Trobar leu (light) - most common and popular for all
  • Trobar ric and Trobar clus - more exclusive
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
7
Q

Fin Amors

A
  • Occitan phrase for ‘courtly love’ (central theme of troubadour song)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
8
Q

Intertextuality

A
  • 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)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
9
Q

Partimen (genre)

A
  • Genre of debate between two troubadours (often used in public contests)
  • Torneyamen = same but for 3+ speakers
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
10
Q

Canso (genre)

A
  • Most common song styles/genre
  • Relatively simple
  • Later challenged by ‘coblas esparsas’
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
11
Q

Sirventes (genre)

A
  • Genre focused on current affairs issues - often from servant’s perspective
  • Marcabru wrote many
  • Vertran de Born = most popular
  • Cercamon = first recorded
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
12
Q

Pastorela (genre)

A
  • Genre where a knight meets a shepherdess
  • Often sexual and humorous
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
13
Q

Miscellaneous genres (minor/hybrid)

A
  • 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)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
14
Q

Famous trouveres

A
  • Jehan Bretel
  • Moniot d’Arras
  • Gautier de Coincy
  • Adam de la Halle (transitionary figure to 14th century polyphony)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
15
Q

Marcabru

A
  • 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)
How well did you know this?
1
Not at all
2
3
4
5
Perfectly
16
Q

Minnesingers

A
  • 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)
17
Q

Trouveres vs Troubadours

A

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

18
Q

Trobairitz Overview

A
  • 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’
19
Q

Trobairitz styles/genres

A
  • Usually simple canso or tenso (counter: sirventes by Gormanda de Monspeslier)
  • Usually trobar leu (counter: trobar clus by Lombarda)
20
Q

Location

A
  • 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)
21
Q

Major female trouveres/troubadours

A

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

22
Q

Poet identity

A
  • 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
23
Q

Females - in male songs

A
  • 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
24
Q

Females - historical context

A
  • 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
25
Q

Females - music by women

A
  • 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)
26
Q

British manuscripts

A
  • Less well preserved
  • All liturgical
  • Text-focused (not very musical)
27
Q

PC numbers (Pillet-Carstens)

A
  • Cataloguing system
  • First number = troubadour
  • Second number = specific song
28
Q

Manuscripts G and R

A
  • Only troubadour manuscripts with surviving melodies
29
Q

Literary vs musicological approaches

A

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

30
Q

Rhythmic interpretation

A
  • 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
31
Q

Interpreting songs: revisionist

A
  • 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)
32
Q

Interpreting songs: traditionalist

A
  • 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
33
Q

Nationalism in song interpretation

A

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

34
Q

Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (film)

A

(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)
35
Q

Manuscript production - importance of music

A

(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

Vernacular Song (Topics II) (1 decks)

Brainscape helps you reach your goals faster, through stronger study habits.
© 2024 Bold Learning Solutions. Terms and Conditions